I Wish I Was A Cow...Or A Cat!

Can you see them?


What about now?


This is how our two calves spend their days. They aren't real interested in eating their corn or picking at the hay. They don't even go wild for the lush green grass like I expected. They mostly lounge around the pasture and sleep in the sun. It is a beautiful sight, and I'm jealous.

We don't have any set plans for the weekend yet. We may head up to the beach tomorrow and get Brian's Mom's camper settled in to her lot for the summer. I can hardly wait to get back to the farmer's market in Port Austin. It is the best one around by far, especially on holiday weekends. Then we have a lot of work to do around home, as usual.

What are your plans for this weekend? Is the weather supposed to be nice? I'd love to hear about it.

P.S. This just in...he's trying to help me type with his back feet I guess.

Oreos and Rain

Most of the snow is gone now and it has been raining since sometime last night. Once lunchtime came at work all I could think about was coming home and cuddling up with a book, a movie, 3 dogs, and a cat. Brian is working late tonight as he is on lookout for flooding across the roads. After working my way up the wait list I was able to pick up Multiple Blessings from the library on my way home from work.

I did chores and got attacked by the mean Leghorn rooster. I am so fed up with him I'd like to make him dinner but that would be a lot of work for 1 rooster. Plus, I just don't like the idea of the hens being out there without him. Today was the first time he's managed to get me good with his spurs and my hand was bleeding the prove it. Oh the joys of farm life!

About the oreos: I just love oreos. I think they're great. However, I sacrificed my oreo habit when I started trying to eat mostly local and mostly without HFCS. I found this great homemade version online and use it to get through the cravings. For some strange reason I wandered down the cookie aisle last night while shopping and somehow a box of double stuf (on sale) managed to get in my cart. I don't feel great about, and that is what I'm going to remind myself tonight. As I eat them, one by one. With milk. :)

Let's see... what else is new? Oh, I also got a couple of good books from the library about sheep so I've been studying up on lambing. Bonnie is due on the 23rd and although I am very excited, I am also about as nervous as a mama hen! The tentative plan is to let her lamb in the pen with the other ewes then move her and the baby(ies) to a separate, adjacent pen to allow them a little bonding time. We'll see how it goes.

How is the weather where you are? Have you, or your animals, been fooled in to thinking it is spring? What do you like to do on rainy days to pass the time? Or, how about this: what is your favorite guilty pleasure? Keep it decent!

Weird/Bad Dreams

I have really weird, and usually scary, dreams several times a month. Brian says I'm crazy but I blame it on watching too much America's Most Wanted as a child. Watching CSI in recent years probably doesn't help either.

Last night we went to the snowmobile races. Several of our friends were racing and it was a pretty good show. There were a couple wipe outs that made me cringe but no one got hurt. We got home around 11 PM.

I let the dogs out right away but soon after I let them back in I heard our cat, Baxter, meowing frantically. He was outside on our front porch!! Now in the summer he does go in and out as he pleases but he hasn't been outside since the first frost last fall and he never tries to get out when it is this cold. I still don't understand how he got out. Brian insists that he must have darted out when we left and I hope he's right. Our door was unlocked and I question whether someone stopped by but I still think they would have pretty much had to throw him outside to get him to go. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

So the cat was fine although the dog had obviously mauled him. They play nicely in the house but outside he does not defend himself and Maci gets about half of him in her mouth at once. He was wet with drool and had little snowballs hanging off of him. I cleaned him up with a bath towel, then went to bed around 11:30 PM.

I had weird dreams off and on most of the night. First I was dreaming about some kind of hostage situation, then someone running from the cops, then I started to dream that our friends had a sick baby and they were calling me to ask how to take care of it. That last part makes a lot of sense because people call me constantly to ask how to take care of their sick pets. They baby thing was a new one though.

So in my dream, I could here this baby making funny noises in the background. Then, at 3:04 AM, I sat straight up in bed and realized it was our cat making those horrible noises!! It sounded exactly like cats that come in the clinic who are blocked and can't urinate. That is a very painful condition and they make sad, pitiful noises when it happens. I woke Brian up because I was scared to go looking for Baxter myself in case he was in a lot of pain. I told him that Baxter was either sick or he had another mouse. We had a Momma mouse move in to our kitchen and he has been catching the babies.

Well, needless to say Brian was very confused and so I jumped out of bed and went to figure it out. I found Baxter batting a mouse around under the kitchen table. Thank god!! I didn't disturb him and went to lay back in bed.

I left the light on while I lied there and tried to think happy thoughts. I figured out a long time ago that if I go straight back to sleep my dreams will just pick up were they left off. Then at 3:24 AM, Brian's boss called. Brian got up and went to work since the wind was blowing and the roads were getting bad. I fell back asleep after he left and sleep without incidence until this morning!

Do you folks ever have bad or weird dreams? Why do you think that happens? If you don't, what's your secret? Am I crazy like Brian says or is this more common than I think?

P.S. Those rooting for the mouse can breathe easy for now, I think it got away and is hiding behind the gun cabinet. Baxter just took a break from siting in front of it to come over and try to lay on the keyboard.

Our Winter in Pictures!

I'm away from home at the Michigan Vet Conference this weekend. I want to get a post up but don't feel like saying a lot so I thought it would be a good time to post some pictures. These are all from the last few months (some are from fall). I'll take advantage of the hotel's wireless and upload these now instead of fighting with my connection at home. Enjoy!

Brian's grader, our grain setup in the background.

Our first batch of Seventh Generation TP, Maci apparently wanted it out of the box!

The TP neatly stacked in the cabinet. We really like it BTW.

Sam doesn't help much when I'm sewing.

Our Christmas tree with all western ornaments this year.

It is hard to see but look close: you can see Maci's paw about to clock Baxter upside the head, and him about to fight back. They box all the time!

He crammed himself behind the printer to recuperate.

And they're friends again...usually not this cozy.

This is from early fall. Brian built this calf shelter in one day. I had mixed feelings about treated lumber and decided it is better for us than replacing/rebuilding every few years. I was so proud of him. :)

My first every meat loaf. I'll post the recipe someday. It was a special request from Brian when I announced that I'd like to start making a meal plan. He said it "tasted like meatloaf" which is what I was going for!

Our new logo, many hours in the making. What do you think?

An interesting pic I thought, it shows how badly we need to insulate around our basement.

Brian's latest project - a new sheep feeder!! We used the plans found here and he made it in just an hour or two. Works great and saves a lot of hay waste.

Rocky & Shady, our two Arabians.

Pistol & Pooh Bear, relaxing in the sun.

They have hay 24/7. That is how they stay warm. They have been doing great even in this extreme weather, with only a couple wind blocks. The four of them can eat a round bale in 2 or 3 days in this kind of weather.

This is a typical Sunday, when we're lucky.

Funny, I have similar pictures in all four seasons now. Don't believe what you hear - chewing is not always a phase!! :)


I hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse in to our life during the past few months. It can be kind of crazy around here but we (usually) think it is worth it. How do these pictures compare to scenes from your own life? Which pictures do you like and want to know more about/see more of?

I'll have a more substantial post up sometime soon!

Just Checking In

No real great content here, just checking in. I've had a very enjoyable weekend with 4 days off in a row. The only downside was that Brian was gone hunting in the U.P. but I did get in lots of quality time with the dogs. Today the 3 of them plus me and the cat all crashed out on the couch for a long nap. All I had to do was make the 20 ft. walk out the back door and gather the chicken eggs. The sheep and chickens are pretty easy to take care of this time of year, just have to refill the feeders and waterers every couple days.

I've started looking in to our options for rebuilding the barn, including hoophouse type structures. I'll be sharing what we learn about their pros and cons here, plus I just finished You Can Farm by Joel Salatin and started Keeping a Family Cow, so there should be some book reviews coming soon.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend! :)

Spring cleaning

Sometimes it is really important to take a step back and look at the big picture...

especially when zoom works this good!

We took the screen out of the window to toss some boxes out so Baxter decided he wanted some fresh air. Now that the upstairs is cleared out I need to move all the boxes from our extra bedroom downstairs up there. Then we will actually have a guest bedroom that people can use! It is hard to stay inside and get things done with so much going on outside. Tomorrow we have a busy day planned. Here is our to-do list:

• Build a pen for the chickens (they are outgrowing their makeshift brooder boxes)
• Divide up the horse pasture to allow for rotational grazing. We barely got the perimeter fence up last fall so now we need to finish the job. While we're at it there are a few shorts that need to be fixed.
• Spread a few more loads of pig manure on the fields. A friend is giving us all we can use but it takes a little over an hour for each load by the time we fill the spreader, pull it home, and apply it.
• Get the youngest group of calves outside. We having been weaning them gradually and tomorrow morning after they get their last batch of milk we will take them out of their individual pens and put them together. We buy Holstein bull calves from a local dairy and finish them for beef. There are 5 calves in this group. We have 3 more that are a couple months older so we'll have to see if they will all get along.
• If there is any more time I would really like to work on the garden. I've been digging it my hand using the bastard trenching/deep bed method. It takes a long time but I think it will be worth it. I might break down after this section and use the rototiller but next year I'll make another section in to a deep bed and so on. I'll go in to more detail on this in a later post.

Looks like plenty for one day. I doubt we will get it all done but any progress made will be great! I'm looking forward to having 2 day weekends again soon instead of working on Saturdays like I have been!

Not sure how many people are reading this yet (if any) but feel free to offer any input or share what projects you're working on. :)