Honeymoonin' (again, but where?)

So in honor of our fast approaching 1 year anniversary Brian and I have planned for a week off work in the fall. On our honeymoon we went down around Chicago to Moline, IL. We went for the John Deere tractors of course! While we did not get to tour the factory there were some good sights to see and we took a ride on the river (umm, the Mississippi? I don't know my geography...). Then we went through the bottom of Iowa and up to Wisconsin. We stayed in the Wisconsin Dells and visited some of the many water parks there. Then we rode the car ferry back across Lake Michigan and drove home. We got a late start and weren't gone the whole week but we had a great time.

I thought I'd share some pics since no one has ever seen most of them...













It is always hard to get away when there is so much to do on the farm. I'm tempted to just throw in the towel and say let's stay home instead. However, I know how we are and we WILL NOT relax and spend our time together if we're here, we'll find a project to work on, the cell phones will ring, and everyone will stop in wanting to buy hay or something. So we have to go somewhere.

Right now my only idea is to head out west a little and visit Mount Rushmore and the parks out that way. We want to drive so we have our own wheels and don't have to pay expensive airfare. We would absolutely love to incorporate some farm tours in to our vacation.

Does anyone have any ideas? What is good to do in the midwest or nearby? It doesn't have to be big or expensive. Last time I was hoping we'd find neat little stops along the way but we really didn't. I'd love your suggestions!

Good Day For A Ride

Today was a great day for a horseback ride! After not riding at all yet this summer I went for a ride yesterday and today. It always seems like there are a million other things that should be done and it is a lot of work to hook up the trailer, pack up the saddle, load the horse, etc. However, it is so worth it when I finally get to settle down on my horse. I love taking in the scenery and chit chatting my friends.

In case you've never ridden a horse, here's a taste of how things look from the saddle...

Menu Plan Monday

Monday: Lil' Smokies + Rice

Tuesday: Sirloin Steaks + Baked Potatoes (on the grill)

Wednesday: Buttermilk Baked Chicken + Mashed Potatoes

Thursday: Homemade Chicken Nuggets + Fried Garlic Potatoes

Friday: Breakfast for supper (homemade waffles, bacon, hashbrowns, eggs)

I've decided just to list suppers for awhile. Our breakfasts are usually something from the stash of frozen muffins and pancakes or eggs and toast for Brian. Lunches are usually leftoves, a sandwich for Brian, a PB&J or hot dogs for me.

Dessert: So far it has been storebought Oreos for me - I'm feeling weak. Brian finished the No-Bake Cheesecake today. If I whip something up I'll post it.

What are you eating this week?

Neighbors

"Hello?"

"Hey Ken, it's Brian. We're up north and the person who was going to check the animals tonight can't do it now. Is there any chance you could run down? Everyone should be fine except the chickens might need more water."

"No problem, you got it."

"Thanks so much, we really appreciate it."

The above conversation is one that we had with our neighbor and good friend over the 4th of July weekend. I know we have great neighbors but I'm still amazed at how great. Ken and his family have been very supportive since we moved here. Brian helps him as much as possible during harvest and then Ken brings his equipment and harvests our fields. We would really struggle without his help.
When our barn was burning, he was one of the first people I called (after 911 of course). Looking back, it is kind of funny. Ken ran out of the restaurant where he was eating breakfast with his wife and his brother, leaving them there. He flew in to our driveway in record time. Later, his wife and I cried together, with her remembering the dreadful day when their own barn caught fire.

Speaking of the fire, there were many people who helped that day. I remember two complete strangers pulling in, with their families in the car, and running to hook up hay wagons so Brian could stay on the tractor. Even the first police officer who arrived, seeing the situation, allowed us to keep pulling things out as long as we didn't go under the burning roof. One good friend from our church slipped a fifty dollar bill in Brian's hand that day. My cousin, her husband, Ken,and his brother all stayed late that night helped us put up a big tarp to protect our hay. That's them in the above picture. You really do find out who your friends are at times like that.

We have another set of great neighbors right around the corner. They'll borrow something, we'll borrow something. He even picked up my peaches from the orchard for me since I couldn't get there during business hours. Plus, our horses just love all the treats that they get over the fence.

I can't forget the neighbors across the section who called yesterday to say that they had a big bucket of berries for me. They are soooo good too. We know those neighbors pretty well since Brian is over there at least once a week, visiting or exchanging tools (okay, I should say drinking a beer instead of visiting). We have 700 bales of hay stored in there barn, and they've been asking us to bring some sheep over to graze there pasture for about a year now.

The other neighbors are the ones who inspired this post. He pulled in our driveway this morning and announced that he has something I can pick if I'd like. I think he said some kind of onion, I couldn't hear for sure. Pick every other one, he said, there is about 200 there so help yourself. I have to confess, I was a bit taken aback by him and his wife last year. After hearing we had asparagus, they pulled in, dropped some frozen sausage in my lap, proclaimed that was "for the asparagus", and proceeded out to my garden with buckets and scissors. Not knowing what to do, I sat in the house and watched out the window as they took what they wanted.

Nowadays, I understand. That's just how things work between neighbors!! :)

Do you have a great neighbor or a story to share about one?

They're chickens, not ducks!

So the chickens are drinking so much in this hot weather that we drug the hose right out there. Every few days we drag it back and fill the other animal's big tanks. Tonight I went out and watered the chickens... then I came back up and we worked on the fence for about 3 hours. We finished it and weaned the lambs by putting them out on pasture and leaving the ewes in the garage. I'm hoping their milk will dry up this week - they won't get any grain and will have only old hay this week. The babies are crying but the moms don't seem to mind much right now.

Once the hard work was all done Brian went up to grab a pail of water for the lambs. Guess what? I had left the hose water on. For. 3. hours. Brian suggested I go check and see if they needed a life raft. They didn't, since there shelter was there raft surrounded by 2 inches of water on all sides. I knew I put a floor in that thing for a reason!! Too bad the flooding wasn't Mother Nature's fault instead of mine. What a waste. The good part is that the water will absorb overnight and the chickens were enjoying running through it.

A lot of money could be made if someone would invent a buzzer that sounds after the hydrant is on for a certain amount of time. When I used to keep my horses at my Dad's he finally made me hang my truck keys on the hydrant when I turned it on so that I couldn't leave without checking it. Anyone have a similar idea for watering at home? Anyone else make this mistake or forget something else and cause waste in the process? C'mon - make me feel better, please!

Notes About Sheep

This is kind of long but I want to share some of the things I've learned about raising sheep since acquiring my first two lambs about 15 months ago. I've tried to break it up by topic so you can find what you're interested in.


Right now I can sum up my feelings about sheep pretty easily: I love sheep, but sometimes I don't. Why, you ask? Sheep are a better alarm system than any dog or machine. They are still in their pen in the old garage which is way too close to the house. They have hay and fresh water in front of them at all times but twice a day we give them grain. They expect us to grain them before we do anything else in the morning. We tiptop from our bedroom to the other end of the house in the dark to avoid waking them. If you let the dogs out at 5 or 6 AM you better be very quiet and hope the dogs stay in the front yard. At the first sign of life from us, including the dogs running by their pen, it starts.

Bah.............bah. Bah?
Bahhhhhhhh. Baahhhhrrrrrhhh.
BAHHHHHHH!!!!!! BAHHHHHHHH!!!!! BAAAHHRRR!!! BAHHHHHRRRHH!!!

And on, and on, and on again. First one or two, then all 10. They all have different voices and I can tell many of them by their special call. The will not stop until you feed. They are so loud even moving to the couch in the living room doesn't let you escape. You have to wander out there in your PJs and give them what they want. Now of course I hope this entertains you but please take note - I'm not exaggerating and I will keep this behavior in mind when I plan sheep housing in the future.


Shearing
Moving on... we sheared the sheep for the first time last month. I helped a little but a couple of our friends were nice enough to bring their shearers and do the hard work. We laid each sheep on her side and sheared it before flipping her and doing the other side. Those professional shearers make it look so easy, especially the way they sit the sheep on their rumps, but unless you're way stronger than us I would say you need at least 3 or 4 people. Plus a good amount of cold beer if it happens to be a hot day. ;) The sheep were much more comfortable after having the wool removed. I also trimmed their feet and vaccinated everyone about the same time. They look a little funny now with their fancy haircuts!

Wool
My Mom dropped the wool off at Zeilinger Wool Co. in Frankenmuth for me. If you'd like an idea on how much wool processing costs it was $150 for the wool from 4 adult ewes. 2 ewes had been growing their wool for 14 months, and 2 were growing for about 7 months. That price is more the wool to go in dirty, fresh off the sheep, and come back cleaned and made in to roving. Roving is when the wool is pulled out in to a long continuous piece, like a soft rope, all ready to be spun in to yarn. My Mom has been learning that art and now she has a lot of yarn to practice on.


New Ewe
Did anyone catch that I said 10 sheep instead of 9? Remember, we had 4 moms and 5 babies. Brian's stepsister brought us another ewe last week. She is an oddball, being born in May of 2008, and the only one she had that was related to her ram. We'll just give her a lamb next year to trade. The new one has settled in very well already. Her name is Molly. She has not had her first lamb yet so we will breed her this fall.

Castrating
I wish I could say we've done this. All the books I read said to band the ram lambs as soon as their testicles descended, around 10 days old. We decided to keep one of the ram lambs intact and hope that he makes a nice ram for us. The other ram lamb I just let grow for awhile. We don't band our calves' testicles until they are a few months old so we thought we had plenty of time. I tried to band the lamb when we sheared the moms and guess what... his testicles are WAY TOO BIG to fit through the band. I can't even get one through. They are bigger than calf testicles at twice that age. HUGE. I don't mean to dwell on it, but we were all just shocked by this! This was a tough lesson to learn because we want to butcher that lamb and he might have an odd taste now (hopefully not). We could probably still castrate him by other methods but I feel that would be very stressful for him (and us) and I'd rather see how he tastes without so we'll know for sure. So lesson learned - castrate at 10 days as recommended.

Aggressive Ewe
We experienced this with Angel, one of the ewes we bought already bred from the MSU sale. She was one of the last ewes to lamb. When the first ewes delivered we separated them in to small pens, called jugs, to bond with their babies. When we tried to reintroduce them to the flock Angel was very aggressive toward the lambs. I watched her for awhile and when she slammed the baby against the gate with her head I jumped in and pulled the baby back out. Eventually we put Angel in a jug by herself so the lambs and ewes could all be together. We were very relieved that when she had her own lamb she showed great mothering ability and acted normally. We reintroduced her to the flock with high hopes. She immediately tried to go after the other lambs. We were out there disassembling the jugs so we let her go for awhile to see if she would settle down. Gwyneth, the mom that had twins, stepped up and put a stop to Angel's behavior. She pinned her ears like a mad horse, scraped her foot like a bull, and charged Angel. I watched in amazement, since they weren't really hurting each other, I wanted to see if they could work it out on their own. Angel would sniff around at the lambs. Gwynny would watch her suspiciously, following her around. Angel would start to charge a lamb. Gwynny would charge her and Angel would run away. Angel was just starting to mind her own business when we got the last jug taken apart. With the jugs gone, the size of their pen was doubled. With a combination of more space and Gwyneth's defensive behavior, Angel relaxed and hasn't bothered anyone since. At least no one has shown any injures and I haven't seen that behavior. I was very relieved since keeping her separated would be very stressful on her and the logistics would be nearly impossible. Lesson learned: give new moms plenty of space and give them a chance to work it out.

What Next?
We'll be moving them to pasture sometime (I've been wanting to do that since April...) so hopefully I won't have any real exciting stories to share about sheep fencing. The plan is to wean the babies when we move them. One group will go to a neighbor's pasture and one group will stay on our farm.

Summary
Overall, the sheep are the one animal that Brian and I both really, really like. They are super easy to keep and watching them grow is very rewarding. I highly recommend you try it if you've been on the fence. If you have any questions or want advice on a topic I didn't cover here I'll try my best to help, just ask!

Check out all my other posts about sheep.

Blueberry Pie Filling

This is the way I made my filling. It was a lot less work than the Ball canning book called for. I'm not guaranteeing the shelf life since mine has only been on the shelf for a week so far but I expect it to keep as well as it would have with their method.

7 cups blueberries
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup ClearJel, cornstarch, or flour (as a thickener)
Blue & red food colorings
2 tbsp lemon juice

Combine sugar and your choice of thickeners in a large saucepan. Whisk in 2 cups of water. Add blue and red food coloring to get the purple color you like.

Note: I used flour because it was all I had and it worked just fine. It was certainly not as transparent as filling made with ClearJel or cornstarch. I would recommend the ClearJel if you have it and cornstarch if you don't, with flour being a last resort.

Bring mixture to a boil over medium high heat. Stir often as it won't take long to start to thicken. When it starts to thicken and bubble stir in the lemon juice.

Add the blueberries and keep over medium-low heat until berries are heated through.

Ladle into hot jars leaving just over 1 inch of headspace. Wipe rim, place lids, and process in a water bath for 30 minutes.

Yield: About 4 pints.