What have you been up to lately?

I've been canning grape juice,taking care of super cute pigs,building the addition,milking, and worrying over Lucy...

Spinach

The spinach has been trying to go to seed, I decided today to go ahead and harvest all we had and freeze some for later. I am sad to see it go we really love having fresh spinach and I sneak it into everything I can. With the hot humid weather we will have to do with other greens until fall.

escape artists

We have had sheep here on the farm for five years without any real problems. The ewes are content to stay in the pasture and graze with treats now and again. They are usually wonderful at keeping the new lambs from wondering off. This year however the lambs have been a huge headache. They really do not want to stay in the pasture with their mothers. They have found treats in the orchard and recently the garden and now have no fears of the electric fence. I have put them back in the pasture as many as 6 times in one day! It was just too much when they discovered the garden, they topped about half of the peppers, ate about 30 cauliflower plants, trimmed the lettuce and cabbages. It didn't bother me too much when they were just eating the grass but when thy started having a salad as well we had to figure something out. We made a weaning pen up by the garden,and moved all the ram lambs there. We had a few days of crying for mama but now they seem to be content. I have been giving them black oil sunflower seeds to win them over with great success. We do not have a butcher date yet so for now I have an audience during my weeding sessions in the garden.

Missouri Storms

We spent some time in the new basement yesterday, the tornado sirens were going off and the clouds above the farm were churning. It was very scary to say the least. We have a lovely root cellar but it has lots of spiders and creepies that love it as well,so we opted for the basement. Our basement is in the not quite finished addition so we have to go outside and then down a ladder to get there. It was a pain with the kiddos, I will be thrilled when the addition is finished and we can just go down stairs in the house.
The sirens in town went off so the older girls that were in school were ushered down to the basement of the school, they kept them there for about a hour. It is such a worry to have things like this happen and everyone spread all over. #1 was at work, Hunky Hubby was at work also, #3 at school in town and the rest of the family here at the farm. Hubby was in the shelter at work, sirens and tornadoes all over the metro area. I just prayed we would all be safe, I would of felt so much better if we were all together, we survived but all these storms are getting scary.

Is it time to build an Ark?

We have had a wet year so far. We have averaged over one inch of rain a week for the past 7 weeks!! I love that I don't have to water and the thought of all that lovely lush green grass is awesome, but the tons of mud in the house is having me wish for dryer weather.
We have been blessed with safety during the storms, with funnel clouds popping up not 10 miles away. I have family in southern Missouri and it is heart stopping to see the damage from the recent storms.

New cow........well sort of

This is Darla. She is a Normandy cow. We bought her to add some "beefyness" to our milk cows. She is a small cow and has been milking wonderfully. She came from a local farmer who had never worked with her what so ever. She had never been in a barn, never been touched, never been around a woman ..... you get the idea. She wasn't to thrilled with the idea of milking and I have the bruises to prove it. She is a kicker. I spent many hours working with her and talking to her and finally I got her to come into the stanchion and milked without kicking. YIPPEE!!!
When we bought her the farmer said he would pay for a vet visit just to make sure all was well. We made an apt. with our local large animal vet and loaded Darla in the stock trailer. We get to the vet and first thing he checks her ear for her tattoo from when she was calf vaccinated, this would tell us about how old she was. Well he found it and checked the records only to find that she was vaccinated WAY back in 98!!! UGHHH that means that she is 13 or 14 years old!! Yikes that is pretty old for a cow. I paid a pretty penny for her, top price in fact, and she is really too old for us. The farmer we got her from was with us and he ended up taking her back to his place. I was irritated, he had told me that he thought that she was about 5 or 6, big difference from 13-14. He was a chap and gave me back my money but that doesn't help us with the cow issue.

May Garden

The changes of life

Photo by ladybugbkt

So once again things are changing here on the farm. We have had some difficulty with #4's teachers. I have been to the school more times than I can could count and was re-teaching everything to him when he got home form school. The teacher was unkind in so many ways, it was just too much.
I took the leap and we are now homeschooling #4 and #5. It is a big step, I am still a bit shocked at our choice but I can already see a huge difference in attitude and self esteem. A poor teacher can really do quite a bit of dammage and we are working on repairing that.
I have some friends that Homeschool, (and do it well)and have gotten so much help from them. I LOVE the curriuclms that we are using and it really makes teaching my kiddos fun. I am glad for the change but terrified all the same. I love being with the kids and they have really stepped it up a notch and are doing wonderful things.

I love the ups man.........

I got an amazing early birthday gift today from Hunky Hubby!!! I was so excited that #1 thought that I might be loosing my marbles.
I do a ton of canning in the summer, and love to use my pressure canner. I had one that would can 7 quarts at once, that is OK if you only do a bit of canning. Two years ago I canned over 1500 quarts all of them 7 at a time. I spent most of the summer standing at the stove.
I am so thrilled with the new canner, it will process 19 quarts at a time!!!! It is a huge thing and weighs almost 40 pounds. I think my canning will go much faster with this new addition. I think I could just scream I am so excited!! Thanks Hubby..

Baby #6 has some talent!!

Baby 6 had always loved music. Just turn on some music or sing her an song and she turns from screaming to a little princess. We have a recorder that the kids use for school and she had figured out how it works. It is so sweet. She blows and moves her fingers to get it to make different sounds and them grins like a cheschire cat when it works. Babies are so wonderful in that they show pure joy at simple things. I wonder when we loose that.. it is so hard sometimes to just enjoy life. Things have been busy here and we have spent way too much time with doctors lately...but I have really been enjoying the greenhouse,sewing and my new coupon love. I guess being busy is a good thing......

Learning new things is fun!

We use cloth diapers for baby #6 and a few weeks ago there was a diaper swap at our local cloth diaper store. I was able to sell off the diapers that were getting too small and in the process I met a lovely lady. We were stationed close to each other during the swap and we got to talking. She was amazing and I learned a very use full thing from her that I have always been curious about..coupons. Yep I know it is silly but there have been several times in my life when I have been at the market behind some lady with a buggy stacked with groceries and hands the checker a fist full of coupons and her total ends up being something like $4.23!! How do they do that??? I really have wondered... we don't buy much processed foods and our grocery budget is not horrid with the huge garden and animals, but you still have to buy some things, why not get them for cheap??
So anyway we went to lunch and she told me all the scoop on coupons. I came home and was really excited to get started. One major problem was getting the coupons, we live in the country and getting the Sunday paper delivered doesn't work and we do not shop on Sunday.. what's a farm girl to do?? Raid the recycling that's what and I scored big time. I came home with the coupon inserts from several weeks. I found a great website that tells you what coupons to use and where so I ventured out. Walgreens is close and they had a few things that were on sale that we use. I have to admit that I was worried... what if all this doesn't go as planned and I have this buggy full of stuff and not really wanting to pay full price for any of it. I watched as the checker rang me up....23.56..47.79...85.61...my total was getting higher and higher..till it finally reached 120.64! (OUCH!! I have NEVER spent that much at Walgreens) I was probably white as a sheet.. I handed over my coupons...OK here we go I thought this is not going to work out and Hunky Hubby is gonna kill me.... 120.64..95.25...87.23..74.00..62.29..40.99..34.75.... and finally 31.89!! 31.89?? really?? Oh my GOSH!! that was so COOL!! I also got two coupons for my next visit to Walgreen totaling $8.00. So I got $120.64 dollars of stuff for $23.89... Yep I'm hooked

Back in the groove of things........

Baby #6 will be one in a few weeks, my how things change. She is a happy baby and we are so blessed to have her in our home. With her arrival I decided to take some time off from just about everything. We stopped milking,stopped the CSA and had a very small garden this past summer. With a year to just hand out with my kids at the pool and play I am really ready to be productive again.
I have started the garden plans for this year and am doing a VERY limited CSA. I love being outside and having my hands in the dirt. I am excited to get things going again and see all that lovely produce.. I have been drooling over the seed catalogs. When the weather is cold and nasty it is so fun to dream of gardens and tomatoes!