Just another Day on the Farm

This was a lovely easy dish, Baked Chicken Breasts with onion, celery, turnip and sour cabbage, very tasty and easy to turn from a baked dish into a soup with a bit of cutting up and adding broth..

Round two..

• Hot soup, while reading the CBC and National Post sites, along with a hot cuppa tea.
• Put a pot of black eye’d pea’s on to cook and be made into a dish later today
• Dishes
• Floor Washing
• Put the wet gloves on the drying tubes
• Folded laundry and put it away
• Feed the fish
• check the barn/lambing/lamb
• Cuaght Pippin, petted him, and picked up front feet and gave him a cookie
• Adjusted Brandy’s head halter, it gets loose when wet but can tighten back up a bit to much when it dry’s so needed a adjustment
• Cleaned, wiped down my horse harness, it was a bit dirty from the last times used and a dirty harness is not a good thing.. the perk of my harness is that its super easy to clean, just wipe down and then dry and down.
• Go to town cloths load next, coats are dry and hanging up.
• Took the hounds out and gave them a run, they are now currently crashed in patches of sunshine snoring..
• Groomed a purrpot, and cleaned her ears as well.
• Worked for an hour on scrapping the rabbit hide, plus softened it,and then did its final salting for a couple days yet before I will smoke it and then finish it off with fine sandpaper, and then run it over the back of the chair a number of times and rub it will saddle soap and then fluff it.. I’m very pleased with how its coming.
• Barn check, still no second lamb and no signs of contractions, momma sheep is settled, lamb always seemed to get milk only from one side, so I striped the other side, and sure enough it had a plug on it.. This is one of my regular milking girls and her bag is huge! and very, very  full, I figure I will give the baby another hour or two and then I am going to go tie her up and milk her pretty much out and put the colustum in the freezer in portions for just in case. This is one of the girls I have been waiting for, last year when share milking with her lamb, I was still able to get a full quart jar of sheep milk from her per day, thats pretty much a liter of milk or close to two gallons per week, and her milk is so rich that it has cream rise to the top of it (which they say is not to happen but it sure does!)
• Put the water on for a big old pot of herbal tea, when made I will pour it in the thermo for the afternoon use.
• General Tidy
• Milk the sheep and freeze in little jelly jars for future use.(should do a post on that)
• Have a Nap with lots of warm furry bodies all snuggling up.

Morning Guys, so I am going to do a day in the life of farmgal, It will be broke down into at least two parts, maybe three?.. I will do my best to follow out the list I had prepared last night while doing extra’s as they pop up, I wrote the to do list without this post in mind, so if I can follow it fairly closely then it will be a “typical” day as close as I can get it, instead of a boy lets make this day really interesting just cuz I’m blogging..

Alarm went off at 5am..

• Hounds outside, Purrpots feed, Water Dish redone
• Bathroom use for the human(of course we come after the critters 😛
• Pop outside to throw hay (this is because the big old horse figured out that she could break into the second bale of hay in our old way, so now one round bale in the feeder, and then we have the second set outside the fence and we fork it into the feeder, and we are in the fork over stage)
• Pop down to check on lambs by lamplight
• Back to the house, and its breakfast, get ready for work time for Dh
• Moved the laptop from the downstairs to main floor
• Put away the clean, now dry dishes
• Headed outside take cow hide head into the house, put in sink and trim, wash and do first picking on the flesh side. Leave soaking in cool water
• Head back outside to get the 40 pd bag of plain salt, haul into the house
• Head back outside to get a five gallon bucket
• Clean, scrub and bleach out the bucket, then rince well, mix up the salt/alum mixture, and transfer the hide into the water/mixture, put it away where it will sit in a cupboard on the floor for two days before I change out the water, and soak it again.
• Clean out and bleach out the sink, fill the sink with hot water and was the hound dishes and allow to start air drying.
• Get my Barley soaking 5 gallon bucket, measure out the barley and fill the bucket with cool water and set aside to soak for 24 hours till ready to be moved over to the trays to start sprouting.
• Put water on for coffee
• Start a load with the farm winter jacket(it really stinks)
• Stop and have a coffee, Sliced Apple and a orange, (add the orange peels into the quart jar filled with white vinager to make a citrus vinager cleaner.
• Work on this blog post.. (this is either going to be a very interesting one or the most boring ever LOL)
• answer blog comments
• Fill two five gallon buckets 1/3rd full with beet pulp, fill the rest of the way with water to soak.
• Research unprocessed soy bean and its effects on pigs.
• Popped outside to look at the new feed I got, its a ground mix of corn, wheat soybean and 2nd cut hay, its perfect as is for cows, sheep and goats, but while it has been feed to pigs by others, its not recommended for pigs or horses due to the unprocessed soybean in it..
• Offered some to girl and she attacked it, the sheep are in love but the horses really want it as well, in fact I had a losing battle on my hands trying to keep the horses from sneaking nibbles, so I will have to lock up the horses when feeding it and or I will need to lock up the cow/sheep to feed it, either way, that is a bit of a pain in getting that worked out.. on the postive side, that’s awesome that Girl likes it so much as its perfect to support her in this stage of her pregancy.
• Mixed it with the layer feed for the birds and they are crazy for it as well, so now to see if anyone in fact has issues with th soy in such a low percent or not..
• Back outside, hauled and filled the main hay feeder, feed the birds, collected eggs, fresh warm water for the birds, rabbits, and pasture critters.
• Walked down and got the mail.. A seed catalog and a invite to this years eco farm day 2013, which is all about water management, You need to pick three for the day, as well as the key note speaker, which is a auther Maude Barlow, I have a couple of her books including the global water crisis and the coming battle for the right to water.. for her alone I would attend, wonder if she will do a book signing? But for the other three, I am interested in Peraculture and the fight for water, Soil geology, drought, drainage, and water retention, and then either Intensive rotational grazing or Pushing the envelope with cover crops. I never do the evening gala/supper, really sixty dollars for grass-fed meat with local veggies, I can do that at home! and nothing on the sunday appeals to me either. Its possable that Dh might want to come to hear the keynote speaker.
• Hauled down warm water and two buckets of warm breakfast for pigs(well sledded really, so you can take all four, made note that the wind is blowing in the path)
• Got to barn to see that I have a new lamb, still a bit wet, but strong and active and momma still having afterbirth, and still in labour from the looks of it with lamb #2.
• Move momma and lamb into the jug, spread a layer of clean straw overtop of the bed pack that is already there..
• Back in house, started a bucket of warm molassies water, prepped the baby Selemium shot, the dip for navel and will prep and sled down hay and a bowl of the grain mix for momma, hang out for a bit, take a photo or two, and basicly get a feel for how its going, ideally watch the first baby nurse, milk the mom to check for plugs if I don’t see tail wags from the wee one. Sex the baby..
• Back to the barn, momma had passed the afterbirth, looks good, baby is another little girl, nursing and tail wagging has been seen, momma active, bright and interested in her food, still expecting a second baby, shot and dip done, water, feed and hay deployed.
• Back to house, coat in dryer, household load next, changed table cloth, went with a pretty green one today.
• Ready for coffee and something warm to eat, reheating up a dish from the other night with chicken and veggies, going to cut up the chicken breast, and the bigger veggie peice and make it into a hot soup.

I will get a photo up I promise but not today..

So here is what has been added to the house X2

• six red apples
• six oranges -Who’s peels are going into vinager to make a orange cleaner
• six grapefruits-Ditto on above
• 1 extra large Mango
• 5 banana’s
• 1 avacodo
• 1 head of calflower
• 1 big head of romane
• 2 large purple onions
• 2 pds of carrots
• 3 pds of potato’s

I am pleased for sure..to have it in the house is wonderful, it will certainly open up meal planning for me, I did however had to laugh, the veggie of the month was beets and not a beet to be found in the box 🙂 o well, i have a good amount of them in the cellar, and a fair amount in the freezer to boot.

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic-tapeworms-in-the-brain

The closer scientists look at the epidemiology of the disease, the worse it becomes. Nash and other neurocysticercosis experts have been traveling through Latin America with CT scanners and blood tests to survey populations. In one study in Peru, researchers found 37 percent of people showed signs of having been infected at some point. Earlier this spring, Nash and colleagues published a review of the scientific literature and concluded that somewhere between 11 million and 29 million people have neurocysticercosis in Latin America alone. Tapeworms are also common in other regions of the world, such as Africa and Asia. “Neurocysticercosis is a very important disease worldwide,” Nash says.

Sending out my best wishes to my cousin’s Nadine and Joy, along with their familes on the loss of their dad, Frank was my Dad’s only brother-in-law married to his sister frank, they had two lovely daughters and one wee son that passed as a babe.

Uncle Frank came from Ontario and was raised as a farmers son but he was involved in pipeline, working many hours along side both my dad and my uncle Scotty over the years all across the province of Alberta.

Frank had a good head for business and perhaps a bit to fond of liking for a good drink or two or ??

Frank and Mary have not been together for years but after she had a stroke, Frank along with the rest of her family all stepped in to give a helping hand.

My dad has remained a close friend to Frank for more years then I have been alive, so well over forty at the time of his passing from Cancer.. I had the pleasure of getting to have a good visit with him on the phone last christmas when I was home.

May the Angels have taken you home.. Blessings be..

Well, I am the first to admit that my drawings are bad but they do show what I want them to, the first picture shows what we had for pens/box stalls when used.

The second one shows what we are planning on doing today in regards to making adjustments, this will ideally put the space to the best use, and will allow pretty much everyone bigger pens overall. The sheep jug will be used as Girls Calf’s pen for when we are milk sharing with her and or depending on what I am going to do, will be the calf pen if I decide to milk full time and raise a extra calf up with her’s

Its something that I don’t hear many other folks talk about on the farming blogs, the need to move the animals from area to area as they are raised up, I wonder if they all start them in the area’s they will finish them in? or if they just don’t have as many choices an so what they have is what they have? or they think its a boring subject LOL

Regardless, I seem to spend a good amount of the time per year adjust pen sizes, moving critters from jugs to growout pens with creep feeders to big raising loafing in and out access area’s and depending back to expecting pens etc etc..

If you are in the rockland to cornwall area, and need a good livestock hauler, write me privately and I will recommend my gentleman.

He is so good about the fact that we like to take our time and go slow, we are given time to set it up and given time to lead the animals with feed, and to slowly use push boards, no canes, no whips, no prods allowed!

We take the time that is needed to safely handle, set up and load the animals in such a way that they don’t feel the pressure or panic that I have seen so many other times at sale barns or even other places that move animals.

Its a sad day on the farm in the sense of what has changed, but I have pride in the way my animals looked and how they loaded says alot in how they have lived their lives with us here on the farm.

As a few of you might remember, I wrote that while “I” really like the name Houdini, that Pony himself did not respond to to it, and while you can work on changing a critters name, it helps if the animal appears to like the sound combo..

Needless to say he responded better to Pony then to Houdini.. so the name needed to be looked at and considered..and I asked for help, it came in from a number of readers and they all had some very good idea’s, thoughts on ways to name him based on his size, his temperment/looks..

And so I spent three days going out and using names on him looking for any kind of response, and I finally got one, when it happened, I just stopped and started to laugh.. I had called him a pipsqeak.. and his little head popped up and ears came forward.. this really got me thinking about the fact that he would “answer to pony”

I don’t know what his old name was but I will lay down a dollar bet tht it started with a P..

So given that information and some of the idea’s in the different commentors, his new name is Pippen, aka, Pip, Pippy, and of course Pipsqeak!

To make it even more suiting,  meaning of the name Pippin is ‘Foreigner, stranger’.

Throw in the wonderful Pippen from Lord of the Rings and his unkept little wild mane and coat, along with his adventure spirit and willingness to be a tough guy despite being so tiny, and then there is the fact that he is Brandy’s little shadow, aka, the sidekick, just as pippen was to start with.. just as he grew in the movie, I hope that my Pippen will show me hidden depths.

So hope you will enjoy reading how and why he got his full new name..  Sir Pippen Littlehooves.