Mar 29, 2012

Grocery Day

You can tell when the groceries are getting low at our house.  Kids are complaining about no snacks and I make a lot of trips to the cellar to get food.
Living out of our cellar stock isn't really that bad.  Today, for dinner we dined on home grown mashed potatoes with home grown hamburger gravy.  I opened some home canned corn, applesauce, rhubarb desert and pickled garlic scapes.  It was a complete meal made completely from what we've raised ourselves.
So now it's off to town to buy some groceries.  Just wanted to say what a blessing it is to have food in the cellar.  We're working on using up our reserves to make room for this year's bounty. 
God is good.
P.S.  My spinach is up and it's snowing right now!!

Mar 19, 2012

#1 Calf-2012

Okay,so it's my third entry today.  I guess I just had a lot of stuff saved up.  It's still calving time here.  We have nine cows left to calve.  We also have the most wonderful weather in March that I can ever remember.  The calves are being born in 70 degrees and no snow.  Amazing!
Here's a picture of our first little bull calf.
He's a red bull so my son named him Energy.  Get it?? Red Bull, Energy??
These little calves are so cute, running and jumping.

I guess that's it for today. 
Have a blessed day.
From Glory Farm

Welding 101

Our older daughter came home for a couple days during spring break.  She had asked if she could try her hand at welding.  So...seeing a great blogging opportunity, I quickly grabbed the camera and documented her experience.
Here she is set to go.  (She'll probably kill me for this one. ;) )
Getting ready to try again.  Our girl and my honey.

A sample of her work.
She's not ready to go into this as a full time profession, but she did get some idea of how to do it.  Our youngest daughter had lessons afterward, but I forgot to get pics of that-next time.

On Tour With the Orchestra

Our little orchestra went on tour in our little town.  We had three different venues that the children played at.
Here is the first stop-the services and training program.
Stop two-the senior apartments.
Stop three-the Age to Age program.
Some of the members have only been playing for a few months, some for five years.  It's amazing how quickly they catch on and how well they play.

Today they get to hear an actual Statavarius played.(spelling??)  They will get to play along on one composition, also.  A great opportunity.


Mar 12, 2012

Cattle Minerals

Okay, so I've been doing a bit of research on the whole mineral thing.  I've found that corn and barley are higher in selenium than oats, that parsnips are what I'm growing this year for fodder as they are higher in selenium, too.  I know I should watch out for too much selenium as it's toxic.  I have many more resources to check out on cattle care. 

Calcium 7500 to 8500 mg/per/day
Phosphorus 400 mg/per/day
Copper 150-250 mg/per/day
Manganese 1200 mg/per/day
Zinc 1200 to 1600 mg/per/day
Selenium 4 to 6 mg/per/day
Iodine 25-28 mg/per/day
Magnesium 5000 to 10,000 mg/per/day

http://www.bovineengineering.com/NL_minerals.html


The amount of minerals in your soil, hay and grains change the amount of supplemental minerals your cattle need.  Doing a soil test of pasture lands will help determine what amounts of additional minerals are needed.  And from there, I hope to figure out what to feed them to help them get an adequate amount.  Our local feedstore makes a custom mineral blend just for this area.  This is what I usually feed my cattle, but I would like to get by with a smaller bill at the feedstore.

Mar 10, 2012

A Question-Cattle and Minerals

So here's my question.  I would like to be able to raise our beef cattle from foods we've grown here-if we have to.  I realize that I can't get my own salt for them, but what about mineral supplements?  What vegetables and grains would be wise to grow that would include the minerals that the cattle are now getting from the loose mineral we purchase?  What did Pa Ingalls give his cows?  Our soil is lacking selenium here.  Would the grains and vegetables grown in it be lacking selenium too?  Is there a way to add selenium to the soil?  Any extension agents out there?
Thanks...

Mar 3, 2012

He's Baaaack--

With all of the headlines today, blogging about my cat seems so trivial, but I wanted to share God's answer to my son's prayer.

This is Chester-

This is Chester's normal state.  He's a stray that my honey picked up on his way home about 6 months ago.  He was matted and lonely.  He has only three legs that work, and since we took his mats off, a few bald spots.  Honey gave him to our son. 

Chester disappeared about three days ago, something he's never done before.  He was gone in all of that snow and we kept praying for his return. Honey and I had already figured he was gone for good.  Shame on us. I heard his lovely cat howl this morning and jumped out of bed to let him in.  

God answered our prayers in a great way. 

Our prayers today are for all of those left devasted by the storms going through our nation.



Mar 1, 2012

Calving Time

We finally got our snow.  There's about a foot of it on the ground, which is a good thing, we needed the moisture.

It's also calving time on the farm.  Our cows calve outside but not usually in this much snow. We have a couple of new heifers-first time calvers- that I'm a bit concerned about.  One girl is very 'petite' and she's ready to drop any day now.

So it's up and outside early every morning to check and then in three or four hour intervals until 10 or 11 at night.  I dread crawling from my warm bed, throwing some boots and a coat on and going outside.  My honey and I take turns, but I'm thinking I'm pretty lazy.  Once outside it's actually pretty nice.  The cattle are so big and pregnant that they let you scratch them under their chins and rub their ears, it's easier than trying to move away from you. :)

Our only milk cow should calve sometime in the next two weeks.  Fresh milk again!  Our daughter is getting a couple of pigs to raise on the milk.  We go through a lot of bacon and this might be a way to save a bit of money while eating "healthy bacon"?  Is there such a thing?

I think I'll call it a day a bit early. 
Good night.

Mar 29, 2012

Grocery Day

You can tell when the groceries are getting low at our house.  Kids are complaining about no snacks and I make a lot of trips to the cellar to get food.
Living out of our cellar stock isn't really that bad.  Today, for dinner we dined on home grown mashed potatoes with home grown hamburger gravy.  I opened some home canned corn, applesauce, rhubarb desert and pickled garlic scapes.  It was a complete meal made completely from what we've raised ourselves.
So now it's off to town to buy some groceries.  Just wanted to say what a blessing it is to have food in the cellar.  We're working on using up our reserves to make room for this year's bounty. 
God is good.
P.S.  My spinach is up and it's snowing right now!!

Mar 19, 2012

#1 Calf-2012

Okay,so it's my third entry today.  I guess I just had a lot of stuff saved up.  It's still calving time here.  We have nine cows left to calve.  We also have the most wonderful weather in March that I can ever remember.  The calves are being born in 70 degrees and no snow.  Amazing!
Here's a picture of our first little bull calf.
He's a red bull so my son named him Energy.  Get it?? Red Bull, Energy??
These little calves are so cute, running and jumping.

I guess that's it for today. 
Have a blessed day.
From Glory Farm

Welding 101

Our older daughter came home for a couple days during spring break.  She had asked if she could try her hand at welding.  So...seeing a great blogging opportunity, I quickly grabbed the camera and documented her experience.
Here she is set to go.  (She'll probably kill me for this one. ;) )
Getting ready to try again.  Our girl and my honey.

A sample of her work.
She's not ready to go into this as a full time profession, but she did get some idea of how to do it.  Our youngest daughter had lessons afterward, but I forgot to get pics of that-next time.

On Tour With the Orchestra

Our little orchestra went on tour in our little town.  We had three different venues that the children played at.
Here is the first stop-the services and training program.
Stop two-the senior apartments.
Stop three-the Age to Age program.
Some of the members have only been playing for a few months, some for five years.  It's amazing how quickly they catch on and how well they play.

Today they get to hear an actual Statavarius played.(spelling??)  They will get to play along on one composition, also.  A great opportunity.


Mar 12, 2012

Cattle Minerals

Okay, so I've been doing a bit of research on the whole mineral thing.  I've found that corn and barley are higher in selenium than oats, that parsnips are what I'm growing this year for fodder as they are higher in selenium, too.  I know I should watch out for too much selenium as it's toxic.  I have many more resources to check out on cattle care. 

Calcium 7500 to 8500 mg/per/day
Phosphorus 400 mg/per/day
Copper 150-250 mg/per/day
Manganese 1200 mg/per/day
Zinc 1200 to 1600 mg/per/day
Selenium 4 to 6 mg/per/day
Iodine 25-28 mg/per/day
Magnesium 5000 to 10,000 mg/per/day

http://www.bovineengineering.com/NL_minerals.html


The amount of minerals in your soil, hay and grains change the amount of supplemental minerals your cattle need.  Doing a soil test of pasture lands will help determine what amounts of additional minerals are needed.  And from there, I hope to figure out what to feed them to help them get an adequate amount.  Our local feedstore makes a custom mineral blend just for this area.  This is what I usually feed my cattle, but I would like to get by with a smaller bill at the feedstore.

Mar 10, 2012

A Question-Cattle and Minerals

So here's my question.  I would like to be able to raise our beef cattle from foods we've grown here-if we have to.  I realize that I can't get my own salt for them, but what about mineral supplements?  What vegetables and grains would be wise to grow that would include the minerals that the cattle are now getting from the loose mineral we purchase?  What did Pa Ingalls give his cows?  Our soil is lacking selenium here.  Would the grains and vegetables grown in it be lacking selenium too?  Is there a way to add selenium to the soil?  Any extension agents out there?
Thanks...

Mar 3, 2012

He's Baaaack--

With all of the headlines today, blogging about my cat seems so trivial, but I wanted to share God's answer to my son's prayer.

This is Chester-

This is Chester's normal state.  He's a stray that my honey picked up on his way home about 6 months ago.  He was matted and lonely.  He has only three legs that work, and since we took his mats off, a few bald spots.  Honey gave him to our son. 

Chester disappeared about three days ago, something he's never done before.  He was gone in all of that snow and we kept praying for his return. Honey and I had already figured he was gone for good.  Shame on us. I heard his lovely cat howl this morning and jumped out of bed to let him in.  

God answered our prayers in a great way. 

Our prayers today are for all of those left devasted by the storms going through our nation.



Mar 1, 2012

Calving Time

We finally got our snow.  There's about a foot of it on the ground, which is a good thing, we needed the moisture.

It's also calving time on the farm.  Our cows calve outside but not usually in this much snow. We have a couple of new heifers-first time calvers- that I'm a bit concerned about.  One girl is very 'petite' and she's ready to drop any day now.

So it's up and outside early every morning to check and then in three or four hour intervals until 10 or 11 at night.  I dread crawling from my warm bed, throwing some boots and a coat on and going outside.  My honey and I take turns, but I'm thinking I'm pretty lazy.  Once outside it's actually pretty nice.  The cattle are so big and pregnant that they let you scratch them under their chins and rub their ears, it's easier than trying to move away from you. :)

Our only milk cow should calve sometime in the next two weeks.  Fresh milk again!  Our daughter is getting a couple of pigs to raise on the milk.  We go through a lot of bacon and this might be a way to save a bit of money while eating "healthy bacon"?  Is there such a thing?

I think I'll call it a day a bit early. 
Good night.