This past weekend, we finished up the last of the Cornish X (meatbird) chickens.  They are unpleasant birds to raise and we have to remind ourselves frequently that it is a short-term, high-return venture.  (For the uninitiated, these are hybrids that have an incredible [unnatural?!] rate of gain.  For every 2 pounds of feed they ingest, they gain a pound.  They are eating machines.  For this reason, we have nicknamed them The Piranhas because I’m pretty certain if I fell into the move-able coops, they would reduce me to bones in a matter of minutes.  They are humanly engineered, poorly feathered, obese-looking, and prone to heart attacks and broken bones.  We go back and forth about whether we should raise such creatures, but in the end, time constraints and economics have won out so far).

With a sigh of relief, Joe processed the last ones and I readied them for the deep freeze.  After the recommended 2-3 days in brine, I packed them up and headed down to the tool shed freezer to store them away.  (Some birds get cooked & pressure canned for ready-to-eat use and some get frozen for roasting later.  Spent layers become canned soup).  I opened the freezer and set down my heavy load on the floor.  Just as I bent to retrieve the first one for shelving in the freezer, a large one from the top shelf slid off (and reached terminal velocity) and whacked me on the back of the head.  (The parenthetical part added by Joe after viewing the lump on my head).  I think I said some negative things about that chicken and gravity at that point, but no one was there to hear it fortunately.  I’ll repent of it later after the swelling goes down.

Since moving to our farm years ago, we have been working toward a more natural and self-sufficient lifestyle.  With God as the center of our lives, we have sought to live in a way that we feel is less worldly and more pleasing to Him.  As part of that, we have tried to increase the amount of our own food that we raise and put up food in times of plenty for the leaner winter months.  We feel that our understanding and connection to the entire food chain has made us better stewards of the gifts He has given us.

Recently, we took a field trip with the homeschool group to a working farm/store/school to learn more about aspects of homesteading that we do not do, specifically dairy cows.  The owners are wonderful people and we look forward to going back for future lessons on other topics.  Here are the older two children enjoying the “hands-on” experience.  Since I was helping Lydia, I didn’t get any pictures unfortunately.  Timothy was itching to get out of his stroller and join in but those ole Jersey girls were pretty much stretched to their limits having new milkers without a baby crawling through their legs! 

Rachel did a great job milking Vanilla.

Benjamin got the hang of it really quickly.

The kind owners showed us how to make butter and treated us to homemade cookies and lemonade too.  Can’t wait to go back!

Hello all!  Hope you are enjoying Fall.  We have had
some light frosts here, but I am surprised that several things in the
garden still haven’t been frost-bitten enough to die yet.  Our
eggplants, for instance, are the size of mature shrubs and are still
putting out (ugly and kind of stunted) fruits.  Even the lima bean
plants haven’t entirely succumbed yet.  The harvested sweet potatoes
and cool-weather greens are breathing down my neck to be “put up”
before they go bad.  Overall, it’s been a pretty good gardening year.

There have been some interesting things in the news lately.  My brother and sister both mentioned the 60 Minutes piece that aired this past
Sunday evening.  It gave an overview of some of the vulnerabilities of
the American electric grid.  It is well-worth watching.  Here is a link
that I think will work.  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5578986n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel
It pretty much focuses on international espionage/terrorism as the
reason for knocking out electricity.  That is highly possibly-
depending on who you ask, maybe even the most likely scenario.
Regardless of how power could be knocked out, I feel better being
prepared to heat our house and cook food without having to rely on
consistent electricity.

Also, if you are looking for a really good (fiction) read about
Americans coping in a sudden “grid-down” situation, I’d recommend One Second After by William R. Forstchen.  It’s quite a page-turner!

~Laura

When we moved to our little glimpse of heaven 4 1/2 years ago, we were delighted to see it came stocked with a horse, a few ducks, and a small flock of chickens.  Among those chickens was the undisputed king of the henhouse, a Jersey Giant cross we named Percy.  Here is a picture of him taken a few years ago.

Percy has weathered a lot- he’s protected the womenfolk, he’s intimidated the young upstarts into submission, and he’s been a good-natured fella.  The ladies swooned when he strutted by.  He would often find a particularly good treat while foraging and call “his girls” over and offer it to them.  While they enjoyed the tidbit, he would stand watch over them and keep the peace.

A week and a half ago, an odd thing began to happen.  Percy was being pecked and chased by Guido, the smaller but annoying guinea who adopted us a few years ago.  I saw the pursuit across the yard several times and would find Percy hiding in the bushes, cowering while Guido “sucker-pecked” him.  I broke it up, but that didn’t last.  Percy began limping.

A few days later, not only was Guido the Unwanted Guinea attacking him,

but also little Nappie (short for Napolean).  He is a Mille Fleur bantam, just a bit larger than a dove.

I would say they were “double-teaming” poor Percy, but the two weren’t actually on the same team.  They were just both exploiting this new weakness simultaneously.  For several days, the king spent most of his time lying down in the same spot in the yard, keeping an eye out for assassination attempts but getting up to eat very little.  At the end of the week, I put him into a chicken tractor with a few benign Buff Orpingtons to recuperate and keep him safe.

The first 2 days, it seemed like he was improving.  The third day, not so much.  The fourth day, Joe and Benjamin went down to move the tractors and feed the chickens.  Percy was mobile for the move, but breathed his last while eating some scratch grains and died peacefully.  All in all, the most a rooster could hope for!

We don’t get overly attached to most of our chickens, but Percy was the oldest resident of the farm, a regal presence in the yard, and kind of an icon.  Things don’t seem quite right without him.  He will be missed.

For all their annoying habits (like getting their heads stuck in the fence and eating the blueberry plants ), goats (a.k.a. “dolts” according to Lydia) are entertaining.  I glanced out the window yesterday to see this.

No, they didn’t do anything particularly amazing to get up there, but it was funny to see.  Remember that tree that came down (well, partly anyway)?  The goats are able to climb onto the ends of the limbs that haven’t quite separated from it and and go up from there.  They are pretty proud of themselves.

Lydia’s vocabulary has grown considerably over the past few months and she seems very pleased about it. And so are we! She can communicate much better now, telling us what she wants rather than playing a frustrating form of toddler charades until we figure out what it is that she’s trying to say.

She frequently points at something and calls it by name as if to make sure we know that she knows what it is.

Her pronunciation, however, has lagged a bit behind her growing vocabulary. Sometimes when she says something, it’s not quite as clear as it could be. But that’ll come with time. In the meantime, it can be a source of great amusement.

For example it tickles us when she points at the goats and says quite confidently “Look, dolts. Dolts, Mommy, dolts”.

She probably more accurate than she realizes.

Time is a funny thing. One the one hand it seems like only yesterday we bought our first two heifers from a friend of ours, and yet on the other hand it seems like they’ve been a part of Blessed Acres Farm for quite some time.

But it hasn’t been too long, since this month, #6 and #7, affectionately known as Gloria and Lacy to the kids, turned two years old. And what a way to celebrate. #6 had her first calf today. It’s a little girl.

The new calf, yet unnamed, seemed to know what exactly what to do. Mama, despite the picture above, is not 100% sure she wants to be nursed. I think she’ll figure it out soon though. Her protective instinct has been spot on; she protects her calf from the others and watches over her pretty well.

Here’s a close up on the new little girl. I think she’ll one day grow into those ears.

We’re thankful to another friend who allowed us to borrow their registered bull last summer to make this day possible.

We have really enjoyed 4-H since we joined last year as “Clover Buds.”  Benjamin is in 4th grade this year, so he is now a full-fledged member and can participate in the various contests and projects.  A couple of months ago, he competed at the county level in Speech.  Recently, he decided to raise a batch of chicks to enter in the county fair in the fall.  His 25 Black Star chicks, plus one mystery rare breed chick, arrived Monday and he has had sole responsibility for them since then.  There was a close call with one that got steamrolled by some others while napping, but much to my surprise, it made a full recovery after a night in a box by the fire in the house.  After Benjamin gave it more water, some TLC, and a pep talk, it was chirping away by morning and he returned the little guy to the brooder.

After raising them all summer, Benjamin will choose his 6 best to go to the fair, compete, and be auctioned off.  He gets to keep the rest.  It is a wonderful program.  In the end, you get a flock of chickens for just the cost of the food and a great experience that helps develop responsibility and character.

One of my favorite things about old homesteads is the unexpected places you come upon things.  Often times driving in the country you will notice a chimney standing alone in the middle of a shady area or you stumble upon an old farm implement of unknown use.  They are the only remaining hints of the lives of the previous residents.  Often daffodils are that way too.

Various owners of our farm have planted flowers while they lived here.  There are a few neat rows of bulbs that come up along the driveway, but the ones that interest me most are the ones seemingly in the middle of nowhere in particular.  There are several clumps of jonquils in odd places in the yard, a few peonies, and even some Lily of the Valley that spring up.  Even though they make mowing a bit tricky I always insist that they be left to grow, in part because they are pretty, but also in part because someone before us loved this place enough to plant them.

One of these places is a new find.  Down in the woods, nowhere near any former structure I know of, there are several groupings of daffodils.  The children always love to pick flowers for our table, so I pointed them out.  Lydia, being the “big kid” that she is now is never left out.  She has her own rubber boots and she wants to tromp along with us wherever we go.

Here are a few pictures from the flower picking a couple of weeks ago.  They just seem to beg for captions.

“We came all the way down here for THIS?!”

“Those are mine.” (Spoken like a true 2 year old).

“These are mine too.”

“All this flower-picking has worn me out!  I sure hope Mom appreciates my hard work.”

We are fortunate to have hundreds of beautiful trees on our property.  We have enjoyed them so much for their form, shade, fruit, nuts, fall color, and wood.  In particular, we are grateful for the many huge old pecan trees that were probably planted by the original owners over 100 years ago.  They provide bountiful enough nuts for us, the squirrels, and the crows without too much squabbling among us.

Yesterday as I was going out to hang laundry, I heard a series of what sounded like rapid-fire shotgun blasts close to the house.  I turned to see the back third of a 75 foot pecan tree peel away from the trunk and crash to the ground, taking one of our perimeter fences down with it.  I was glad to see that the cows weren’t lounging underneath that (their favorite) tree at the moment.   I quickly moved the cows to a new pasture and let Joe know what had happenend.  Our weekend plans have now changed (top of the to-do list is to remove the tree and repair the fence).

A few minutes ago, while hanging more wash, I heard a series of creaks.  I looked over in time to see another section break away and land on a black walnut tree that has also borne nuts generously.  (I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t do anymore laundry!).

Here is a photo of the giant reclining in the pasture.  That speck to the left of it is Joe.

The tree poses a threat to livestock, other trees, a storage shed, and additional fences so the rest must come down.  We hate to see it go.  But always trying to find the positive- we’re well set for good firewood next winter.