The Gang
October 2008 Sweet Potatoe Harvest
Saturday, March 5, 2011
9:02 AM | 
Posted by
Shirley
Some folks read my blog to keep up with the family. Some read because they like following our farm and all that we are learning in the making of it. I'll do my best to keep both groups happy.
This blog is about the first "normal" thing that we have had happen on the farm since December. I said I'd write about our cow trauma's and this is it. In December all was going well with the adult herd, with the exception of some mild cases of mastitis (so we thought) until we lost Holly just before Christmas. She was supposed to calf on Christmas and died just a couple days before. She showed no signs of being sick. The day before she died I watched her eating, chewing her cud and got to feel the calf moving. She looked totally healthy. I checked on her last at 10 p.m. and when I went out in the morning she was dead.
In the meanwhile, the yearlings and calves started to have issues. They are kept at what we call "the other farm" or the "lower farm". There is another barn down at the other end of the dead end where our neighbors rent the house and we use the barn and most the land around the house to graze the herds. We started to loose one summer calf every 5-7 days. The first one was because we thought Caleb had thrown a bail of hay on it and killed it. The others, we weren't sure but started to guess that the bull was killing them.
Two weeks after Holly died we lost another one of our best milk cows, Kipp. She too was eating, chewing cud, drinking and had all the happy cow signs then was dead 6 hours later. This death led to us getting 2 different vets out to the farm to look over the herd. We also had all the dairy cows tested and discovered that we had a severe mastitis issue. We knew many of the cows had mastitis, what we didn't know was that it was an incurable type. You see, when our cows get sick we don't usually use antibiotics. We use natural treatments first and medical treatments as a last resort. Both the vets stated that they thought the reason for our losses was too much stress on the herd due to lack of shelter.
This fall we had hoped to get a hoop barn up for the cows. However, time didn't allow and we hoped and thought with the guidance of our landlord that the herd would do fine. We were all sad when the stress led to us loosing 2 to death, 2 others to cull because their udders were useless and probably one other to cull once she calves in April. We still don't think that it was any one thing. We think it must have been a combination of things that for some reason allowed the girls to get sick and not be able to kick it.
This story sounds bad but when I tell you the numbers...... we started with 8 milk cows and ended the winter with 4. We started the winter with 6 calves and ended with 1, and 5 heifers and ended with 4. BIG losses for a little farm.
I must confess that I didn't handle these losses well. I reached a boiling point which caused us to really talk through and evaluate what we needed to change. I told the kids: "We cannot say that we are learning if we do not change anything based on what we have learned." So by mid-January Phil and I took over all the chores and I learned how to milk the cows with Elizabeth.
Since we have made these changes we have slowly worked the kids back into chores with a LOT of supervision and I continue to milk with Elizabeth every day. The health of the animals seems to have stabilized. However, I cannot explain to you in words how anxious we were about Bonita calving. You see, we hadn't had a normal birth since the summer. We prayed and watched Bonita closely as she got closer to calving. Finally on February 24th we woke to find a nice big healthy bull calf that the kids named Boris. Bonita has been giving us a beautiful creamy 4+ gallons of milk a day!
It is hard for me to express all that we have learned this winter. But I do hope we have LEARNED which means that the changes we've made will allow for a successful winter next year.
We have since added another cow and 5 heifers to the herd to try to get our milking numbers back up to where we want them to be. When all the heifers finish calving by December 2011 we will have 13 in the dairy herd. The next cow is due any day and once again we are praying and being vigilant in watching her for any signs of stress.
On a different note... we are trying to get my Boston Terrier to mate with a local stud so we can sell some terrier pups in June. My children don't need the "birds and bee's" talks... they get cows and bulls, chickens and roosters and now boy dog and girl dog training. :-) It is a great way for us to share with them how beautifully God has designed the cycle of life.
This blog is about the first "normal" thing that we have had happen on the farm since December. I said I'd write about our cow trauma's and this is it. In December all was going well with the adult herd, with the exception of some mild cases of mastitis (so we thought) until we lost Holly just before Christmas. She was supposed to calf on Christmas and died just a couple days before. She showed no signs of being sick. The day before she died I watched her eating, chewing her cud and got to feel the calf moving. She looked totally healthy. I checked on her last at 10 p.m. and when I went out in the morning she was dead.
In the meanwhile, the yearlings and calves started to have issues. They are kept at what we call "the other farm" or the "lower farm". There is another barn down at the other end of the dead end where our neighbors rent the house and we use the barn and most the land around the house to graze the herds. We started to loose one summer calf every 5-7 days. The first one was because we thought Caleb had thrown a bail of hay on it and killed it. The others, we weren't sure but started to guess that the bull was killing them.
Two weeks after Holly died we lost another one of our best milk cows, Kipp. She too was eating, chewing cud, drinking and had all the happy cow signs then was dead 6 hours later. This death led to us getting 2 different vets out to the farm to look over the herd. We also had all the dairy cows tested and discovered that we had a severe mastitis issue. We knew many of the cows had mastitis, what we didn't know was that it was an incurable type. You see, when our cows get sick we don't usually use antibiotics. We use natural treatments first and medical treatments as a last resort. Both the vets stated that they thought the reason for our losses was too much stress on the herd due to lack of shelter.
This fall we had hoped to get a hoop barn up for the cows. However, time didn't allow and we hoped and thought with the guidance of our landlord that the herd would do fine. We were all sad when the stress led to us loosing 2 to death, 2 others to cull because their udders were useless and probably one other to cull once she calves in April. We still don't think that it was any one thing. We think it must have been a combination of things that for some reason allowed the girls to get sick and not be able to kick it.
This story sounds bad but when I tell you the numbers...... we started with 8 milk cows and ended the winter with 4. We started the winter with 6 calves and ended with 1, and 5 heifers and ended with 4. BIG losses for a little farm.
I must confess that I didn't handle these losses well. I reached a boiling point which caused us to really talk through and evaluate what we needed to change. I told the kids: "We cannot say that we are learning if we do not change anything based on what we have learned." So by mid-January Phil and I took over all the chores and I learned how to milk the cows with Elizabeth.
Since we have made these changes we have slowly worked the kids back into chores with a LOT of supervision and I continue to milk with Elizabeth every day. The health of the animals seems to have stabilized. However, I cannot explain to you in words how anxious we were about Bonita calving. You see, we hadn't had a normal birth since the summer. We prayed and watched Bonita closely as she got closer to calving. Finally on February 24th we woke to find a nice big healthy bull calf that the kids named Boris. Bonita has been giving us a beautiful creamy 4+ gallons of milk a day!
It is hard for me to express all that we have learned this winter. But I do hope we have LEARNED which means that the changes we've made will allow for a successful winter next year.
We have since added another cow and 5 heifers to the herd to try to get our milking numbers back up to where we want them to be. When all the heifers finish calving by December 2011 we will have 13 in the dairy herd. The next cow is due any day and once again we are praying and being vigilant in watching her for any signs of stress.
On a different note... we are trying to get my Boston Terrier to mate with a local stud so we can sell some terrier pups in June. My children don't need the "birds and bee's" talks... they get cows and bulls, chickens and roosters and now boy dog and girl dog training. :-) It is a great way for us to share with them how beautifully God has designed the cycle of life.
Labels:
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tuesday morning the snow was whipping while the three littles: Thomas, Philip, and Nathan, stood waiting for the bus. They waited about 15 minutes when Nathan came back to the house where Phil was shoveling out the drive. Phil encouraged him to go back down to the bus stop when Nathan said, "But daddy, there is a really bad storm over there but not here." He pointed to the mail boxes with great expression while explaining the morning weather to his daddy. Phil laughed and so did I when he told me later that morning. It is much nicer by the house because the house and barn help to block the wind.
Anyway, the boys waited a total of 30 minutes when I called the school. They told me that our bus was running behind about 35 minutes. So I made them stay out there. Another 15 minutes passed, during which time I sent Elizabeth out with a blanket and she huddled about the boys covering them with a blanket.... it was very cute inspite of how horrible it was for them to be waiting in the yucky weather. I called the bus company this time. They said it would be another 15 minutes or so until the bus made it to our place. I called the boys in and gave them hot cocoa. We waited for the bus to top the hill before sending the boys running down to the mailboxes where they catch the bus. The cocoa made the 45 minute chilly wait seem to go away for them. They were so excited they got cocoa and told their teachers so. I don't think they even mentioned that their toes and faces were about frozen off, because the cocoa made it all better. Ahhhh the life of a child! :-)
Anyway, the boys waited a total of 30 minutes when I called the school. They told me that our bus was running behind about 35 minutes. So I made them stay out there. Another 15 minutes passed, during which time I sent Elizabeth out with a blanket and she huddled about the boys covering them with a blanket.... it was very cute inspite of how horrible it was for them to be waiting in the yucky weather. I called the bus company this time. They said it would be another 15 minutes or so until the bus made it to our place. I called the boys in and gave them hot cocoa. We waited for the bus to top the hill before sending the boys running down to the mailboxes where they catch the bus. The cocoa made the 45 minute chilly wait seem to go away for them. They were so excited they got cocoa and told their teachers so. I don't think they even mentioned that their toes and faces were about frozen off, because the cocoa made it all better. Ahhhh the life of a child! :-)
Yesterday we shipped off two cows who have been struggling constantly with mastitis which has ruined their udders. Plus we had a steer that needed to be slaughtered. Getting the animals loaded was a 1 1/2 hour challenge. The two cows decided to turn into mules. One who we call Gayle stepped up into the trailer with her front two legs, knelt, plopped her bottom down on the ground and laid her head down refusing to move. Phil and our friend Jake tried pushing her 800 pound back end into the trailer with no success. Sylvia, the other cow tried hurdling two turned over watering troughs covered with snow. Elizabeth was squashed, shoved down, and almost stepped on by one of the cows. She is nursing a sprained knee and some nice bruises as a result.
To get the cows in we finally had to sandwich them with the trailer door by putting a heavy gate on one side and lining a rope from the trailer door to the gate behind them. The gal hauling them and I pushed on the door, smushing the cows while Jake and pushed them from behind and Phil pulled on the halter from inside the trailer. Thankfully it worked. The gal doing the hauling said she has never seen anyone with as much patience as us. I told Phil later she has probably never seen a farmer have so much trouble loading who didn't use a variety of expressions to voice his frustration who instead expressed "Praise the Lord" once we got them into the trailer.
Once the girls were loaded Phil decided to try one more time to load the steer who had previously given he and Jake a cardiac workout around the cow yard. I prayed we could get him in since he was our meat. The cows were going into other peoples freezers not ours. Anyway, the steer cooperated and in a matter of minutes was loaded. We were thankful it was over and quite frozen by the end. The blizzard was starting to roll in by the time we were done loading them.
We have one more cow to cull, but since it didn't have buyers we will keep her until she calves, hopefully, in April. I say hopefully because she does NOT look pregnant. Maybe she is just one of those ladies who hide it well! :-)
I'll update you more on our winter farming adventures as time goes on. Let's just say for now, the cows have been the worst experience of the winter. The cow/steer/calf issues is a LONG sad story!!
On a side note:
We finally have figured out how to raise chickens successfully with very little losses and continuous egg production.
Pinky the family sow finally had a litter of 6 piglets.... all dead. She is scheduled to become sausage next week. We hate to put her down since she is in the friendliest 400 pound sow you'd ever meet. BUT she doesn't like Boars much. It took her 4 months with the boar before she warmed up enough to let him do his job, then her litter didn't survive. Someday, we hope to raise Berkshires again. The feeder pigs have one more month to eat drink and be merry until they will fill the freezer. Loading Pinky next week will be an adventure I'm sure. Thankfully she is a bit tame, so with a bucket of grain she will hopefully follow us like a puppy into the trailer..... if not I'll have another story to print.
To get the cows in we finally had to sandwich them with the trailer door by putting a heavy gate on one side and lining a rope from the trailer door to the gate behind them. The gal hauling them and I pushed on the door, smushing the cows while Jake and pushed them from behind and Phil pulled on the halter from inside the trailer. Thankfully it worked. The gal doing the hauling said she has never seen anyone with as much patience as us. I told Phil later she has probably never seen a farmer have so much trouble loading who didn't use a variety of expressions to voice his frustration who instead expressed "Praise the Lord" once we got them into the trailer.
Once the girls were loaded Phil decided to try one more time to load the steer who had previously given he and Jake a cardiac workout around the cow yard. I prayed we could get him in since he was our meat. The cows were going into other peoples freezers not ours. Anyway, the steer cooperated and in a matter of minutes was loaded. We were thankful it was over and quite frozen by the end. The blizzard was starting to roll in by the time we were done loading them.
We have one more cow to cull, but since it didn't have buyers we will keep her until she calves, hopefully, in April. I say hopefully because she does NOT look pregnant. Maybe she is just one of those ladies who hide it well! :-)
I'll update you more on our winter farming adventures as time goes on. Let's just say for now, the cows have been the worst experience of the winter. The cow/steer/calf issues is a LONG sad story!!
On a side note:
We finally have figured out how to raise chickens successfully with very little losses and continuous egg production.
Pinky the family sow finally had a litter of 6 piglets.... all dead. She is scheduled to become sausage next week. We hate to put her down since she is in the friendliest 400 pound sow you'd ever meet. BUT she doesn't like Boars much. It took her 4 months with the boar before she warmed up enough to let him do his job, then her litter didn't survive. Someday, we hope to raise Berkshires again. The feeder pigs have one more month to eat drink and be merry until they will fill the freezer. Loading Pinky next week will be an adventure I'm sure. Thankfully she is a bit tame, so with a bucket of grain she will hopefully follow us like a puppy into the trailer..... if not I'll have another story to print.
I love Wisconsin weather! The public schools decided to close down for today last night because the blizzard was supposed to be horrible. This morning here is it clear with some wind still, not bad for Wisconsin though. South of us they are still being hammered with snow and high winds, but we will have a pleasant snow day with everyone home.
I'm going to let the home schoolers have a day off too. They have been working really hard lately. Our move last May caused us to end school early and thus not get as much accomplished as I wanted for the year. We finished last years stuff by Christmas and now we are pushing to complete an entire grade in 5 months. The kids are working hard and are doing well. I think for the older children going through the material faster is keeping it fresh in their heads which is making it easier to remember the facts. They complain a lot because they are doing school for 6-8 hours a day (like normal school kids). This time schedule seems strenuous to them since we usually only have to work 4-6 hours a day to get school done. It will be nice to be totally back on track by the end of May. The fast paced way we are moving through the subjects requires a lot more work on my end too. Keeping up with the grading and testing occupies most of my day. So..... a snow day is welcome!!
I'm going to bake cookies with Philip, he is star student this week in his first grade class at school and wants to take a treat to share with his friends. Then we will do some much needed cleaning.
Happy Winter Wonderland to those of you enjoying this Blizzard too!!
I'm going to let the home schoolers have a day off too. They have been working really hard lately. Our move last May caused us to end school early and thus not get as much accomplished as I wanted for the year. We finished last years stuff by Christmas and now we are pushing to complete an entire grade in 5 months. The kids are working hard and are doing well. I think for the older children going through the material faster is keeping it fresh in their heads which is making it easier to remember the facts. They complain a lot because they are doing school for 6-8 hours a day (like normal school kids). This time schedule seems strenuous to them since we usually only have to work 4-6 hours a day to get school done. It will be nice to be totally back on track by the end of May. The fast paced way we are moving through the subjects requires a lot more work on my end too. Keeping up with the grading and testing occupies most of my day. So..... a snow day is welcome!!
I'm going to bake cookies with Philip, he is star student this week in his first grade class at school and wants to take a treat to share with his friends. Then we will do some much needed cleaning.
Happy Winter Wonderland to those of you enjoying this Blizzard too!!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Hi All!!
I know it has been FOREVER since I've blogged. I now have internet 24/7 so hope to get back to it. It will take a week or two to get y'all caught up on the happenings of the gang and Promise Land Farm.
For now, we are doing well. Sam is recovering from two hip surgeries that he has had over the past 2 1/2 weeks. I'll do a blog later with the entire Sam hip story. Elizabeth is getting to be quite the pianist and is starting a heritage turkey business. Caleb is a feisty fifth grader and our chief wood splitter. Thomas is progressing in school and enjoys therapy peer plays each week. Philip is learning to read and spell, and is a ball of energy. Nathan is writing very well and getting to be so tall... he's not my baby anymore. :-(
Phil is enjoying his work with Dynamic Campus. The challenge of running the help desk efficiently keeps him on his toes. He is also very busy as a Deacon, sound man, song leader and Sunday school teacher at church.
Me... I've learned to run our milk system and help Elizabeth milk each day now. I enjoy teaching 10 piano students, playing the piano for church and until recently teaching Sunday school. Home schooling Eliza, Sam and Caleb keep my mornings and early afternoons very full. Managing the farm, animals, preparing for the garden, and helping our customers fills the spare minutes of my day.
I look forward to sharing all that has been happening here over the next several days.
I know it has been FOREVER since I've blogged. I now have internet 24/7 so hope to get back to it. It will take a week or two to get y'all caught up on the happenings of the gang and Promise Land Farm.
For now, we are doing well. Sam is recovering from two hip surgeries that he has had over the past 2 1/2 weeks. I'll do a blog later with the entire Sam hip story. Elizabeth is getting to be quite the pianist and is starting a heritage turkey business. Caleb is a feisty fifth grader and our chief wood splitter. Thomas is progressing in school and enjoys therapy peer plays each week. Philip is learning to read and spell, and is a ball of energy. Nathan is writing very well and getting to be so tall... he's not my baby anymore. :-(
Phil is enjoying his work with Dynamic Campus. The challenge of running the help desk efficiently keeps him on his toes. He is also very busy as a Deacon, sound man, song leader and Sunday school teacher at church.
Me... I've learned to run our milk system and help Elizabeth milk each day now. I enjoy teaching 10 piano students, playing the piano for church and until recently teaching Sunday school. Home schooling Eliza, Sam and Caleb keep my mornings and early afternoons very full. Managing the farm, animals, preparing for the garden, and helping our customers fills the spare minutes of my day.
I look forward to sharing all that has been happening here over the next several days.
Friday, April 23, 2010
This week we put home school on hold to focus on packing. It has been a busy but productive week. We are organizing everything in the house according to where it will go in the new house. For example: Everything in the current school room will go to the school room or living room at the new house because those rooms are side by side. Everything in Samuels current room will go to the little boys room because his bed will be set up in their room at the new house. So we've put all the books and toys for the little in Sam's current closet. Everything that is in the living room will go into the storage closet in the new house.
We have several friends and at least 4 trucks each with a trailor (we think) to do the moving with. We'll assign a certain "room" to each team of friends. They will move the stuff for that room only on their rig. So there won't be any move it all from one house to the living room of the new house and take a month to find everything. Everything will be moved from room to room so it will be much less chaos during our settling weeks. That is a good thing since we will be having to learn how to milk 10+ Jerseys, while caring for 194 meat chickens, 50 laying hens, 2 sows, 1 boar, 2 bulls, several steers and several young heifers. Oh yea.... and we need to get the garden started.
We are very excited about the move. The kids are bursting with enthusiasm. I think one of their favorite topics of anticipation is the tree house which is nestled in a beautiful huge willow tree! I have a feeling that willow will be their favorite place to play over these next few years! I've always dreamed of living on a farm with a willow tree!! We also have 4 apple trees on the property and a cherry tree. There are red raspberries and rhubarb already established in the garden too! I'll be planting some black raspberries this summer.
This week we also transplanted 150-200 strawberry plants. I just moved them in large clumps to the new strawberry patch which is why I don't exactly know how many I moved. We've been giving away lots of plants too because i have over 1000 in my strawberry patch.... how sad to leave it! Yesterday Elizabeth and I went to the new house and planted 63 early red potato sets. I haven't checked the garden beds that we planted the lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, peas, kale, Swiss chard, beets, and green onions. I'm sure some of it may be peeking out. We are supposed to get rain this weekend so if they haven't sprouted yet, and if the chickens didn't eat all the seeds, we should be seeing our salad garden flourishing soon.
I'll try to blog the week after the move and let you know if my moving system worked! :-)
We have several friends and at least 4 trucks each with a trailor (we think) to do the moving with. We'll assign a certain "room" to each team of friends. They will move the stuff for that room only on their rig. So there won't be any move it all from one house to the living room of the new house and take a month to find everything. Everything will be moved from room to room so it will be much less chaos during our settling weeks. That is a good thing since we will be having to learn how to milk 10+ Jerseys, while caring for 194 meat chickens, 50 laying hens, 2 sows, 1 boar, 2 bulls, several steers and several young heifers. Oh yea.... and we need to get the garden started.
We are very excited about the move. The kids are bursting with enthusiasm. I think one of their favorite topics of anticipation is the tree house which is nestled in a beautiful huge willow tree! I have a feeling that willow will be their favorite place to play over these next few years! I've always dreamed of living on a farm with a willow tree!! We also have 4 apple trees on the property and a cherry tree. There are red raspberries and rhubarb already established in the garden too! I'll be planting some black raspberries this summer.
This week we also transplanted 150-200 strawberry plants. I just moved them in large clumps to the new strawberry patch which is why I don't exactly know how many I moved. We've been giving away lots of plants too because i have over 1000 in my strawberry patch.... how sad to leave it! Yesterday Elizabeth and I went to the new house and planted 63 early red potato sets. I haven't checked the garden beds that we planted the lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, peas, kale, Swiss chard, beets, and green onions. I'm sure some of it may be peeking out. We are supposed to get rain this weekend so if they haven't sprouted yet, and if the chickens didn't eat all the seeds, we should be seeing our salad garden flourishing soon.
I'll try to blog the week after the move and let you know if my moving system worked! :-)
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Here is a fragmented update of the past couple months.... enjoy!
This morning we woke to a covering of snow. The kids were all disappointed. Thomas was the funniest of them all. He first cried then said, "Is it Christmas again, I need to write a letter." Then he was upset about the snow again and finally while he was waiting for the bus he said, "Mom, I guess this snow isn't so bad." What a kid!
I am excited about starting to plant hopefully this next week at our new house. Our moving date is set for May 1. We will be moving from 3 1/2 acres to 30 acres, 1 cow to 10 + bulls and steers, 1 sow to 2 sows and a boar + feeder pigs of course, 50 meat birds a year to 400 a year, 30 laying hens to 80, etc. It will be a bit of a change from our small hobby farm. We are looking forward to it though! The details seem to be all working out and we are excited about the move.
Our Home school program will go on hold the last week of April until the 2nd week of May for the move. We already have some packing done but will need those weeks to pack and resettle into the new house without trying to do school at the same time. The children in school will stick to their normal routine.
I'm enjoying teaching 7 piano students this year. Our piano will be delivered to the new house the first week of May. Once it arrives I will start to teach Elizabeth, Sam, and Caleb too along with working on trying to brush up on the many musical skills that I've lost since not playing consistently for almost 10 years. On May 27 we will have our annual spring recital. I think Phil is going to post it on our church website, I'll try to remember to link to it once it is loaded so those who may be interested in hearing it can.
It has been so long since I've blogged that I feel a bit fragmented in my thought process. Phil surprised me on my birthday in March with a night away. Elizabeth did a great job taking care of the boys, cooking all the meals, and keeping the house in fairly decent order. Phil and I enjoyed the night away and spent the following day researching washing machines because mine died the end of February. We finally decided on a Maytag front load professional series machine. It works great but my old dryer still cannot keep up. So I'm saving my piano teaching money in order to purchase a new dryer before winter. I like to line dry as much as possibles in up summer so I think I'll be able to keep up until the winter. I'm not as talented as my Amish neighbors when it comes to freeze drying my clothes.
One more nice thing about our upcoming move is that we might have internet access 24 hours a day for a reasonable cost! If so I won't have to wait 4-8 weeks to update everyone. Once we have the good internet access I'll have to post a picture of the new farm and lots of updated photos of the children. They are growing so fast! It is hard to believe that my baby will be 5 in just a couple weeks. When the weather turned nice he received his birthday present a little early... a new bike! He was VERY excited!
I hope you all had wonderful Celebration of Christs Resurrection! Our church choir sang three songs from the newest Hamilton cantata. They were songs that were difficult to sing without getting choked up because of the message of the songs. I was blessed to be able to sing instead of having to play because our Choir director decided to use the orchestrated accompaniment. I am so thankful for our church. Speaking of church, we are moved into our new building! It has been such a blessing to have a church building that meets the need of our congregation so much more efficiently!
Lastly the past couple months have been ones of great gains and losses on the farm. We butchered 5 pigs and 5 goats. Even though we shared the meet with others we have nice full freezers to get us through until the fall butchering season. This is the first time ever that I've had such a wide variety of meat in my freezer: pork, beef, venison, goat, chicken, and turkey. YUMMY!
That's all for now. Check back in May when hopefully my internet access will be more regular!Have a Blessed Spring!
This morning we woke to a covering of snow. The kids were all disappointed. Thomas was the funniest of them all. He first cried then said, "Is it Christmas again, I need to write a letter." Then he was upset about the snow again and finally while he was waiting for the bus he said, "Mom, I guess this snow isn't so bad." What a kid!
I am excited about starting to plant hopefully this next week at our new house. Our moving date is set for May 1. We will be moving from 3 1/2 acres to 30 acres, 1 cow to 10 + bulls and steers, 1 sow to 2 sows and a boar + feeder pigs of course, 50 meat birds a year to 400 a year, 30 laying hens to 80, etc. It will be a bit of a change from our small hobby farm. We are looking forward to it though! The details seem to be all working out and we are excited about the move.
Our Home school program will go on hold the last week of April until the 2nd week of May for the move. We already have some packing done but will need those weeks to pack and resettle into the new house without trying to do school at the same time. The children in school will stick to their normal routine.
I'm enjoying teaching 7 piano students this year. Our piano will be delivered to the new house the first week of May. Once it arrives I will start to teach Elizabeth, Sam, and Caleb too along with working on trying to brush up on the many musical skills that I've lost since not playing consistently for almost 10 years. On May 27 we will have our annual spring recital. I think Phil is going to post it on our church website, I'll try to remember to link to it once it is loaded so those who may be interested in hearing it can.
It has been so long since I've blogged that I feel a bit fragmented in my thought process. Phil surprised me on my birthday in March with a night away. Elizabeth did a great job taking care of the boys, cooking all the meals, and keeping the house in fairly decent order. Phil and I enjoyed the night away and spent the following day researching washing machines because mine died the end of February. We finally decided on a Maytag front load professional series machine. It works great but my old dryer still cannot keep up. So I'm saving my piano teaching money in order to purchase a new dryer before winter. I like to line dry as much as possibles in up summer so I think I'll be able to keep up until the winter. I'm not as talented as my Amish neighbors when it comes to freeze drying my clothes.
One more nice thing about our upcoming move is that we might have internet access 24 hours a day for a reasonable cost! If so I won't have to wait 4-8 weeks to update everyone. Once we have the good internet access I'll have to post a picture of the new farm and lots of updated photos of the children. They are growing so fast! It is hard to believe that my baby will be 5 in just a couple weeks. When the weather turned nice he received his birthday present a little early... a new bike! He was VERY excited!
I hope you all had wonderful Celebration of Christs Resurrection! Our church choir sang three songs from the newest Hamilton cantata. They were songs that were difficult to sing without getting choked up because of the message of the songs. I was blessed to be able to sing instead of having to play because our Choir director decided to use the orchestrated accompaniment. I am so thankful for our church. Speaking of church, we are moved into our new building! It has been such a blessing to have a church building that meets the need of our congregation so much more efficiently!
Lastly the past couple months have been ones of great gains and losses on the farm. We butchered 5 pigs and 5 goats. Even though we shared the meet with others we have nice full freezers to get us through until the fall butchering season. This is the first time ever that I've had such a wide variety of meat in my freezer: pork, beef, venison, goat, chicken, and turkey. YUMMY!
That's all for now. Check back in May when hopefully my internet access will be more regular!Have a Blessed Spring!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)