Dead Stock

An old farmer once told us that "where there is livestock, there will be dead stock".  We've had our share of casualties here.  Any farm will.  Last year we had a weasel get in and claim three hens.  We had some mean old roosters kill one hen named "Julie" and two were lost to dogs.  We had our bottle lamb "Baby" die two days after we got her.  We're pretty sure Sugar the sheep got too rough playing with Baby.  Right now we've got chicken issues.  I had a rooster with frozen feet here about a week ago and brought him inside, but I noticed gang green in his one foot so I put him down yesterday.  Last week I went out to the chicken coop to find a hen dead.  It was hard to tell the cause of death because, in my experience, once a chicken is dead laying in the coop the other chickens peck the dickens right out of it.  Two days later I walked in to find that same scene all over again.  And just five minutes ago I went out to the coop and found three more dead hens.  I'm ticked!  I'm puzzled too.  I need to find the cause of this and put an end to it fast.  I was concerned that maybe with the cold weather they weren't getting enough to eat, but I increased the amount of feed they were getting and they don't act like they are starving.  All of them look healthy and none had shown any signs of being otherwise.  It could be a water problem, perhaps, because I am having a tough time keeping the waterers from freezing up.  I'm going to change out their water more frequently.  It could be the cold, I guess, this is a colder than average winter so far, but last winter we had a few nights that were consistently below zero and even I think fourteen below with windchill, and I had no casualties last winter.  The other thing is that the two breeds of hens I've got out there are supposed to be well adapted to cold climates.  I think the other possibility could be rats.  We've got rats running around in those barns, and I know they would kill chicks and eat them, but I don't know whether or not they would eat nearly full grown hens.  I'm a little perplexed.  I applied some more rat poison to various locations around the place (no place that chickens have access) and am going to be much more frequent in my trips to the coop other than a time or two a day.  I am NOT a happy camper about this.  We will never have eggs if all of the hens die this winter.  UGH!!!

Another Great Christmas

Let me start this post by asking one little question: Is that the cutest freakin' baby you've ever seen? Or what?  I think I know the answer to that one.

Well, I think we successfully navigated the Christmas gauntlet around here with no casualties.  Becky tells me that Tate told her that this was "the best Christmas EVER!!!" for the second year in a row.  That's good to hear.  We bounced from get together to get together and enjoyed every second of it.  All of the food and family was great.  We made Christmas cookies with the kids on Wednesday this week and it's fun to do with all of them here.

We ended up with ninety cookies and man were they delicious!!!!  It was getting late and we put the kids to bed and then Becky frosted them and I tested a few to make sure they weren't poisonous or anything.  I wouldn't want anyone to get sick so I sacrificed my own safety to be sure that those cookies were safe for all. 

I got several books for Christmas that I'm very excited about!  First, Becky got me the latest book by Joel Salatin entitled "The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer".  I absolutely love the title and can't wait to dive into it head first.  He is always funny and always has a lot to teach about farming in his books.  My mom got me a book by author Tim Lahaye called "Revelation Unveiled".  It's a book designed to study the book of Revelation.  It goes through section by section of Revelation and deciphers the symbolism and takes a look at the prophecies that are made and goes into great detail about it all.  Then thirdly my grandma got me a book called "Country Wisdom and Know-How".  I've literally been stalking this book for like a year at Border's.  It is chocked full of info.  It covers everything from gardening, to cheese and soap making, to skinning animals and has recipes for 'coon, 'possum and woodchuck too!  It seems to cover just about anything you could want to know about good ol' country living.  I can't wait for a minute to spend one on one with this treasure trove of information, though I don't think we'll be having 'possum pie in this house anytime soon.  Good night and I hope everyone had a great and merry Christmas!!!!



Santa Clause is Coming To Town

 Well we just got kids to bed and the coffee is brewing.  It's time to wrap EVERYTHING!!!!! Pray for for us people it's 11PM.

Evangelism Linebacker

Get out there and let people know that Jesus is the reason for the season!!! Merry CHRISTmas!!!

I Went for a Walk

I went for a walk today.  Well, it didn't start out as just a walk.  I went out the door with hopes of catching some Steelhead Trout today, but no such luck.  Becky and mom were going shopping today so it  provided the perfect opportunity to relax down by the river for a few hours.  At about nine this morning we were loaded up and ready to go and I dropped Becky and Micaiah off at mom and dad's and then headed for the river.  I parked my truck and donned my chest waders, hat, gloves and blaze orange vest (today is extended deer season here and I didn't feel like getting shot) and then carefully made my way down to the river.  It was about fifteen degrees, but quite honestly it didn't feel too bad in the sunshine.  I fished for probably an hour until I got snagged and broke my line off.  I took some pictures while I was down there and man was it peaceful.  Before I headed back to the truck I decided to follow some of the deer tracks that were down there.  I let my mind wander and tried to imagine where that deer was going.  What was she up to?  Was she just looking for some food under the snow that blanketed the ground?  Was she headed to bed down for the day?  After following the trail for a little while I'm not sure where she was going, but she was definitely searching for food.  She had uncovered some clumps of grass to nibble on.  She had also totally messed up this one area and all of the leaves were on top.  It took me a minute to figure out what she was doing, but then I realized that all of the commotion took place under a few big oak trees.  She must've remembered those trees and the acorns that were buried under the snow.  After she left the oaks she headed over onto a sandbar in the middle of the river.  I followed her trail through there and she nibbled on the ends of some small scrubby trees.  I followed her until her trail crossed the river completely and off to the other side.  It was actually a lot of fun.  How do I know it was a "she"?  Well, the thing that made it obvious, other than that her prints weren't that big, was that every time she urinated the spot of urine was in one spot directly between her two back feet.  Female deer almost always stop and squat to pee, whereas males will often do it on the run and it's all over the place.  I just recently read an article about tracking deer and that was one thing that I remembered.  So in the end I came home with nothing but a few pictures.  No deer, no fish, but I got some good exercise, cleared my mind and tried out my tracking skills.  A skill that a century ago most men probably had and thought nothing of.  It was just common knowledge. 



Hey Sheep!



Disappearing Skills



I don't know beans about beans!  I learned much more than that the first year we put in a garden here.  In all honestly, most folks don't know about them, especially people my age.  I remember Becky and I both laughing when we realized we never knew what a potato plant looked like before that first garden.  We had never seen the top half of a potato plant before.  It's sad to say, but we really didn't know anything about how to grow them what the plant looked like or anything.  Most people in this country don't know about them either I'd venture to say. 

I'm trying to learn more and more skills all of the time, but The more I read, and the more self-sufficient I try to be, the more skills I realize I lack.  What skills am I speaking of?  I'm talking about what should be basic life skills.  I'm talking about things like planting a garden, preserving the harvest, catching a fish, gutting a deer, pruning fruit trees, making apple cider, making sauerkraut, making pickles, baking bread and many, many, many more skills that were once common knowledge in this country.  There are still people out there who possess these skills, but most of them aren't under the age of sixty I'd bet.  I know that my grandparents still can things, mostly tomato juice, I think, but they possess the skills to do so if they please.  This was the first year that Becky or I had ever canned anything.  We bought and studied the Ball Home Preserving book and then just jumped right in.  We made and canned homemade jam, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, green beans, salsa, strawberries in syrup, and chicken stock.  Not a lot, but it was a start and I'm happy with how our first attempts went.  

Some things I've learned by reading and researching, but other things I've learned by watching my dad and grandpa work.  My dad has taught me about doing business with people.  He's taught me countless other things that, as I write this at almost one in the morning, don't even come to mind at the moment.  My grandpa recently taught me some fishing tricks that really made a difference in catching pan fish (I've already passed this knowledge onto our boys).  I'll continue to keep watching and learning from those two.  I remember my dad saying about his dad that "The older I get the smarter my dad gets."  I'm finding that to be pretty darn true.

I don't know about you, but as I step back and look at the economic climate of this country and the world around us, it does not make me feel real confident about a whole lot.  With our government taking control of more and more parts of our economy, I for one am determined to take control of more and control of my own life.  I'm not trying to sound like a Henny Penny and declare that the "sky is falling", but the government is taking control of more and more parts of our lives.  They just took over health care, they've taken over banks, they've bought huge portions of American industry (General Motors and Chrysler), they just signed a House bill that gives the FDA a lot more power over our food system (I'll post more about the bill that gives the FDA control over our food later on).  I don't trust 'em.  We all sit around and complain about how broken the government is and how corrupt our politicians are, but yet for some reason we have allowed them to have a ton of power regulating food and health care.  I don't trust 'em.  I'll grow my own food thank you very much.  More and more we just assume that our food we'll be in the grocery.  We assume that our water will be coming out of the faucet when we turn it on.  We assume that the propane man will show up to fill our tanks.  But what happens if they don't? What happens if the food isn't in the store? What happens if they water isn't coming out of the faucet?  I'm not calling for or predicting the collapse of our infrastructures, but what if?  It seems very foolish to me to take all of this for granted.  It seems foolish and sad to me that most people my age don't have the first clue how to grow a garden and preserve it for winter time use.  Herrick Kimball, a man who's blog I follow, once wrote that he doesn't want to be a "helpless man".  He says that he tries to teach his kids life skills because when they grow up they won't want to be "helpless men".  I don't want to be a "helpless man" either.  I want to be an old timer in young man's clothing. 

I'm sorry if all of that was just rambling and perhaps scattered.  My thoughts are a little unorganized at this second because there is more in my head than I can get onto the screen, but I think you get the point.  As for me and my house we will serve the Lord and we'll try to take care of ourselves and not rely on the system.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!

Becky took Micaiah to the doctor yesterday for a check up and was told he sounds better, but we need to continue breathing treatments for another week.  The really big news though is that we heard back from the heart specialists in Akron and they reported that his heart is 100% NORMAL!!!!  Whatever it was that the doctors here saw that alarmed them was looked at more closely by the heart specialists and was declared as normal and no concern.  WOOHOO!!!!!  Thank God for that news!

Thank God it's Friday as Well!  I'm ready for this weekend to be here.  Becky has got a baby shower tomorrow that my mom and grandma were throwing for her and the babe, and since the girls will be there with her the boys and I are going to go spend a little time in the woods.  I think we'll try to knock a few squirrels out of some trees.  Becky doesn't know it yet, but God willing we'll be having squirrel gravy on Saturday night.  

Tonight we're taking the kids up to Sheri's Coffeehouse here in Norwalk for a showing of "A Charlie Brown Christmas".  I'm excited.  We're going to Pizza Hut first and then over to Sheri's for some fun. 

Sorry I've been slacking it in the picture department on here.  There will be some posted this weekend I promise.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

Well, it appears that everything is back to normal around here.  Micaiah is back home and doing well.  We are still giving him breathing treatments every six hours, but he's improved a lot.  He has an appointment today to check up on his progress.  We still haven't heard anything regarding his heart yet.  Hopefully we'll hear something soon so we are informed a little more about it. 

I got cereal  fixed, lunches packed, kids on the bus and got Kennedy a bath this morning.  Now it's time for me to get my butt to work.  Start the truck, feed the animals while it warms then grab Kennedy and off we'll go.  Would have posted more this morning, but this computer was acting up this morning and I lost what I'd already typed once.  I'll post more this evening sometime.  Sorry, it's been since Sunday when I last posted.

A long day....

So, this morning when we got up and started stirring around and getting ready to go to church I noticed that Micaiah was wheezing when he exhaled and occasionally coughing a deep, bronchial type cough.  After talking it over we decided to take him to the Emergency Room to get checked out rather than wait until tomorrow morning to see the pediatrician.  In the ER they ran some tests for RSV (not exactly what that is other than some sort of respiratory infection that can lead to Pneumonia).  The tests all came back negative, but they decided to admit him for observation.  Once we got up to his room, we got a call from the doc saying that something looked abnormal on the baby's chest x-ray he'd had earlier and that she was ordering an echocardiogram.  Well long story short,  he does not have pneumonia, and what looked abnormal on the x-ray turned out to be nothing, but during the echo they found that Micaiah has a heart defect known as ASD (atrial septal defect).  Essentially it's a hole in the wall separating two chambers of the heart.  As it turns out I was born with the same defect.  Mine ended up leading to open-heart surgery when I was seven years old, but the defect closes up on its own often times as well.  The hospital is sending the pics of his heart to a children's heart specialist tomorrow and we'll know more by midweek.  Pray for that boy please.  He's a tough little booger, but he's still just a little booger.  So, tonight Becky is staying up at the hospital with Micaiah and I'm at home with the other five.  Not long after being home this evening and Brenna got sick.  She said her stomach was hurting her earlier.  I'm not sure she's going to school tomorrow. UGH!!  I'll keep you posted about all of this.

As I told you the other night we decorated the Christmas tree, and below is a picture I took of the festivities.



Future Gardens and Steak

I've been busy the last few days, so I'm sorry I haven't written much.  On Thursday night we had all five big kids here so we decorated our Christmas tree.  The kids did pretty well but they were getting pretty frustrated with the tree.  I cut us a White Pine so it has the long, soft needles and the kids were having a hard time getting the ornaments to go on the branches and stay put.  They got over it and we finished up just in time for bed time.  Friday night Becky and I went to Sandusky and did a little shopping.  Our trip went well.  We picked up some gifts for the kids and had dinner at Panera bread (one of our favorite spots on kid free Fridays).  This morning we splept in until sometime after nine, but once I was up and at it I went out and did the chores.  I got everyone fed and watered, checked on the goat's hoofs to see if they need trimmed again.  They look ok for now.  Then I went and dug a trench where I intend to plant my Hedgeapple fence come spring.  The ground was not frozen so it was quick and easy digging.  I came in had a grilled cheese with Becky and then we went to Big Lots and bought some stuff.  Once we got home,  I grilled us some T-Bone steaks and baked potatoes.  Man were they great!!!!  Those steaks tasted so good because with our large family it simply doesn't pay to fix steak to feed all seven of us.  Usually we might make two steaks and cut it into strips and add it to a stir fry or to top a salad or some other dish, but tonight with it being just Becky and I, we each had one whole steak and it was great!! This evening, while watching some college football, I've been laying the garden out on the computer.  I spent a couple hours on it, but I think I've got it layed out just about right.  I've got a book that tells you how much of each veggie to plant per person for the year.  Using those numbers I could determine how many hills of zucchini, how many rows of carrots and so on.  It's a pretty neat computer program and even gives you estimated dates to plant and harvest your crop.  I'm trying it out for the first time, but I think it is going to be very helpful.  Next year when I go to lay out the garden, the program will warn me if I try to plant tomatoes in the same spot I did the year before of if I try to follow with something from the same family.  We'll see how it goes.  Well, sorry it's short, but I'm getting a little sleepy so to bed I go.   

Thinking Ahead

Today is December first.  Why is that significant?  It's significant because I've been doing a lot of thinking about next year and all of the things that need to get done before spring arrives.  I only have four months before I need to get our new broilers ordered.  By that time the layers will already be back outside and some things will be planted in the garden or at least started here in the house.  Before all of that happens I need to figure out exactly what's going to be grown in the garden this year, and what the layout of the garden will be.  This coming year we will be butchering any broilers we raise ourselves.  This of course means that I need to either buy the equipment needed to scald, pluck and eviscerate chickens or I need to build it myself.  Well, I've already got the blueprints to the scalder and plucker in my possession, now all I need to do is start acquiring the materials needed to build them and start assembling.  Those things will need to be constructed by about June first I'd say.  With all of that in mind I spent much of this evening trying to plan for next year.  I started working on my garden layout and did a little research on some other potential income makers for a small-scale farm operation.  I created several spreadsheets for keeping track of my expenses and production cycles of the hens and broilers too.  If I intend to make money in this endeavor I'd say I better treat it like a business.  Soon I may try to design a webpage that is more devoted to the farm products we intend on selling and tells in a short what we're about.  I'll list prices there and it'll be more of a formal business page, I think.  There is a lot do before spring and I fully intend to be ready when it gets here so we can hit the ground running.