So this is how this started, you see on facebook I joined this awesome group that is for “plus” size gals that like to ride and its a hoot. A couple of the ladies swear they had done this and it was a ragin success and so much fun, they had taken a pumpkin, stuffed it with some lovely healthy horse treats, apples, carrots, horse treats etc and then given it to the horses who would play with them, roll them around, stomp them etc etc.
Now they said pie pumpkins but do you think i could find a pie pumpkin after the canadian thanksgiving but before the hallaween, no way, only carving pumpkins, so after stopping at more stores then you want to know, I got two of the smallest carving pumpkins I could find and I got up and made the pumpkin, as you can see, I cut apple eyes, with cranberries for that helpful red eye look 🙂 A long carrot nose and a drooling cabbage tongue
After bugging the hubby to get up and come watch what I was sure would be a fun time, I headed out and called the horse to follow me, which he did.. so here is the rest of the story!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNOSvh_brBM&feature=youtu.be
Go down
Can’t watch youtube? The horse eat the carrot, rolled it enough to apple out and then wanted cuddles more then she wanted to play with the pumpkin, the cows licked it and walked away, the sheep smelled it and walked away, I finally gave up and took it to Miss Piggy, who was interested but walked away from it once she got the easy things out and I finally had to break it open with my boot and then she went crazy for it..
Now I must say that I never realized just how much of a dork I sound on video before so forgive my o so girl voice and the fact that I talk to my pig like she is a very cute three year old, its really odd, I don’t even use that little childrens voice with little children, so why do I do it with my critters? None the less clearly I do..
Still I have one more pumpkin, I am trying to decide if I want to try carving holes, filling it with sweetfeed and just putting it out and seeing what happens or ?
I came home yesterday after a health treatment (which while I know it was a good thing, lets me more sore afterwards then before.. ouch!) and was greeted with this picture of everyone resting together, napping and chewing cuds in the mid-afternoon sun relaxing by the hay feeder.. Its so nice to see them bonding, Girl is going to be very lonely when I take away Marty as they groom and sleep with each other all the time but this gives me hope that Girl and Brandy will bond as the two keepers.
I can’t be the only one that has ever had that month or two, you know the one’s, holiday’s, birthdays, rising gas prices, rising feed costs, double dipping on a few things, like needed in to buy twice the normal bedding for piglets, needing to buy a new feed for the creep feeder, the extra fall vet costs, certainly needed (its that time of year for tags, and worming, and vit e shots for the expecting ewes) put aside a certain amount of coming butcher costs, hauling costs and throw in a few extra’s like xmas presents, fall tune up on the vehicle and a broken (yet again) washing machine, a full set indoor set up for a certain turtle and the bottom line is getting slimmer. It was time to declare a lock down, no more spending unless its on the list!
You know what helps in moments like these?
I walked into the kitchen this morning and when I went to do the dishes, I realized that I was on the last bit of dish soap, I had just used the last of the tin foil the day before when I had baked off some lovely corned lamb the day before, and I went to make up the morning mix to do some floor washing and general cleaning and used the last of the bleach in the bottle. The kettle boiled and I went to make a coffee to realize that I only have maybe a cup or two left in that jar, my nose is running something crazy, and I want to take some meds to help make the morning chores easier but I have been going though those in the general meds cupboard like crazy..
Did it make me feel all AHHH, I’m on a no spend freeze and look at everything around me that I suddenly need in that very first hour after saying, no more spending!
Nope.. and do you know why..
cuz, I openned up the pantry and went shopping, went to the cellar and went shopping, went to the medical box and went shopping and within five min, I had dish soap, bleach, tinfoil, got out extra hankies, got a new jar of my personal favorite brand of instant coffee, canned milk (all the milking critters are dry on the farm at the moment) and new cold/flu medications out.
A well-stocked pantry truly gives peace of mind.. and it gives you that flexablity to have and want not, when you need to put extra here or there without having to hit savings or credit, a true blessing!
When was the last time you felt blessed by having a well stocked pantry?
Dh has his writers group tonight and so we won’t be home till late and I am finally starting to feel better, which leads me to my kitchen, and barn and yard etc.. O ya, back to the kitchen
I had a pd of lamb that had been in the fridge for a couple days, I was not up to cooking and Dh didn’t make anything new, he was using up the bigger batch items that I had made and only needed a reheat, I had been gifted by a number of things from a friends fridge when they did a oversea’s move and I had leftover pinnaple, hmm and a old cabbage that needed using up..
So 1 pd of lamb, half a jar of pesto and finely chopped pinnaple with a bit of coucus (could have used oatmeal or breadcrumbs), could have added a egg to bind but I didn’t, and into my ring pan it went, I wanted crisp and knew that I would have Lot more of that in the round tube pan then in a tradional meatloaf pan, at the same time I cut up the cabbage, washed it, and drizzled with olive oil, pink salt and cracked black pepper, into the oven covered in foil and baked for 40 min..
Well, my lovely Marty Boy, aka Curly Top (for the way his hair is all curly at the top of his head, like a little curl cap) is growing well, just a good boy, he has in truth never given me to date a moment of trouble in any way.
He came big and healthy, he loved his sheep friend, he took to his hay like a champ, he was a easy bucket baby and once he got big enough, he joined Girl in the pasture, he has spent the summer grazing, with a side of hay (we need to start feeding extra hay in july, due to the dry conditions and the fact that the sheep will graze the pasture down way past happy healthy cow grazing height, we did however keep just over a acre in tie out cow higher grasses that they got put out on all spring/summer and into the fall.
You will noticed the very low cost in bedding, that’s a combo effect of a) being out on the pasture, the cows come into the barn in really bad weather otherwise, they are sleeping outside and so we cleaned the barns and have not re-bedded it down to date b) we are raking up and using the spillage from the hay feeder as extra bedding this summer, therefor the cost is being used in the feed cost, instead of in the bedding costs.
So far to date here is his breakdown..
To date Marty cost’s are $820 Oct 2012
?? Water costs? I had to fill the well and the pool at a cost of 300 plus tax due to the dry summer but that was for house and farm use, and I am really unsure how to figure out if I should even add this to his line, I mean I would have had to buy that water for the house either way, the fact that I had them fill the pool with the second half of that water and then used if for garden and farm animal use is ??
According to my measuring tapes, Marty is right around the 800 pds mark, and Girl is 1200 pds or 1250 ish, and in case you were wondering, Miss Piggy is over 400 pds and Brandy is coming in around 1300 pds. The average lamb is 80 to 90 pds an the average ewe is about 120.
So that means if my tape is right, and all the books are right and I get about 50 to 55% of hanging weight, that should give me right around 400 pds or so of beef..
Now locally if you go to organic beef, and look at the CSA’s in this regards, you can average on whole and half’s about 4.25 per pd, so that would be 1700 or so, but if you go from the whole to half to the smaller sizes in buying, the price goes crazy high for pasture raised beef, a couple places are offering 80 pds (40 hamburger, 20 roasts, 20 steaks) for 680, that is 8.50 per pd, that would take Marty’s return value up to around.. 3400
I refuse to look at the price in the stores and compare him to a large scale raised beef.. but lets meet in the middle here, if the low end locally appears to be 4.25 and the high seems to be 8.50, the middle ground is 6.40, so I am going to round that up to 6.50 per pd.. for 2600..
While Marty is not a true 0 mile boy, he is very much a 100 mile calf, he was born five min drive away, it would take about an hour or so to walk from where he was born to my farm, the milk replacer was made and produced just outside montreal, heading my way, the grain he was feed as a calf was raised locally and bought locally, the bedding and the hay was all raised locally within a 20 mile circle around the farm itself and he will be hauled to the local butcher less then a 20 min drive from the farm(at country road speeds)
If you raised a calf this year for the freezer, how are you feeling about the process? Did you feel it was worth it? I am at that point, where I am trying hard to let go in regards to both marty and the lambs, the lambs are mob and so that is much easier, Marty however is a sweetheart, gentle and as friendly as can be.. not near as easy..
Well with the cooler fall weather coming in, I mean really we had snow this past week, ok so it was tiny and it didn’t stay even much past hitting the ground but it was still snow..
This is putting the pressure on getting the barns ready for winter, the fall butchering that is coming and I am still in the process of trying to figure out where to trim on breeding/raising programs.
Now, to a point in terms of full time work on the farm, we have lost a full month so far this year and I can see it, you see between me heading to my mom’s for a month to help after surgery (DH took a few extra days off each week to run the farm and he did a excellent job on it but it eat up a number of his vacation days) and then for the first time in years, he took a off farm holiday, and I am thrilled he did, it was needed and wonderful but again, I lost the off time not being on the farm.
Throw in Marty, a bumper crop of lambs this year, Angelo, Brandy and Miss Rooten Tooten and clutch after clutch of ducklings and I am heading into fall with a bang!
Now there is alot of light at the end of tunnel as they say, Marty is going to the butcher in the first part of Nov, the lambs will be heading to the butcher, and depending on freezer space, its possable so will some of the hoggots, and lots of birds will be heading the same way soon enough.
Having said that, lambing season will be starting in less then two plus months, and the piglets will be growing and growing!
And what has also been growing this year is my compost pile, for a single year, I have never had this big of a compost pile, and I would love to be in love with it, but strangely I am not! and I know why.. its not composting properly this year, the very dry conditions have not been kind to my compost piles this year.
I am going to have to break down and pay to have a tractor come in and turn that pile, mix it and get it going again, and then pray for lots of fall rain to get it reheating up and going properly.. I am starting to think about if I want to continue to add it to the same pile, I will till I get that one turned and mixed..
So what about you, if you got hit with this insanely dry summer, did you have extra water to spare enough to water your compost piles or where you like me? They heated and then sat and sat, even the smaller one that we have been turning, is just not composting properly this year.. I am going to have to crack out my composting guide book and see if it has any tips to get that pile going downward instead of growing.
Ok, I have given a idea on how to get the video links to show up in the posts and this is my try at it.. if it works, here is little Miss Rooten Tooten on her first week on the farm, learning how to enjoy garden extra’s, and do you see how good of a job she had already done on digging the ground around her
Big old fail, goes in, does not show up.. doing something wrong.. here is the link..
Well, with the turn of the colder weather, we had to make that final call on if to let Bright eyes go to ground for the winter and hope for the best or buy the required equipment in order to safely bring her into the house for the winter.
The first order of the day was to buy a good turtle care book and get a understanding of what this would in fact mean, how big did she need, what kind of heating, what kind of food, etc etc. After reading the book a few times I had the basic’s and still we talked it over.. well then it snowed and we needed to make the call..
So we are now the proud owners of a new 10 gallon fish tank and set up, we used small local rock for the bottom, we got her a funky fake correl peice that she adores as she can climb it and hold on with her front claws and just hang all relaxed on it. when she wants to hide, she goes behind it and hangs, when she is comfortable she rest beside or on her big floating turtle lily pad (the same one that was in her other tank) and she does like to nibble on her floating cuttle bone.
As I didn’t want to shock her, we used the same rain water that was going into her trough but moved her into a big five gallon bucket, and then use that to fill the tank as full as needed with a touch more from outside, the water was very cold, but its been warming up in the house and with the heat lamps on it, and already today she is more active in swimming and faster coming off her pad, then she was yesterday when she first came in.
Now to just get her eating her young turtle pellet food, I will also offer her some other things but she has been eating wild in her trough and so hopefully she will figure out the pellets soon, or I will be needing to go add a worm now and again.
A few Video links.. Anyone know how to try and get these to show up without needing to do the video upgrade?
Brandy-Eating a Carrot Treat..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ44vHj-x4k&feature=plcp
One week old Large Black Piglets, a piglet eye view 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0R-I3Vq-08&feature=channel&list=UL
Fall has arrived, if you are silly enough to spend time outside without a hat and gloves, your ears and fingers will be burning in a matter of minutes early in the morning and evening chores are being down in the dark at this point. Brandy was very funny in that she went all spooky at the flashlight, guess she has not seen one before or at least not the kind we use but after starting a few times, she settled down and will no doubt figure it out soon enough.
This cold/flu bug combined with the bruises covering parts my body from a run in with a moving metal round hay bale feeder has got me feeling like I took a good old fashioned whooping, thankfully I think that I am on the tail end and perhaps will be feeling better soon.
I am amazed that we are down to the last ten packages of lamb inte big freezer, wow, talk about good timing considering that this years current lambs and hoggots are heading out at some point in the near future. Last year we held back four lambs and four hoggots for our own use, and that held us for the year, but I will admit that I am looking forward to having beef and pork join my lamb, chicken, duck and turkey as well as the odd rabbit into our meat menu.
I am currently thawing out a couple pds of lamb meat to make into sauage for some different dishes I would like to make over the next couple days, I also have a pd of stewing meat sitting in a brining cure with spices and suger, I want to see if I can cure the cubes, chill them really well and then grind them and play with it as a spiced cured potted meat, I will update with the results.
The piglets are one week old and we have big plans for getting them set up with their creep feeder this weekend, the pen needs a clean up and tidy, fresh bedding of course and a sexing of the wee ones, we also need to do the three big windows for winter, we open them up for the spring/summer/fall for excellent air flow but with the cooler temps and the young piglets in the barn, we want to keep good air quality but limit the draft over all in that area.
I didn’t cut the wolf teeth and I have been checking Miss Piggies teats every two days for cuts, soreness or any sign of issues and thankfully because its Miss Piggy, she will let me touch as well as see them and so far, we have had no issues, her teats are well developed, she is producing well but no cuts, no sores, no redness or heat.. everything looks really well.
Thanksgiving came and went, and my family had an amazing get together and what looks like a stunning meal.. (see below) I on the other hand got invited to a get together on saturday and it was wonderful, (thanks again, you know who you are 🙂 but on thankgiving monday I was already sick and wanted comfort food but also something to remind me of my family, so I made the dish above, its really not that healthy, I know this but its been a favorite since childhood, and I went with it, I did at least move it from cool whip to really whipped cream..
Here is the recipe I learned as a child
1 tub of cool whip, 1 tub of cottage cheese, 1 large drained can of christmas orange pieces, 1 orange jello mix (the sugar kind, not the fake sugar kind) mix them all into a bowl and let it sit for at least four to six hours or overnight.. eat as a side salad or as a dessert or as a stand alone treat or as a breakfast dish.. If you want switch out the same amount of cups of whipped cream for the same amount of cool whip but it won’t hold as long before weeping if you do so.
What is that dish you started making when you were a child that has stayed with you for years and years well into adulthood..
Just another Day on the Farm 