family / fire

Family First?

This is a topic that weighs on my mind from time to time and I was wondering what you all thought about it. Are you the type that sticks by your family no matter what, or do you treasure your friends more than your blood relatives? It’s no secret that Brian and I have had some challenging days in our lives, and who hasn’t? I’ve learned that sometimes on your hardest day it isn’t your family that comes to save you. Sometimes it is a neighbor you’ve never met before, like the strangers who stopped and helped Brian pull so many things out of our burning barn. Sometimes it’s the friends you don’t see often enough that call and take your mind off your troubles. I’ve seen some families stick by each other even after years of bad behavior and through lies, alcoholism, or other challenging times. Where do you draw the line? Do you always forgive and look the other way because he/she is your _____(aunt, father, son, etc.)? I personally have found so much value in my friends, and parts of my family, that I don’t see how blood changes things much. I’m not saying I don’t value

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Git 'Er Done 2009

Thrift Store Finds

There is a brand new Goodwill store in my town, and I love it! First let me tell you about my breadmaker. It came from Brian’s family’s basement and was purchased over 20 years ago. It hadn’t been used in about 17 years until I got it. I used it almost every day for a few months. Then, mysteriously, the little mixing paddle started going backwards. Hmm, not sure how to fix that and it doesn’t mix the dough that way. Oh well, after 20 years it owes us nothing. I found this one that I like on Amazon.com but it out of stock and expensive. Brian told me to buy it, that I would use it more than anyone else he knows. I put it off… and put it off. So now you will understand why I snatched the $6.99 breadmaker off the shelf at Goodwill so quickly that a couple of people gave me weird looks! After plugging it in, watching it go, and being informed of the 7 day return policy, I took it. It isn’t fancy but will get us by until I can justify the new one. What a deal. Next find: 2 very large

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chickens / eggs / marketing

New Egg Cartons

We’re still not selling eggs but our small flock usually gives enough eggs for us plus an extra 2 dozen a week. We’ve been giving them to friends but haven’t had much luck getting the cartons back. I went to the farm store and bought what they had. I paid .39 a piece for about a dozen cartons. I can buy them in bulk cheaper but don’t need a lot right now. I wanted our name on the new cartons but there wasn’t a good spot for a business card so I printed out a little thing with our logo and contact info. I put quite a few on a page, cut them in strips, and glued them on the front of each carton. They’re not perfect but are a little more professional at least. I think I’d like the flat top cartons when we’re actually selling eggs. I would like to charge a $0.25 or $0.50 “deposit” for cartons at that point. I’m not sure what our prices would be but for example, $2.50/dozen or $2/dozen with each carton you bring back. That way we would probably get lots of cartons back but wouldn’t have to raise the prices

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farm bureau / farming / organic / questions

Joining Farm Bureau

This is another post I’ve been putting off just because I wanted to make it worthwhile. I still don’t have a lot of information to offer you but want to share our experience thus far. We went ahead and joined the bureau 2 weeks ago. We do not carry FB insurance and so joined as “Regular Farmer Members”. Actually we only signed Brian up. The dues were $45 for year and as his wife I can attend all the events anyway. We signed up at the kickoff event. A handful of couples that we’re friends with had already joined and encouraged us to check it out. We actually had a lot of fun at the kickoff. It started off with a couple of short presentations from some of the extension staff. They talked for about 20 minutes on the new A.C.R.E. program which Brian is interested in. It is basically a different type of subsidy program from what I understood. It was good to learn about anyway. The organizers had hired a local company, “A Touch Of Vegas” to come in an do some casino games. Each person was given a ticket to get chips equivalent to, I think, $200.

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heirloom seeds

Howling Hill Seed Swap

I’m a little behind on this one but at last, have the time and motivation to post on it. I first heard of the Howling Hill Seed Swap over at Children in the Corn. Both are great blogs with tons of useful information. Head over and check them out if you haven’t already. Anyway, the basic idea is that an envelope of seeds is sent around. You can take what you want as long as you put back in the same amount of seeds. They have to be non-GMO seeds. I received the package from Becca at BrightHaven Times, all the way from Florida! Her blog is new to me and looks to be quite interesting. The package is already on the way over to Farm Mom (of Children in the Corn, linked above) – she should have it early this week. Above is the picture of what I selected to keep for myself. Since I already have most of my veggie seeds and have been putting off starting an herb garden I mostly took some herbs seeds. Now I have no excuse not to start growing my own herbs to flavor our food. I chose 8 partial packets in

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Uncategorized

Jen-a

Not much of a post, but here is something I just thought of. Over at Farmer’s Daughter they are talking about naming a horse. How exciting, by the way! Anyway this got me to thinking – I’ve never clarified how to say my name. I was forever being called Jean-a by substitute teachers so some of you may think of me as Jean-a. However, my name is Jen-a. That’s Jen, and then an “uh”. Thank my Mom for the original spelling! 🙂 So what assumptions might we have made about all of you that you could clear up?

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Uncategorized

Euthanasia and Eagles

This was brought to my attention last night at a chapter meeting of the Michigan Vet. Med. Association. Apparently there is a link between the improper disposal of euthanized pets and the death of eagles and other wildlife that may consume the pets later on. At the same time there comes the proposal of Davie’s law. From just skimming the bill it appears that this law would require injectable euthanasia of shelter pets in place of using gas chambers or other means. I don’t disagree with that law for shelter pets only, and if they are being properly disposed of. However, at the vet meeting they suggested a similar law would expand to require injectable euthanasia of all animals. I don’t see that ever happening due to rights of owners to do what they want with their own pets. I can’t find any information on such a proposal so I suspect the vets were overreacting to Davie’s law. Obviously such a requirement would make the incidence of accidental deaths more common and could ridiculously affect the safety of our food supply. In any case – please be aware of this issue. I know it isn’t pleasant to think about but

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sheep

New Life!! (Updated)

Here’s what I came rushing home to find! I was going to write “he was mostly dry…” and just realized in all my excitement I never even looked to see whether it was a male or a female! I’ll get back to you on that! Anyway, it was mostly dry already. Mama was doing a good job standing over him so he didn’t get injured by the other ewes moving around. Every thing I’ve heard has said to let them lamb with the group, then move them to their own little pen or “lambing jug”. I had a little pen set up for her already so I gently picked up the lamb and carried him, at eye level for the ewe, to the new pen. They can still touch noses with the ewes and with a calf on one side. The goal is to give them a few days to bond on their own. My only concern right now is that I haven’t seen him nurse. I’ve seen him nuzzle around back there but not latch on. He did urinate but I’m not sure if that could be from his time in the uterus or is from nursing earlier. They

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sheep

Prepping for Lambs

Lambing is imminent, I do believe. We’ll see whether it happens tonight, tomorrow, or Tuesday. I do have to work in the morning but only half the day. I hope it happens before my full work day on Tuesday! Bonnie’s due date is officially tomorrow, the 23rd. I’ve borrowed Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep and Raising Sheep the Modern Way from the library. With the knowledge I gained from the books and the recent MSBA Conference I have put together a few supplies: -Clean, dry towels to assist with drying off the lamb, if necessary.-7% tincture of iodine to dip the navel-Dull scissors to snip back the cord. 2″ is the recommended length.-Glass bottle and nipple (we don’t have any pop bottles!)-60 cc syringe and size 8 french red rubber catheter, for tube feeding. I hope we don’t need this one!-Elastrator and bands. I won’t use these until 2-3 days for tail docking and again around 10 days for castrating.-(not pictured)We also have an ear tagger and tags to ID each lamb before they leave the lambing jug. That way we can know for sure who’s who. I’ve been crawling around in the pen like a fool trying to get

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Uncategorized

Me & My Valentine

Okay this is a little late for V-day but I saw it over at Farmer’s Daughter and thought it looked like a lot of fun. Play along if you like! Me and My Valentine What are your middle names?Brian’s is Keith. Mine was Marlene but I changed it to Rose (my maiden last name) when I got married. I figured I was lucky to have a name that could work either way and I wanted to keep it. No one uses your middle name much past 8 years old anyway. How long have you been together?I think we started dating in September of 2006. So let’s see… 2 1/2 years. Married 6 months on Monday! How long did you know each other before you started dating?Almost a year. I thought we were just going out as friends, who knew I was slowly being seduced!? Who asked whom out?Well, actually my cousin asked Brian if he would take me out, but I was standing right there at the time. I wanted to go to the John Deere dealer’s grand opening and you had to be invited. Carrie knew that Brian had an invite, and he was nice enough to take me

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