Spring, Farming, and Projects!

Life gets a little busy at times for any mom, but I regret that I haven't had time to blog lately. I've been busy with a lot of little (and some big) projects, kids and work. Eric is busy out in the field and on the farm, and I am busy with refinishing furniture, painting bedrooms and the bathroom, and keeping up with the house and gardens. We've spent very little time outdoors until a week ago because it rained almost every day. Now that it is nice, it is hard to sit still knowing that there is so much to be done!

 

Memorial Day 2014

 

Clara's birthday was a lot of fun. We did a farm theme, of course. I'm shocked I hadn't done that one yet! The cake took me FOREVER, or at least 3 hours. And Clara got a nice black eye for all of her birthday pictures with a minor incident on the stairs. But all in all, I'm really enjoying this whole throw a big birthday party thing. Let's hope I outgrow this phase in a year or two.

 

 

 

 

 

The kids really enjoyed the piñata... except that they couldn't break it. A bunch of little girls vs. piñata equals an adult needing to get involved.

 

 

Memorial Day was enjoyable.  There are a lot of birthdays in the month of May, so a lot of time was spent with family this month. Family is such a joy, and I truly appreciate how close we all are on both sides.  I took some pictures of the girls on Memorial Day with their red, white, and blue outfits because they were so cute in coordinating colors.

 

 

 

I will have to post some pictures later of the furniture and house projects. I have been having a lot of fun with a coffee table and television cabinet. I'd bought these two units for sale at the Crawford Furniture liquidation, and they weren't quite the right stain color. So I sanded with an orbital power-sander, stained, and sealed... I've never done any of that before so it was quite a learning experience!

 

We also bought a Hoosier Cabinet: 

 

 

If you're like me and not familiar with Hoosier Cabinets, Wikipedia can explain it to you. It is in good condition, and I was really excited to get it home, cleaned up, and stocked with some of our overflowing kitchen items that I never seem to find a good home for.  We'll eventually put this in our new kitchen or pantry area when we get to that house remodeling project.

 

We haven't planted our vegetable garden yet, but hope to do that soon. I did buy some rhubarb (about 14 pounds of it!) and made rhubarb sauce.  I froze the rest, and intend to make a few (or several) batches of strawberry-rhubarb jam, which Eric claims is better than regular strawberry jam.  More precious than gold, I realized last year, when he hoarded it and wouldn't let me give any away! 

 

 

Happy Spring!

 

 

Milk

For anyone who doesn't know us, we are in the milk producing business.

Our cows make the healthiest product in the world, and what other fluid can you take and make into hundreds (or thousands?) of other products that are tasty and good for you too?

I've always been unsure of how to answer people who think that humans are not made to consume milk as adults.  But I read this interesting article today that I just had to share.  I've never thought about it like this, but there is evidence that we WEREN'T able to drink milk as adults, but our genes have changed over time to give us "lactose persistency" or "lactose tolderance."  And that happened because milk has been so good for people's health.

So enjoy a glass of milk while you read this interesting article.

First Snow

Today marks the first snowfall to stick to the ground- November 24, 2012.

 

 

Anna woke up super excited to see snow and wanted to go out to make a snowman.  There wasn't enough to make a snowman, but we did get bundled up and venture out.  Her gloves came off almost immediately, because she wanted to feel the snow.  We took a walk to the barn to see the cows, and to escape from the bitter wind.

 

Anna fed the cows.  Most of them were not interested in eating from her hand, but a few ventured closer to give her a sniff.

 



 

I couldn't resist putting baby Clara down and snapping a picture of her, too.

 

 

I took this next photo of Anna at the same age.

 

 



Picking Pumpkins

 

Eric threw some seeds out in a compost pile, and pumpkins and squash grew wild.  We took the girls out to pick some pumpkins a few weeks before Halloween.

 

 

Anna looked at the pumpkins when I asked her to sit on one and said, "Cold I think."  She didn't really want to touch them because they just might get her hands dirty, but she did sit on one for a picture, anyway.

 

Baby Clara watched from her carseat.  At times she was not amused by being so bundled up.

 

Anna sat in the bucket of the tractor as Eric loaded pumpkins.  She especially liked the big ones, heavier and bigger around than her.

 

Eric did all of the heavy lifting, while we watched and took pictures.  :)

 

Anna got to ride on the tractor home. 

 

 

What a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the fall!

Mama and Bapa Knight's Farm

On Friday I dropped the girls off for work and when I returned "Bapa Knight" was combining, so we hopped in the combine for a little ride.  This was actually my first ride in the combine, but I recall many hours of riding with my grandfather or dad on tractors, usually while they spread manure over the fields.  I always enjoyed watching for wildlife, and the silence was never a bad thing.  In fact, there was always a comfort in the quiet nature of my dad and grandfather as they drove.

 

If you've never ridden on a combine before, here is a video so that you can have a first hand experience, too.

 

 

We were competing with rain that afternoon, so when my dad dropped us off, we ran back up the hill to the house.  I had fun taking Anna's picture as we ran up the hill.  In a few of them, I really think she looks like me when I was little and playing around the farm.  I'll have to dig some of those pictures out.

 

 

 

Do you like her bib overalls?

 

A Corn Binder

 

If you don't know my husband, he's an old fashioned kind of guy.  He likes old wooden clogs from Sweden, hangs original framed paintings of his ancestors on our walls, and sometimes pulls out his great-grandfather's pipe just to have it between his teeth (not to smoke). He also has two great big Belgian draft horses named Jerry and Digger that he occasionally uses for field work.

 

The dog, Sadie, likes to make sure everyone is behaving.  She sat in front of Jerry and Digger just in case they decided to take off.



 

These boys are gentle giants.  I feel fairly comfortable letting Anna be around them.  You can never be too careful, though.  One kick could knock you out.

 

After Eric's first pass at our two rows of corn in our garden, he had to pause to figure out why it wasn't tying the bundles of corn.  The corn runs through the binder and at intervals it is supposed to make a bundle and tie a string around it.  It was bundling, but wasn't releasing any string.  Anna watched her dad work, but was eventually impatient for a ride.

 

So Eric took Anna for a little ride and did the last row.  We now have several bundles of corn, which he leaned up into 3 "shocks" of corn stalks.

 

Afterward, we relaxed in the barn.  Anna and Daddy had their drinks of choice- pepsi and milk.  Anna says, "cheers, Daddy."

 

Fun on the Farm!

 

Anna has so much fun going to the barn to visit the animals.  I told her, let's get your bibs on like daddy and go to the barn!  She replies, "Look mommy, I'm a farmer, like daddy!"

 

Feeding the Calves!

Anna was so cute feeding the calves the other day that I had to run back to the house to get my camera.  Our calves are housed outdoors in huts.  This works really well for calves because they prefer to be outdoors with plenty of ventilation, light, and cool air.  They even do well in the winter, although we do put tarps up to shelter them better from the wind. 

Anna spent about half an hour just moving grain buckets from one calf to the other.  Some were heavier than others, which she found challenging.  Sometimes she stacked three buckets together, and sometimes she distributed one to each calf.

Move it here...

Move it there...

Oops, this one needs a bucket, too!

She also enjoyed identifying the colors of the buckets.

She says, "Yay, Anna feedin' the calves!"

The calves were curious about what was going on.

Look how cute her butt is all muddy.  She fell down a little incline.  It had been raining for a couple of days off and on, so her new little pink boots were getting broken in well.

Ta-Da!

Of Life and Death...

This morning Eric brought 3 roosters to the Amish for slaughter.  We bought 12 baby chicks in March to raise up for eggs.  The chicks were supposed to be sorted for sex (all females) but we ended up with 4 roosters out of the bunch.  We really just want eggs, but the roosters will make good meat.  We are keeping one of them just for kicks and to hear the early morning "cock-a-doodle-doo!" that we've gotten used to.

Eric brought one of the roosters over for Anna to pet while we were loading the car for work in the morning.  She pet him and was pretty excited to see him up close.  She played with the baby chicks when they were little, but this big guy looks nothing like the fuzzy baby he started out to be.  She really enjoys listening to them crow in the morning and early afternoon (yes, I never knew that they were so vocal in the afternoon as well as the break of dawn). 

She had no idea that this guy was on his way to be slaughtered.  Even if she did know, she will be raised face to face with the cycle of life on the farm.  Calves are born, baby bulls are sent to the auction barn within a few days, and older mother cows who aren't productive anymore are sent for meat.  I've grown up knowing how all of this works, and you learn to not get attached.  Such is the life on a farm!

County Fair!

This was Clara's first fair.  I of course couldn't resist buying two cow outfits online at zulily.com at least 6 months ago, with the intention of dressing the girls up in them for the Fair.  Anna's was a cute black and white checkered dress with a cow face on the front and two cow-print bows on the shoulders.  Clara's was actually a boy's outfit that came with a green shirt.  I ordered the outfit before she was confirmed to be another girl.  I just swapped out the green shirt for a pink onesie, some pink frilly socks, and a pink headband. 

Not shown anywhere in the pictures are her really cute shoes.  They look like a cow, complete with a little cow tail hanging off of the back.  They say "moo" on the bottom of each foot.  Anna wore them for her first fair.  This is Anna at her first fair in 2010.  We spent all week there because I was still on maternity leave.

I haven't missed the Fair since I started showing dairy cows in 1999.  Now I am just a spectator at the cow shows, but I've spent quite a few years participating.  I expect that the girls will want to show cows when they are old enough. 

Saturday's Black and White Holstein show is always a big deal, so I brought both girls up for the day.  Showing cows is a competitive sport, believe it or not.  Eric's family still shows their registered Holsteins each year, and my youngest sister, Emily, brought a cow in to show for her last year in the youth show (up to age 21).  We were happy that she won Best Bred and Owned of the Holstein Youth Show.  During the show, I took the girls for strolls through the sheep and pig barns.
 

Anna really loves sheep.

She wanted to pet this one so bad!

Clara, 2.5 months old, slept a lot, and was pretty good the whole day.  I had to take her back to the car just once to nurse her and change diapers.  Otherwise she was either asleep or awake and looking around at all of the sights and sounds.

Anna had fun watching the cows in the show ring and being with her family.

But as the day wore on, Anna got really tired.  She was a little grumpy by the end of the show.  By 3pm, she fell asleep in the stroller, and slept the whole way home.