cat / cattle / farmers' market / spring / vacation

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.

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farming / no-till farming / planting / soybeans / spring

Planting the Big Fields

Brian planted 40 acres of corn at the end of last week. Sunday we planted 25 or 30 acres of soybeans. Brian helps our neighbor farm in exchange for use of some his equipment. The planter he’s using in these pictures is a “no-till drill”. It actually cuts a path and sticks the seeds in the ground without the field being plowed up every year. Last year we had corn in this field, this year we drilled the soybeans right in. The conservation district in our county even owns a drill that can be rented out. No-till farming is easier on the environment. The fields are not as susceptible to erosion. Plus, the practice saves quite a bit of fuel and time, thus reducing our expenses. Planting can be a one man job most of the time. The picture above shows the bins that hold the seed. Ideally we would have just enough seed to plant the field without too much extra to clean out at the ends. As we near the end of planting I stay on the planter and watch the seed level. One person, or even two, can stay pretty busy shuffling seed from one bin to

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recipe

Pistachio Fluff Minus the Cool Whip

I love the taste a pistachio fluff. Cool Whip, not so much. It isn’t the taste that I mind so much as the ingredients. The first four are: water, corn syrup, vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup, followed by a bunch of gum and unpronounceable things. My version calls for real cream instead. If you wanted to take things a step further you could make your own marshmallows as well. Homemade marshmallows still contain corn syrup but not as much. Plus, you can then select a brand of syrup that you prefer. I’ve included a couple of links at the bottom for those interested in the marshmallows. Anyway, back to the fluff. I use the following ingredients: 1 cup heavy whipping cream10oz. crushed pineapple (do not drain the juice)1 cup miniature marshmallows1 1oz. package instant pistachio pudding First, whip the cream with a mixer until it forms stiff peaks or doesn’t fall from a spoon turned upside down. I stopped mixing when mine was a little lumpy rather than smooth and that’s fine. In a separate bowl, combine the pudding mix and crushed pineapple. Be sure to include the pineapple juice. Next, stir in the marshmallows. Now is the time

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Uncategorized

Oh my goodness…

I can’t help it, I have to share my favorite new song with you. Jason Aldean has managed to make a song about tractors the sexiest, steamiest thing I’ve heard in a while. It is amazing and I can’t stop listening to it! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hsuK93W_4U&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00] What’s your favorite new song?

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money

Garage Sale Finds

Last weekend there was a neighborhood garage sale nearby. It was raining that Saturday but I went out anyway. It had been so long since I’ve been to a good sale! I had a few good finds. Several name brand tops for $0.50 – $3 a piece. Aero, Arizona Jean Company, American Eagle, etc. A few cute long sleeved henley style shirts. A turtleneck sweater. One nice hooded sweater and one mini sweater (the kind that just hugs your shoulders). Also, I picked up 2 pair of jeans for a few dollars each. After trying them on at home I can tell they don’t fit well enough to be good going out jeans. However, they’ll be ready for scooping poop and gardening, if nothing else. Another great find was a riding helmet. I really needed one since I’ve been riding on my own more this year and can’t always borrow one from a friend. It is not a good idea to buy a used helmet in case it has been damaged. I feel okay about it in this situation because I’m pretty sure the girl just lost interest in riding. It was only $5. I’ll have to try it for

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eggs

Eggs and Cell Phone… Bad Mix

They say you don’t know what you got til it’s gone. I’m feeling that today, big time. Sunday I collected one egg from the eggmobile and put it in my coat pocket. Monday I put my cell phone in my coat pocket on my way to do chores. I must have hit something and kerrr-plat, eggs all over my pocket. I didn’t know it had happened until I reached in to grab my phone. It came out covered in egg yolk. Yumm. I took it in the house and wiped it down with a washcloth. It still worked, luckily. After I fell asleep waiting for Brian to come home from farming he was nice enough to set the alarm on my phone for me. The alarm went off at 6:30 AM this morning. Fine, except when I reached over to hit snooze, none of the buttons would work. Even the power button would not stop the horrendous screeching. It took me a good 5 minutes to get the battery out. Apparently egg is a lot like glue when it dries, who knew? Once I took it all apart and wiped it down again the phone was working fine. Then I

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calves / cattle / fence / horses

#09 is Trouble!

Things are all under control now, but we had a not so fun experience with this calf last weekend. It was time get them out of their little pen inside and out on the green pasture. We worked on the fence for 2 days to get things fixed up for them. We had calves in that fence last year and they did fine with it. All we did was add a hot wire around the top and tighten up the rolled fencing. Three sides of the pasture are rolled cattle fence and one side is the horse fence (4 strands of high tensile hot wire). We put the calves in the trailer and let them out in to the pasture. They ran around a bit and all was fine. We parked the trailer. Calf #09 promptly climbed between the strands of hot wire and went to visit the horses. I tried to corner him in the horse pasture so he went between the strands again and took a nice run around the yard. At this point we realized that neither of us had plugged the fence charger back in after our last minute repairs. Great. Anyhow, we got darn lucky

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local / local flour / pizza / recipe / tomatoes

Almost Local Homemade Whole Wheat Pizza

This is a quick and relatively easy dinner option for us. I personally don’t like pizza so I make a separate pan of breadsticks for myself. I like the following recipe which can be found at http://www.wheatfoods.org/Quick-Whole-Wheat-Pizza-Crust.217.1.htm Ingredients:2 cups whole wheat flour1 package active dry yeast/instant yeast3/4 teaspoon salt1 cup hot tap water (120 – 125°F)1 tablespoon vegetable oil1 tablespoon honey or granulated sugar I mix the ingredients together in a bowl and then dump it out on to a floured countertop. I add parsley, oregano, and a little garlic salt to the dough to taste. Knead for a couple minutes adding extra flour as needed. Then roll out with a rolling pin into a circle big enough for your pizza pan. You can make 2 thin crust pizzas or 1 regular crust with this recipe. Carefully transfer the dough to a greased pizza pan. Last time I bought cheese sticks Kraft brand was on sale so I bought that kind. We think they are gross: plastic like with no flavor. I thought I’d use them up by making this pizza with a stuffed crust. Just push some extra dough up over the lip of the pan. Place strips of

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My Mom

My Mom is the best. She is why I am the way I am, or at least a big part of why. She is why I knit. She is why I can sew (a little bit). She is why I make homemade laundry soap. She let me raise chickens for FFA in her basement even though I never built a coop like I was going to…that was a really smelly summer (you’d think I would learn, now I have turkeys in my own basement!). She taught me how to grow a garden. She is why I put up trim in my house and paint without waiting for Brian to do it all. She is why I recycle. She does not laugh at my hair brained ideas and she doesn’t think I’m a hippie for doing the things I do (or at least she doesn’t voice those thoughts 😉 ) She pets my cat and comes to visit us even though she can’t stand dog drool or cat hair. She even let my puppy sleep on the couch with me at her house. I can always call her even if it is late or we’ve been fighting, and she will listen

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