Year-end farm review.

2017 was a bittersweet year on our farm.

At the beginning of the year, we started building the barn and looked into ways to breed our pigs.

We got the pigs bread and that was both happy and sad as most of my readers know, our one pig yum yum turned out to be a very bad mother and although I did everything humanly possible we lost all but one, of her 10 piglets.

Bean is the one piglet remaining from yum yum's litter and we fought hard for her to be as well as she is.

Primrose had a beautiful litter of 11 babies. We lost one in the first two days but everyone else thrived.

We had the vet come out to do our very first health check and ear tags for all the piglets, this was mayhem and took us two hours to catch the little buggers.

Once that was done they all went to their new homes, all but two.

Peper and Pericilia are still with us despite losing their mother to hardware diseases.

Priscilla is still in a trial period as to whether or not she will be bread.

I am unsure whether she has the loving personality her mother had. 

Primrose, you are missed!

We butchered our first steer this year and I was thrilled at how well he turned out. 

One of my customers said it was the best beef he had ever eaten and since he is a foodie, I take this as a huge compliment.

Thank you, Duffer.

Daisy had her baby early this year and due to some trouble with her utter health and an accident, little Bit is destined for the freezer earlier than expected. 

He will not grow properly or be able to get around well do to an ACL injury.

Daisy is, however, doing well and expecting another baby in March, our first Charolais babies on our farm, we are excited to see how its coloring turned out because Charolais are all white.

We finished our barn in a little over a year with the two of us working on it.

It has been beyond words amazing to have everyone inside.

Daisy epically loves it.

We had a good year for all our crops.

Sugaring was an average year.

Haying was a little tricky because we had so much rain but we got it all done.

We raised and butchered 12 meat birds Successfully and are considering going bigger this coming year and perhaps introducing meat ducks and turkeys into the mix of birds we rase.

Our 12 new laying hens are still doing well and someone just laid her first egg yesterday.

Our farm dog Jack went through a troubling bought of Lyme disease this year but I am happy to report he is just now fully coming out of it and doing great again.

2017 taught me a lot about farming, that showed us you never stop learning. I have lived and worked on a farm since I was around 2 years old and I learned more this year than any other I can remember.

 Never stop learning, never think you know it all, life will show you that you don't!

Happy new year, I am looking forward to another year of farming, and I wish for good things to come for all of us.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

The barn window last night.

Yesterday I woke up with a cold and the thermometer saying 10 below zero.

Today the thermometer says 16 below zero, and I'm feeling worse.

This is tough weather on the animals especially if they do not have shelter. 

Luckily with our new barn, this is not an issue for us.

Cows are pretty tough Critters and the colder it gets the thicker there fur gets, which can be darn right adorable when they get very fuzzy. They can handle the cold pretty well as long as they have the opportunity to stay dry and get out of the wind. 

They also need to be fed very well to keep their body temperature up. 

Pigs, however, do not handle this cold as well at all, even though they do have hairs on their skin they are not furry. They have a much harder time keeping their body heat in and who can blame them would you like to go outside naked? 

The birds are vulnerable to this type of weather, the chickens especially. 

The Ducks are better suited,  they have a thick layer of fat and very thick waterproof feathers so they actually very much enjoy the snow and like to play in it.

 They can have problems with their beaks freezing shut if you're not careful about how you feed them because Ducks prefer to eat their food wet, it is healthier for them and safer because that is how they are naturally made to eat.

Chickens have a harder time keeping themselves warm and are susceptible to becoming very wet and chilled. Our hens are in the barn and the coop with heat lamps and this helps them, they do perfectly fine in this weather if they have that opportunity to warm up. 

 Below 20 degrees I tend to keep my animals inside, not for long periods of time if I can help it because they get stir-crazy for more than a few days at a time and the barn will get very messy.

This causes another problem for farmers in this type of weather because it's harder to clean out their stalls.

A lot of times their manure freezes and there isn't a heck of a lot you can do about it. Sometimes you can chip it off the cement floor and remove it, but sometimes you just have to give them a whole heap of new bedding and bury it so that they're not laying on it.

As I have said before I like the cold but this kind of cold can be dangerous and unpleasant, and it is worse because I have a cold right now. 

Farmers tend to not work outside when it is this cold if they can help it because as I just said it is truly dangerous to be exposed to this kind of cold for too long. 

I have deep sympathy for all the wild animals when it becomes like this. 

This is good timing for me because it's so cold I can't work outside anyways so it's nice to be cozy and held up in the house while I'm sick.

Hopefully, this will blow over in a few days because regardless of whether a farmer is sick or not, the Animals still need to be fed and kept clean and warm.

so I will be pulling on my boots and charging out to the barn twice a day the entire time I'm sick regardless. 

This is just how we do it, it's built into our life.

I'm not saying that I don't give my body time to rest and recuperate from being ill, but I still need to do, what I need to do, for my animals and that is just the fact of a Farmer's Life. 

Stay warm everyone and please remember to dress properly, it is very important!

Winter wonderland.

I love winter.  

I love how the woods are blanked in frosted crystal and how peaceful and quiet it is.

I love how when you wake up in middle of the night and its snowing the world is completely still and silent.

I love how the snow can make even the most mundane things look pretty.

I don't even mind the cold, it feels healthy and refreshing to me.

That's a good thing considering how often I'm outside in it.

The one thing I don't understand about winter is the way people dress. 

It's astonishing to me to go downtown on a 20° day and see folks in sneakers or ballet flats, wearing sweaters as coats and leggings that don't meet their sox. 

I am not being judgmental of peoples fashion here, I'm concerned for a real reason. 

When we go out to work we are out there for hours on end, we must dress properly!

I know what you are thinking. We live where we work, can't we just go in and get warm? Not necessarily.

We farm 150 acres, we drive four-wheelers to get to where we are working, sometimes tractors as well. 

What happens if we are in the back 40 and what we are driving breaks down or gets stuck? We walk! Do you know how long it takes to get frostbite if its 0° with a wind chill? About 30 minutes. 

How long would it take for us to walk home from that back side of our farm? 

About an hour on foot. That's not considering hypothermia or getting deadly chilled either. 

Most of the time we would not just leave the broken down or stuck wheels. We would walk back to get something else to drive and head back out to fix out the first problem.

So how does one survive this cold?

Easy, you dress correctly. 

Layers are a farmer's best friend.

I wear anywhere between 8 and 10 layers, this includes real warm sox, leggings under my jeans. A tank top then a long sleeve shirt a sweater, a flees jacket a down vest, then my Carhartt coat.

Always a hat and sometimes a buff and a scarf too. 

I see the young people dressed barely warm enough for 40° and I worry about there safety. It's crazy to go out in anything other than a winter cost and boots if its anywhere around 30°. 

What if the car breaks down? What if any number of emergencies happen. They will not handle it well. 

My grandfather always taught me to be prepared, Be ready for anything, the Weather can change without notice. 

You can come across an accident that you weren't expecting, a storm can come blow up that wasn't predicted, there's an endless number of unpredictable and unexpected things can happen. 

we've come across 

car accidents before and we had to help the people in the vehicle before the EMTs arrived. Life is unpredictable.

You just don't know, you must prepare yourself to be safe and take care of yourself. 

All young women go through a phase where they don't want to put a coat over there carefully thought about an outfit, I get it, I was 16 once too but my grandfather taught me a very important lesson.

 One day when I was getting ready to go out (I believe we were possibly going to cut down a Christmas tree on the mountain) I had worn platform sneakers, wide leg jeans and just a vest over my long sleeve shirt.

My grandfather protested the outfit. 

My family was not terribly argumentative, but we were disagreeing with the fact that what I was wearing was perfectly fine.

He did not think it was. "You are going to freeze." He informed me.

 I insisted that I would be completely fine and he gave up telling me that: "I would understand why he was so worried by the end of the day."

He let me leave the house like that and I'm very glad he did, I would never have learned the lesson otherwise.

By halfway, through the day I was freezing! 

I had not known that he had hidden an extra coat and blanket in the car so that I could warm up. 

He asked me on the way home if I understood now why he wanted me to dress better? 

I did, And from that day on I dressed properly for the weather.
My grandfather always wanted me to be prepared, he told me to never buy a pair of heels or shoes that I did not think I could run in because you just never know!

My grandfather was a smart man and he wanted me to take care of myself and be prepared for anything.

 Now that I'm grown I feel I can, I thank him for that.

My Grandmother had a different approach, "we paid for you to have that warm coat, your darn well-going wear it!" my grandparents were on a fixed income and I understood, even then, that everything they gave me was hard earned. I respected the effort, therefore, the item as well. 

 I understand a lot of peoples income has a lot to do with what they purchase, however this, in my opinion, is not an excuse. 

There are second-hand stores, there are donation places, there's help for low-income families, there are tag sales all throughout the season. 

My husband and I are not wealthy, yet we own several pairs of very warm good coats that we bought second-hand for very little, sometimes nothing.

So, please! Please! Learn to dress properly for the weather that you live in.

 I do not want to come across any of my readers Frozen on the sidewalk someday please heed my warning because if anybody knows about surviving out in the weather it's a farmer.

It's a dusty job, But...

Making grain.
Not surprisingly grain is a very important thing on every Farm.
We grow and make our own, this starts off in the spring when we plant our oats.

We plant and harvest about 20 acres of oats, from this we get two crops, the oat seeds, and the oat straw.
This is shared between us, and our customers.
Oat straw makes wonderful garden mulch and bedding for animals.

We clean and dry the oats in our grain handling equipment, and then it gets stored in Grain silos, not as big a silos you are used to seeing, but still can hold 300 bushels.

(A bushel of oats is equal to about 32 lbs.)

We are very lucky to possess a very old and unique piece of farming equipment, it is called a palletizing mill.
This pelletizing mill is what we use to make grain for the animals.
The mill gets Feed from a hopper above it where the grain is stored, this makes it very easy to make the gain, all you need is to hook up the tractor to the PTO shaft, that runs the mill.

I realize this may be a little hard for some of you who are unfamiliar with these terms and equipment to understand, that is why I am adding photos with small explanations of each thing further down in this blog.

Making grain is a loud and Dusty job, that is why I am completely in love with my Bluetooth noise-blocking headphones so that I can still hear my phone if my husband needs to call me because he has a flat tire. 
(It happens pretty often)
 It also blocks out at least some of the noise of the mill that is running.
Right now I am making two kinds of grain, I am mixing some supplements for our pullet chickens. 
(Remember pullets are teenagers.)

Because they are young they need the exact right balance of minerals and nutrients until they are fully grown, so I'm mixing this into their grain which is separate from everyone else's.
It's very high in iron and would not necessarily be good for other animals.
 (especially sheep, If we had any.)

I'm also making grain for the cows and the pigs this is simply oats mixed with some leftover Rye that we have and some black beans, which is good protein and fiber, very good for the cows and the pigs especially in the winter time.
(All of our grains are grown organically and are non-GMO.)

The PTO shaft on the tractor is a star lock, that you hook the shaft too, this shaft spins the entire thing which turns on the other end of the mill.
This causes the wheels to turn when the grain falls into the hopper of the mill it gets crushed by the wheels. 

Gravity and the weight of the Turning Wheels,
Then pushes it through the holes in the plate, that is in the mill, the plate sizes can be changed to have different sizes and types of grain.
Then the grain falling out underneath the plate get pushed out the spout into my waiting container or bag.

Because of the force and friction of the wheel the grain comes out hot, this is not because we are heating it on purpose this is just a natural side effect of using this type of mill.

A PTO shaft on a tractor is very dangerous and must be kept away from as much as possible.
 I worry about the dogs and I'm sure to keep them away from it.
It is extremely powerful and if you catch a piece of loose clothing or some hair, it will wrap it up sort of like a blender would if you caught something similar in the blades. Except it is a lot stronger and can actually remove a limb.
This is why it is very important to be careful around the Grain mill.

So there you have it, 700 lb of grain made for my critters will last a little under a month. The cow gets a scoop twice a day, along with hay and grazing ability weather permitting.
The pigs get a 5-gallon bucket of grain mixed with water, warm in the winter. And whatever other kitchen scraps we have around, twice a day as well.
 The chickens get their grain Hopper filled once a day and currently the meat birds are going through about 25 lb a day they are close to butchered time and I will be relieved when that finally happens because they're pretty much eating us out of house and home.

Whole Oats before grinding.

Oat grain pelites after grinding, with added vitamins.

Why (farm) dogs rule.

There has long been a war between cat and dog people over what pet was the better of the two.
I am here to tell you why dogs win.

First off let me be clear, I have lived with both pets my whole life, I had loved many a cat, cried when they died of old age, and cherished them for their gifts.
This is who I would choose if forced.
Dogs are better!

First off dogs (usually) don't go to the bathroom in the house!
(Good training helps.)

Side note: dogs, with proper training also tend to be much more polite than cats.

Cat litter boxes are gross! They smell and need to be cleaned far too often. Even with our cat who lives outside a big chunk of the time, we still need to clean his box.
 I repeat it's gross!

Our dog, on the other hand, gives me 'the look' asking to go outside, I open the door and let him out and that's it I'm done!
 I understand people in cities have to pick up their dog's poo with little baggies. 
That too is gross!

 Farm dogs do not need this cleanup crew, they only need to be let out, here they have a 130-acre bathroom. 

Our dog is very shy and he prefers to go in the woods behind the ferns in private, and I am grateful for this.

The one time I did have to pick up his poo, when we were camping, he looked at me with this expression on his face and I knew he was thinking- "Mom! What are you doing!"

Also when we took our dog to the vet because he seemed under the weather, they ask me how his bathroom habits were, I had no idea! 
I'm okay with this, I really am.

 I have Family members who treat their dogs as if they were children and I mean really as if they were children. They would even update us on their bathroom habits and how colored their little poopies were.
 I love this family member very much but I could not stand this, I do not need to know how your dog poops were this morning, thank you very much!

I've heard pro-cat people argue, dogs chew things and the cats do not. 
This is not true. first of all, I have had many a cat chew something that they were not supposed to chew, for instance, when I was young my Barbie's hair. They threw it up on my bed later that day.

Puppies only chew things that they're not supposed to if they have not been given enough proper chew toys and Direction on what is okay to chew and what is not.
 They also need lots of choices, because as with children they bore of something quickly, so lots of chew toys for the little guys when they are teething.
Also, for the record, I have never lost a single pair of shoes to a puppy dog. I have however found decapitated mice in my shoes, along with Chipmunks and other things placed there by, Guess Who the cat!

I have also heard the argument by pro-cat people that cats are cleaner. My answer to this is, um no! 
Cats crawl in behind things where it is Dusty and cobwebbed and they chase rats and mice. They go to wear those rodents have been and come out with their poop stuck to their paws, That's gross! 
Dogs also do not walk on you with cat-pan paws. 
As far as I know, I've never seen a dog dip its paws into the toilet and then jump up on my bed, but our cat does!

dogs are also much easier to bathe their for easier to keep clean, also our dog swims a lot so he tends to keep clean "mostly," on his own.

I've also heard the argument that cats are better groomers, this is not always the case.
We have a long haired cat that constantly gets mats because he does not groom his hair. We have to cut and brush the mats out to keep him up. 
My dog, however, trims his own nails with his teeth, pulls his own burdock out of everywhere he can reach, and if he can't reach the burdock, he comes to me and asks for help.

Meanwhile, we have to hold our cat down in a towel and try to brush him, he doesn't like it!

I've also heard people say they do not like how codependent dogs are.
I love that my dog loves me. I love to be greeted at the door and have somebody excited that I'm home. (Although truth be told my husband's always happy when I'm home to.)
All though, I believe this is attached to personally and treatment, you can make your dog codependent if you want to, I don't recommend it.

Please do not think that I am one of those people that needs a dog's approval to be okay with who I am because I don't! 

The only approval I need to be okay with who I am is on my own, and I have that.

 I love dogs because we have a mutual love and admiration for each other, and I love that my dog seems to know what I'm thinking. He knows me, he knows who I am at a deeper level than most humans. (discluding my husband from this statement)
Jack, (the dog) just gets me because we are very much the same.

I connect very well with animals on most levels, but dogs are special.

It's very rare that we do not bring our dog with us but the few times we do leave him home what happens as soon as we open the door? 
Both the cat and dog are there but the cat runs out and disappears into the woods, acting as if he was dying waiting for us to open the door like, "its about time!"
The dog, however, Wiggles his tail and greets us with a smiling face.

I understand that there are a lot of wonderful cats in the world and they have a lot of great things about them, but I have known many cats in my life and only a handful of them weren't jerks.

Our current cat is a jerk, he scratches and bites and growls and annoys. He comes in smelling like skunk and lays on the sofa, or Worse the bed! Then he tries to attack you when you try to wash the skunk off.

Yeah, Whiskers is a little bit of a jerk.

I have met very few dogs that were jerks. Most of them are kind and friendly and loving and willing to be your friend without question of what kind of person you are, at times to their detriment. This is also part of why I love dogs. They are so optimistic and trusting and easy to please. Some dogs can size up a person actuarily in a few seconds, I listen to my dogs when they don't like someone, you can learn a lot from them.

I still don't know what would please my cat, sometimes I think it's a can of tuna but half the time he won't eat it, so I still don't know.

 Dogs can be trusted with your deepest darkest Secrets.
They don't tell you when you're wrong, they don't judge you when you're sad, they don't make fun of you because you're imperfect. They love you regardless of all those things, they might even love you because of them.

Our two farm dogs recognize the sounds of all of our vehicles, from four-wheelers to our tractors. They are smart enough to know that is us coming up the driveway or across the field. They bark at strangers vehicles, but not ours.  Meanwhile are cats run frantically away from anything with wheels, and it doesn't matter who's driving, or how many times they've seen it. The fact that we've never hit them or even gotten close to that doesn't seem to matter. scaredy-cats!

Dogs protect you and your animals, they are intelligent skilled and good at their jobs. 

I'm not arguing that cats are not smart because they are, I just don't think they give a flying fig. 
 I have never seen a cat fight off a bear to save their person, bring a herd of sheep around to save the farmer the trouble, or protect the farmer from an angry bull.

Farm Dogs make our lives safer, fuller, better!
Farm dogs are awesome!

Pig prints.

It's been about two and a half weeks now that all the animals have officially been in the barn.

The barn is not 100% finished but the critters really don't care if the trim is on or not. 

There have already been some wonderful reasons to have the critters inside my barn,  chores have gotten so much easier! 

I'm more and more excited, as I realized every new aspect of how much easier it is. 

Just a minute ago, in fact, I'm still out of breath as I type this, my new reason to be so grateful for the barn came about like this.

 As I was pouring my coffee waiting for my last load of wash to finish before I head back outside.

I noticed something strange in the driveway. 

It was a pig!

the dog didn't quite know what to make of it, as he backed away from the approaching pig.

Now I probably don't even need to tell you this, but the pig is not supposed to be in the driveway! 

As I curse something that I will not repeat here, grabbed my coat and ran out the door.

I was trying to figure out how I was going to get him back into the pen. 

I start calling him the way I do when it's suppertime,  miraculously he came running, turned around on his heels and started running up the driveway.

I Raced For The Barn, opened the big door, dumped some grain onto the floor and he came in! 

I shut the door behind him and usherd him back into his stall and I was done! 

It has never been so easy to recapture an animal before. 

So along with being thankful for many things this year, family, friends and my barn are top 3! 

Happy Thanksgiving.

I do so love my barn!

The farmhouse.

If you google farmhouses, you will get photos of quaint rustic showplaces.

Even though they contain elements of farms, this is more of a stylized way of decorating than a true farmhouse.

Please understand before I continue, that I am not lumping all farmsteads into this, I am merely speaking of the ones I am accustomed. 
There are extremes in either direction. Farmers are human, as with anyone else, there are messy ones and clean ones.

The realities and challenges of keeping up a farmhouse are different than the average bear.

Someone who lives in town walks out to the car, in a garage or their blacktop driveway, and goes to work wear, unless they work at a slaughterhouse or hospital etc, the worst dirt they come in contact with is probably public dirt.

Then they go home after their long tiring day of doing whatever it is they do, to a relatively clean house where they probably make dinner and watch some TV before retiring to bed, as the dishwasher hums away, to do the same pattern over again the next day.

This, however, is not reality for farmers and farm homes. 

Even though we very rarely leave home we are very often not in the house. 

We wake up and down a Fast breakfast and go out to do whatever work needs to be done which is usually seasonal dependent and often dirty. 

We returned home exhausted at lunchtime to have a quick meal and a ten-minute break (or if you're lucky a 20-minute nap) and return out into the wild of our 130-acre backyard to continue with what we had started that morning. 

We then return home in the evening potentially cold, almost always filthy and exhausted where then, a hot shower is taken, you fall into bed and hopefully, have a full night's sleep. 
The next day, wake up and do it again.
Although our jobs differ from day to day depending on what needs to be done. 

This leaves very little time to clean up the mess that you make when returning home at lunchtime from, whatever it was you were doing beforehand. 

Even though our farm is clean, (what I mean by this is we do not have junk piled everywhere, we do not leave our animals living in filth,) but we're still a farm, driveways are dirt, our homes are heated with wood. 

This combination leads to Mud, dust, small stones, and sawdust on our floors pretty much all the time.
I would like to tell you that I take time every week to vacuum and wash the windows, but that is not reality. 

There are so many other things that need to be done the housework takes a back seat.
Now, please understand that we're not living in squalor and filth with dirty dishes piled to the ceiling and garbage in the corners.
 I am way too organized and OCD to have that happen. 
It does mean there are dirty clothes in the bathroom and mud on the floors there's sawdust underneath the wood pile because honestly, we have a woodpile in our living room and no I'm not kidding!
 How else do you think we feed the fire in the middle of the night?

We have muddy boots sitting next to the wood stove and as the snow and mud drys up and falls off, its then on the floor.
We have dog and cat hair everywhere, we have many coats that smell of cows hanging on The doors.
Our vehicles are splattered with mud as are the carpets inside them. There is just no way around this, no matter how clean of a person you are (trust me I am a neat freak!) at some point, you need to put this aside for the reality of a farm.

 It took me awhile to get to this point where the pig spilling their food it didn't bother me and make me want to run in with a shovel and clean it up. 
Living with animals is dirty, our dog rolls in smelly stuff at least twice a week, he comes in with his muddy sloppy sponge-like paws as we come in with our large heavy work boots.
 Our Floor is, well, you wouldn't want to eat off them that's for sure. 

Farmhouses are filled with love and kindness and good food for certain, but that's not the only thing lurking around the corners. 

I swept our floor this morning after giving my husband a haircut and I had a dustpan full of dirt that looks like I went outside to dig a hole.

It's also dependent on the seasons.
 My husband likes to say you can tell what season it is just by what is coming out of our boots.
 During the summer it's hey chafed, that gets everywhere, (and I do mean everywhere! 
At some point, I would like to challenge Victoria's Secret to team up with Carharrtt to make a hay-proof bra, but that's for a later post.)
 In late summer and fall it's harvesting of grains, so we'll come home covered in dust and chaff which will be falling off of our socks as we take our boots off.
 In winter it's snow and sawdust everywhere.
 In the springtime, well, all you Vermonters are very familiar with our fifth season, mud!

Sometimes will have several mud seasons in the spring, between all the freezes and thaws.
That is by far when our house gets the very worst!

 It doesn't help that we're sugaring as well and really only come home to sleep and shower. We eat all our meals in the Sugar House
 We're there almost all day.
My husband calls it our spring home.

 The house really does take a backseat, instead of being home mopping our floors we're at the Sugarhouse mopping its floors. 
So whether you enjoy chaos or are a neat freak as I really truly am on the inside.
As you're reading this potentially sitting in your lovely neat living room that is mud, dog hair and manure free.
Be grateful for a moment, because you don't have to clean a farmhouse.

Butchering day.

Butchering an animal, regardless of whether you raised it for that purpose or not, isn't easy!

Even though I had raised this steer for two years, with the full intention of butchering him, it was still difficult on the day of. 

That evening as I went to do chores and only Daisy and the calf was left, it was sad.

This does not mean, I'm not going to do this with the next calf that I am raising for that purpose.

This doesn't mean that I don't feel anything.

 It's walking a balance of knowing that you're raising animals for meat, and still caring for them and making sure they're happy and loved.

 It's not done without feeling, and it's not done without respect!

Now, I have talked about butchering before, when we butchered Yum-Yum the pig, so I'm not going to go into the same Spiel I did last time. 
Instead, I'm going to talk about what happens after.

It's a little bit different between butchering the pig who was getting very mean, or butchering an animal that was just a pain in the butt. 
(He was constantly dumping the 45-gallon water trough.)

I firmly believe, he knew it was coming.

Because he escaped three times in the two weeks leading up to his butchering date, we found him in the garden feeding himself on anything that was left unpicked.

This was Daisy's first time losing one of her offspring, so I was mostly worried about how she would react.

She was penned out of sight of the butchering and with a big pile of hay to keep her occupied, this does not mean she did not know what was going on. 

You can think I'm crazy if you want, but animals are smart, they know long before it happens.  Animals understand a heck of a lot more than most people give them credit for.

The next afternoon I proceeded to let Daisy into a new section of the pasture, where Duffer hadn't been. Also a few days later we moved her into the barn for the first time.

Some change for her, when something like this happens, is perfect.

 It was obvious that she was a little sad at first, but she has perked up since and is enjoying being in the barn, she has her other calf with her for now. 

Bovines are herd animals, as are goats and sheep, having one member of a herd taken away can cause a true emotional upset, if not handled correctly.

 All in all the butchering went well and I'm very proud of how healthy and high-quality my steer was.  Hopefully, he'll bring some delicious meals to our customers, where they can make wonderful memories over the dinner table. 

After all, it is my goal to nourish and bring happiness.

Thank you, Duff.

The joys of farm dogs!

I love dogs!

Top two favorite animals, may even be #1.

I had my first dog when I was 2 and haven't gone for long without one in my life.

I could regale you with tales of all the wonderful dogs my family has owned, but I will save that for another time, right now I want to tell you about our current loves.

Rye is a newcomer to the farm, he has been with us about a year. 
He came to us as a birthday gift for my grandmother, at a year and a half old he had never seen a cat or cow before. 

His first few hours with us were shaky ones. When sitting on the porch with Super Farmer and my Grandmother, Rye slipped and fell off the porch.
 (I should add that Rye is a BIG dog, we are talking 126 lbs here)

well, Rey slipped off the porch in the rain, he hit the electric fence in the fall, and he panicked understandably. 

As my husband tried to help him back onto the porch the cat attacked Rye. 
The poor pup shook for a good half an hour. 
My husband brought him inside and Grandmother feed him dog cookies until he calmed down. 
Now that was not a good way for poor Rye to learn about the fence or cats, but life is like that on the farm, sometimes you get thrown into the deep end.

Poor Rye still hasn't forgiven sweetie the cat, he associates that pain of the electric fence with sweetie the cat.

 A few weeks of barking at the bovines, unsure of what they were.

He tried to get the pigs to play thinking that they were some sort of odd hairless dog.

Every once in awhile he bounds after the chickens but has settled in well.

Our dog Jax, is around 3 and has been with us for two years.

He is 50lbs of a great dog!

He goes everywhere with us, to the point that when we recently had to leave him home when attending an agricultural conference, we were surprised the next day.

He had so much spunk he was outrunning the ATV!
 It made us realize what a handful he could possibly be in a different living situation. 

Farm dogs get tons of exercise, we are outside working on our sugar woods or baling hay or fixing fences almost every day and the dogs are always with us. 
They run and jump and chase squirrels and have a wonderful time. 
 He is a retriever and full of energy, very smart and inquisitive it makes me wonder if he would be a different dog under a different living condition.

There's no doubt in my mind that there is a little pug on someone's sofa snuggly warm somewhere and he is thrilled to be there and if you put him down on the farm he would probably be overwhelmed and miserable, but not our dogs!
 Farm dogs jobs differ from, breed, size, and personality.

 As a general rule having a dog running around your farm is just a wonderful deterrent to Predators that would be a problem to farmers.

Farm dogs have a wonderful life there are all sorts of smells and interesting things to find, dig up and piles of Goo to roll in, grossing there humans out.
 We love our families three canines as much as a member of the family. 
Be it the 126 pound Rye the 50-pound Jaxs or the 6-pound Pos, we love them all!

 I don't think our dogs would trade the life they have for anything else. I'm very proud that they are well-trained, healthy and happy. 
It fills my heart with joy just have them around. 

Farm girls!

I am very proud of who I am.

Not just because I'm a good person and I do my best to be, but also because I'm a farm girl! 

Farm girls are amazing creatures we can still be soft and lovely but also strong and tough as nails. 

There's a fine line to walk when being strong enough to throw around bales of hay and sacks of grain that weigh about 50 pounds.

Fix fence and fight a bovine off if need be, wrestle a Pig into submission.

 Catch chickens when they get out, But also be a girl with pretty eyelashes, soft hair and perhaps even designs on her nails.

 I know this may seem contradictory but it really is a farmgirl's way. 

I know some farm girls don't believe this, they throw themselves into the work as if they were one of the men, trying to prove themselves. 

I've seen this many times over, However, I don't believe it's the way we should be.

We are still girls after all. 

This doesn't mean we are not capable of hard work and keeping up with the guys, but it does mean we are made differently.

Our bodies function differently, our muscles work differently. 

I may not possess the strength my husband has but that doesn't mean I can't get the work done. 

If I truly can't do it and I'm risking hurting myself to push through, I will ask Super Farmer for help, but I'm smart, maybe I need to do it a different way than he would! 

Part of a farm girl's beauty is her ability, her strength, her no quit, I can do it attitude.

Now I, as I'm sure many other girls want to feel pretty and attractive. 

                    I also, as many other girls, struggle with body images now and then.

Remember I'm not a little skinny girl, I work hard, I have actual muscles and because of my family genetics, I'm big-boned and broad-shouldered regardless.

 It's still nice to feel feminine. 

I have a closet full of high heels and dresses, granted I don't get to wear them very often but sometimes I wear them to the grocery store because, hell, I want to! 

Women are wonderful!

 We can do amazing things that men can't and we shouldn't try to make ourselves alike to men.

 We should just be the very best woman we can be! 

To all, you farm girls out there keep working hard, remember to wear gloves!