More on Latte the Calf

I was able to get Latte the newborn Jersey calf to stand still for a few seconds.

Strike a pose, Latte!

Latte is a sweet, energetic, rambunctious lil' gal.

Catching Up: Gardens

Oh, the gardens. My Achilles Heel this year.

Watermelons, cantaloupes, green beans, tomatoes, okra, and cucumbers.

The pigs and chickens have done a great job tilling and rotating through. We've had lots of sunflowers and melons grow, and our tomato plants have done fairly well.

But, there's a long way to go yet.

Catching Up: Rabbits

The rabbits have been beyond disappointing thus far. Since acquiring the original buck and two does five months ago, we have yet to produce a single litter.

I've tried every trick in the book. I tried breeding at different times of day. I swapped the buck and doe cages so them could smell each other first (in fact, I did this every day for a week with no success). I took her to his cage, and him to her cage. I took them to a neutral, unused cage. I changed their feed. I restrained the does. I did everything but crack a bottle of wine and turn on some Barry White by the fireplace.

No kits. Zero. Nada. Niet.

I really wanted to be enjoying some rabbit dinners by now. So, yesterday, I bought a new buck. Meet Cap'n Jack Sparrow:

Cap'n Jack Sparrow is our new New Zealand white buck.
He's 2 years old, proven, and has only one eye.

I also bought two extra does in an apparent rabbit close-out special.

Chicken Problems (and Potential Solutions)

Chicken problems. We've had 'em all. Let's start with the older chickens and work down, shall we?

Problems #1 and #2: Food Ran Out and New Pecking Order...At the Same Time

About a month ago, I had a small 4-day interruption in layer pellet availability at the same time I introduced the 8 new Araucanas to the flock. The 23 laying-age chickens had been laying between 14 and 18 eggs pretty regularly for the previous month, but then sharply went down to around 8-10. The food interruption and the new pecking order disruption were blamed for the egg drop.

The flock flocked for fresh feed.

Turns out, those factors were not entirely to blame.

Catching Up: Cows

Part 2 in my catching up series is on the cows.

First, in case you missed it, Bridget is pregnant and due the first of November. Her belly swells daily, and I felt the calf move last week. It was a small rolling motion, and very awesome.

I have cut back to once-a-day milking since August. I will stop altogether and dry her off by Labor Day weekend. Hard to believe that my milking will come to an end. It's been a daily thing since February.

Cow selfie. Because, why not? Even with the oats all over her nose.....

I will miss milking toward mid-October, I'm sure, but I'm ready for a break.

Catching Up: Chickens

My blogging has really taken a downturn these last few weeks. There's been a lot going on that I should report out on, and I figured the best way to do that was through some individual catching-up posts.

And where better to start than with our chickens. Oh, the chickens. They have been driving Wife and I CRAZY this past month.

After the raccoon attack, I took the 8 new Araucanas and introduced them to the existing flock. Every went very much according to plan, very smoothly, etc. Some of the Leghorns even jumped into the chick introduction pen with them. It was pretty funny. I topped out at an 18-egg day about a month ago.

A cool day's dozen seems a distant memory, what with the molting, pecking ordering,
and feed-running-outing going on.....

Then, the egg production took a SHARP turn down. We went from 13-16 eggs a day to fewer than 8. I believe the reason was a perfect storm of them running out of pellets while I had no car to get more for 5 days, a poorly-timed molt from our Australorps, and a disruption of the pecking order on the lower end due to the new Araucanas. At least that's the prevailing theory.

Getting Ahead of Food Prices

I read recently that for some families, food prices have doubled in the last few years. I believe it. I don't have figures of our own family, but I do know that food has taken a disproportionately larger and larger percentage of our money each year. It is the fastest growing expense.

Even the national news outlets are coming around. See here, here, and here.

These are only gonna keep on climbing.

So with that, I believe there are 4 major things that influence food prices (listed after the jump), and none of those are in my control.

What IS in my control is my land, time, energy, and effort to produce my own food.

Thoughts on "Prepping"

Don't prepare to survive hard times, prepare so that you don't even notice them.
-CajunSunshine, from homesteadingtoday.com

I think this statement above perfectly sums up my thoughts on the prepper/survivalist topic. Some of the agriculture and livestock sites I frequent are also hang-outs for some hardcore prepping types, so I see a lot of comments involving doomsday predictions, a sense urgency on stockpiling silver, links to nuclear-safe 55-gallon food-grade teflon-coated stainless-steel storage tubs, ammo discussions involving where to buy the cheapest 10,000 rounds, and so on. Topics like WSHTF, TEOTWAWKI, solar flares, magnetic reversals, global economic crashes, UN takeovers, biological warfare, and so on.

It seems there are 100 different ways in which the fabric of Western society will break down and collapse in the next 5-10 years.

My goal is to carry on so I don't notice any of it.

Basically how I feel.

So how am I preparing to not notice the hard times?

"The System"

I was fortunate enough to capture almost the whole "system" in place in one picture:

Left: the first product garden.
Middle pen: The pigs.
Right pen; The chickens.
Foreground left, the cow cart.
Foreground right, Bridget.
Also, that is a hose, not a large green snake.

It's especially exciting because, although this picture doesn't show it, there are a dozen or so "wild melon" plants growing where the pigs just vacated. Although, we did feed them extra watermelon and cantaloupe innards.

I hope for rain this weekend. I'm going to sow the garden with some seeds, but the soil needs to be wet.. I'm thinking carrots, sunflowers, tobacco, green beans - things that can be sown in larger section. The transplants will go to the "old" garden.

Oh yeah, and we reversed the flow of the system. We were heading (from that angle) left, but we're now moving right, and the chickens are going first. The chickens' egg quality declined (paler yolks), and they severely compacted the soil rather than loosen it. So now they lead and scratch/trim the grass, readying it for the pigs to go deeper.

I can't wait until the "system" hits its stride.

Sure, All the Healthy Beverages

I am the healthy beverages guru.

As I write this, I just finished my home-brewed ginger water kefir, and am staring down a tall glass of raw paleo chocolate milk from my grass-fed cow.

Left, raw paleo chocolate milk. Right, my empty ginger water kefir cup.

Today, I have also consumed a raw milk kefir smoothie (with banana and cinnamon - YUM!). I also have had glasses of cherry kombucha, strawberry and mixed berry water kefir (made with organic sugar), more raw chocolate milk, coffee (black, with only some Bridget cream added), and some plain ol' filtered water.

It all started when I got a cow. It'll be fun, I said.  :)

Easter Octave Homestead Update

I've been slacking on posting lately because things have been so busy lately. From Easter preparation to baseball games, from plumbing disasters to chicken introductions, and from buying a new car to attending the funeral of a dear family friend, there has been A LOT going on the last 14 days. Really, the untimely death of Pancake set off a whole string of very stressful events that have precluded me from posting more often. I hope to be back on track now.

To start it off, look how pregnant Pot Pie the sheep is!

Actually, this is a terrible angle that doesn't really let you see it.
But trust me - she's about to pop.

Choose Your Own (Homesteading) Adventure

In the wide world of project management, there's an old saying that goes something like this:

You can do this project fast, cheap, and correct. But you can only pick two. -Old Saying

I would call the setup of a farm, the initial infrastructure build, as a "project." And in something like building a portable cow care station, or constructing a winter dry lot, or designing a movable chicken coop, this "law" still hold sway.

Where's the "all of the above" bubble?

But what about everyday life? Is there a pattern that can look at the bigger picture of managing the day to day activities of a homesteader?

I believe there is. I've found that day-to-day life on a farm follows a similar pattern - you can't have it all. I've said it before, and I guess now I'll say it in print:

You can make farming as difficult or as easy as you want it to be. -Bubs

For example, if you wanted to cut a hay field, driving a tractor with a sickle bar mower is faster than hand-scything it. However, there is a trade-off. You gain something and you lose something in each of these two very simple scenarios. In the first, you opt for "quality" and "speed," but pay out the nose for the equipment. In the second, going for "quality" and "price" means it takes longer.

Projects are one thiung, and we all undertake them. But I've been thinking about the everyday activities - stuff we do every single morning and evening, as opposed to one-off or once-in-a-while projects. I like to call this daily flurry of activity "farm management." I think farm management, especially hobby farm management, boils down to a dance between four distinct elements:

Ending the Endless Summer, Step 2: Reasonable Bedtimes

Wife and I are still trying to battle the endless summer. Some days we fight the battles better than others. Lately, we've actually slipped back into old habits of watching TV late-night, and this has led to me being very tired in the morning. Heck, last night I passed out around 10, and still woke up with the sun (actually, I snoozed for a while and really got up at 6:30).

Despite the nearly 8 hours of sleep, I am exhausted today.

I need to follow Mickey's example and use candlelight more frequently at night.
The blue-light TV waves are messing with my sleep mojo.

So what gives?

The Work Is Worth It

Each morning, I spend between 60 and 90 minutes (closer to 60 most days) on the daily farm chores, with another 30 to 45 minutes each evening. A huge chunk of that time is spent milking, moving, and watering Bridget the milk cow. The rest is dedicated to moving Brisket, picking up manure, checking on the pigs, watering the sheep, feeding the chickens, collecting eggs, feeding the new meat rabbits, getting some feed going for the next day, and otherwise tending to various miscellany around the farmstead.

But then, when I come inside, strain the milk, clean up, get everything put away, and then survey the "fruits of my labor," so to speak, it's all worth it.

This morning's eggs and milk. That's a full dozen eggs, and about 3/4 a gallon of milk.
All of this was produced in the last 12 hours by the animals we keep.

In addition to just "knowing where our food comes from," we also know that it is vastly more healthy and better tasting than any store-bought alternative.

Yeah, the work is worth it.

Dairy Experiments

Yeah, so our counter now looks like this:

We had to start labeling all the glass jars containing various white-colored dairy sundries.

In addition to the raw milk butter, buttermilk, yogurt, chocolate milk, and cream cheese and whey, Wife and I also started clabbering some milk last week Clabber is just curdled, slightly solidified raw milk. We set a jar on the counter, stirred it twice a day, and let it be. After several days, it started separating into the slightly solid clabbered curds (similar to the cream cheese, but less "finished") and the beige-tinted liquid whey.

We drained some off to feed the chickens and the pigs (clabber to the chickens, whey to the pigs), then topped off the jar with fresh milk.

The chickens LOVED it.

Why Do I Homestead?

Sometimes, it's good for us (humans in general, I mean) to step back and take a good look at why we're doing one particular thing or another. For some, it's asking, "Why do I continue to buy all these magazines?" For others, "Why am I working two jobs and pursuing yet another degree?" Still more, "Why do I continue to wake up early and sit in traffic for an hour to spend 70% of my life behind this desk that I hate and with these people I can't stand?"

Those three pesky letters that separate us from the animals.

For me, it's "Why do I wake up at the crack of the sun, hit ice out of a bucket with a bat in negative temperatures, shovel cow pies and lug hundreds of pounds of water in a cart twice a day, rearrange my kitchen to accommodate new dairy experiments, spend my Sundays housing swine, give chickens a weekly ride in a rickshaw, and otherwise devote the first 30 minutes of my day to squeezing liquid from a cow's underside with my bare hands?"

Simple: I'm certifiable The short answer is that it's the path to a richer, more fulfilling life. But you came to read the long answer.....

Homemade Raw Milk Dairy Products

Whilst I am busy each day milking, shoveling manure, and tethering two cows in the back yard, Wife is busy taking the milk I bring in and making the most amazing dairy stuff EVER. We've never been huge into dairy in the past, partially because of lactose-intolerances in the family, and partially because we never really cared much for the taste of store-bought milk. The rancidity that sets in soon after opening (and often before we finished a full gallon) tended to sour us to industrial dairy (pun intended!).

But raw, grass-fed, backyard cow's milk is another substance entirely. It is rich, sweet, and causes us NO intolerance. In fact, we've consumed more milk and yogurt in the last 2 weeks than I think we did all of January and February. Wife has been a driving force for that, using her incredible talents to make some amazing stuff, like this butter and buttermilk:

Butter and buttermilk made from raw, grass-fed backyard cow milk.
The kids all say it's way more delicious than store-bought. I agree with them!

She made buttermilk pancakes for the kiddos this morning, and they LOVED them, especially with the REAL butter (made by putting cream in the food processor). They said it tasted much better than using store-bought buttermilk and butter.

So far, Wife has concocted a few homemade butters, buttermilk (both sweet cream and cultured versions), yogurt by the bucketful, and a rich paleo chocolate milk (which I'm sipping as I write this). She's also currently working on a cream cheese and whey.

5 Reasons to Keep Backyard Chickens

As keeping flocks of backyard chickens is growing in popularity, people are also starting to realize the many benefits of raising a backyard flock. Different people may have different reasons, to be sure, but the cumulative benefits cannot be understated. From insect control to fresh eggs, from fertilizer to entertainment, backyard chickens are a great move.

Keeping your own chickens is more than just cheap entertainment!

I have 16 grown chickens (15 egg layers and a rooster), and another 16 chickens in the chick-u-bator. Wife and I have discussed getting another 20-30 meat birds this summer. So, we'll be up to our necks in chickens before long.

But that's a good thing.

A Cow for the Whole Family

Bridget Da'Cow is truly a family cow for us.

Bridget Da'Cow with Thing #3 (left), Thing #1 (middle), and Thing #2 (right).
I tethered her near the family while we worked on reinforcing the paddock fences.

She is extremely docile, has already mastered halter leading, and even stays perfectly still when the kids are nearby petting her. I think they petted her like this^ for a good 30 minutes. Bridget didn't budge.

Hand Milking

As Bridget Da'Cow and I get to know each other, part of our journey is learning the hand-milking process. We've been very much enjoying our first tastes of fresh, raw milk. Wife is making paleo chocolate sauce to go with it. The chocolate milk is outstanding.

So, with that, I though I'd share how I milk her.

Bridget, with fresh hay, ready to be milked.

I set in a T-post near the shed, behind the sheep winter pen. I use Colt's leash to hook to Bridget's halter (I guess it's now the cow's leash (and that's #834 of the things I never thought I'd say when I was younger)) to the T-post. She has a pile of hay to munch, and I have a ladybug stool and a stainless steel milk pail.

UPDATE 3/20/14: Since this article, I've built a stanchion for hand milking on the other side of the shed, and have fully weaning Brisket.

Once I coax her over there (she's not the most willing follower quite yet), it's time to milk.