A picture is worth a thousand words, right?
The barn modifications are getting along! I can't say they're done, but they're definitely getting there!
Luke's joined the milking crew!Also, I may eventually blog exclusively here, just so you know.
Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Take a look at these!
The barn modifications are getting along! I can't say they're done, but they're definitely getting there! Luke's joined the milking crew!Also, I may eventually blog exclusively here, just so you know.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Friday and Saturday
This past Friday and Saturday some of the wonderful folks from our church (plus a family from GA who are working on getting up here) came to our place and helped us slaughter and butcher the rest of our pigs. We could not have done it without them!!!! Thank y'all so much!!!
Friday afternoon Daddy, Kyle, Luke, Lingo men, and various members of the Fish family slaughtered the three pigs, and hung them in the smoke house. The walk-in cooler is currently out-of-commission, but it was cold enough to leave the halves outside overnight.
Little Smoky was the first to go (Daddy thought he might be smarter than the others and runaway after the first shot).
They had all three done by 4:30pm, at the latest!
Saturday morning Mama, Mrs. Evans, and Mrs. Fish started making a batch of soap, but I am not allowed to post any of the pictures Claire got of that process.
The men went out around 10:00am or so and started butchering.
A few of us were happily occupied inside, where it was warm!
Sausage-maker extraordinaires!
The packaging table was kept pretty busy most of the time.
Cuties!!!
Friday afternoon Daddy, Kyle, Luke, Lingo men, and various members of the Fish family slaughtered the three pigs, and hung them in the smoke house. The walk-in cooler is currently out-of-commission, but it was cold enough to leave the halves outside overnight.
Little Smoky was the first to go (Daddy thought he might be smarter than the others and runaway after the first shot).
They had all three done by 4:30pm, at the latest!Friday evening Mr. Draper, and the Evans' pulled in. After everyone had eaten, there was some conversation, and refreshed our butchering memories with the Meat Man (he could not only use someone to redo the videos, but the website too!) video.
Saturday morning Mama, Mrs. Evans, and Mrs. Fish started making a batch of soap, but I am not allowed to post any of the pictures Claire got of that process.
The men went out around 10:00am or so and started butchering.
A few of us were happily occupied inside, where it was warm!
Sausage-maker extraordinaires!
The packaging table was kept pretty busy most of the time.
Cuties!!!Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Pictures from Thanksgiving week
Our last turkeys.
Now, I don't know about any of y'all, but I think dessert is almost the most important aspect of Thanksgiving Day! Uncle Craig brought this cake.
Aunt Lou brought a caramel pie!!! Homemade crust and everything!
Pecan pie.
CUSTARD!!!!!
Can you believe they still had energy to wrestle?!!
Finishing one side!
Continuing another.
The view from inside.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Randomness
Yesterday was portrait day. Here's my favorite picture of the day:
He's so funny! We had such a hard time getting him to cooperate!
Claire, our sharpshooter, got some pictures of this weekend.
Anna and Luke making breadsticks.
Two stooges.
Making salsa.
There's one of these Fallow Deer (Dama dama) near us. It looks very odd! The antlers are palmate, like a moose, and they keep their spots. They are very small, between 100 and 150 pounds in the wild (up to 200 pounds domesticated). They're only three feet or so tall! Originally from the Middle East, Fallow Deer are common in much of Europe and are slowly being introduced by deer farmers to the United States. They are raised mainly for sport (they make unusual trophies, obviously.), and velvet antler which is sold to Asian cultures who use it in medicines.
Well, tonight's the night! So it's not the night before Thanksgiving, but it's close enough. Our turkeys two remaining live turkeys are going to fulfill their purpose tonight, and one (at least) will go into the brine! We'll enjoy it Thursday. I will miss hearing their noise though; it's been pretty neat. There's always next year!
He's so funny! We had such a hard time getting him to cooperate!
Claire, our sharpshooter, got some pictures of this weekend.
Anna and Luke making breadsticks.
Two stooges.
Making salsa.There's one of these Fallow Deer (Dama dama) near us. It looks very odd! The antlers are palmate, like a moose, and they keep their spots. They are very small, between 100 and 150 pounds in the wild (up to 200 pounds domesticated). They're only three feet or so tall! Originally from the Middle East, Fallow Deer are common in much of Europe and are slowly being introduced by deer farmers to the United States. They are raised mainly for sport (they make unusual trophies, obviously.), and velvet antler which is sold to Asian cultures who use it in medicines.Well, tonight's the night! So it's not the night before Thanksgiving, but it's close enough. Our turkeys two remaining live turkeys are going to fulfill their purpose tonight, and one (at least) will go into the brine! We'll enjoy it Thursday. I will miss hearing their noise though; it's been pretty neat. There's always next year!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Picture update
A few evenings ago we butchered a half a steer for a friend. I got the grinding job again. I've decided that they put me there on purpose; I'm not very good at wrapping the meat. :)
We went through our game/puzzle closet the other day. We have boxes and boxes of things to get rid of now!
Everything fits in there so nicely now! We don't have to close the doors quickly so nothing falls out!
Chuck.
Clarabelle.
Daddy, Kyle, and Luke put up some metal siding on the barn as a sort of wind break. That's going to be very nice this winter.
The two turkeys left.
"Little" Smokie
And the other two pigs.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Another calf
31 calved today!!! She seems to be doing much better; for a while there she was barely getting around. Of course it's a little heifer calf; we don't seem to be able to get any bulls that we can turn into future meat. Oh well, we still have a couple or three more calves on the way.
Now, per request of a certain someone (Don't worry, Caleb, I won't mention any names.) I am going to post an entire paragraph of a couple of week ago when the Lovetts spent a couple of days here. I warned you, sir!!!
Well, where to start... I guess it's always easiest to start at the beginning. So, the Lovett family arrived around 4:00 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2007. The day before Daddy and Kyle had processed one of our turkeys; I had been nursing it all day. We had dinner around 5:30 pm or 6:00 pm. After dinner Kyle and the certain someone got up a game of Cranium. We played two games of that Wednesday night. For those of you who know (roughly) how to play the game, you know that there are certain parts of the game where you have to silently act out things. Well, the word was "mermaid," and the certain someone had to act it out. He did a very good job! His partner guessed it almost right off. The other word that he acted out later was "nun." Again he did a wonderful job. We learned (if we didn't already know it) that that certain someone can't hardly spell, but he can spell "aqueduct." That's enough Cranium talk, I think. On to Thursday. The men worked very hard on I'm not sure what all. They did electrical work and drywall work, but other than that, I'm not sure. We ladies went to Sir's Fabrics. Kaliste and I discovered how good a Twix Ice Cream bar tastes. ;) We had turkey-pot-pie around 7:00 pm for dinner Thursday evening, and we again played a couple of games of Cranium afterwards. They left the next morning. Well, is that enough? Is that enough information on y'all's visit? Sorry, but we don't have any more pictures of that visit that I can post.
Now, per request of a certain someone (Don't worry, Caleb, I won't mention any names.) I am going to post an entire paragraph of a couple of week ago when the Lovetts spent a couple of days here. I warned you, sir!!!
Well, where to start... I guess it's always easiest to start at the beginning. So, the Lovett family arrived around 4:00 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2007. The day before Daddy and Kyle had processed one of our turkeys; I had been nursing it all day. We had dinner around 5:30 pm or 6:00 pm. After dinner Kyle and the certain someone got up a game of Cranium. We played two games of that Wednesday night. For those of you who know (roughly) how to play the game, you know that there are certain parts of the game where you have to silently act out things. Well, the word was "mermaid," and the certain someone had to act it out. He did a very good job! His partner guessed it almost right off. The other word that he acted out later was "nun." Again he did a wonderful job. We learned (if we didn't already know it) that that certain someone can't hardly spell, but he can spell "aqueduct." That's enough Cranium talk, I think. On to Thursday. The men worked very hard on I'm not sure what all. They did electrical work and drywall work, but other than that, I'm not sure. We ladies went to Sir's Fabrics. Kaliste and I discovered how good a Twix Ice Cream bar tastes. ;) We had turkey-pot-pie around 7:00 pm for dinner Thursday evening, and we again played a couple of games of Cranium afterwards. They left the next morning. Well, is that enough? Is that enough information on y'all's visit? Sorry, but we don't have any more pictures of that visit that I can post.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Quick update
Well, I had thought to post some newer pictures of the farm, but I don't particularly care to walk around with a camera. So, instead of a nice post with pictures, I have to do a short, boring :) post.
Claire and Kyle are working on fitting school in the rather hectic schedule we have now. I'm trying to do what's expected of me, and finish Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. For the record, I still don't like it, but I've got to finish it. Mama calls that quality in me "obsessive-compulsive" adding that "that isn't always bad." I'm quite sick of novels at the moment though. I long to read a good history book about something I don't know a lot about (pretty much any part of history except Columbus and Colonial America). Any suggestions? Mama's either got a poetry course for me to take or she's working on it, but that seems almost as bad as a novel right now (probably because it's an assignment).
Anyway, the farm somehow continues to operate, most likely by Kyle and Daddy's most-capable hands. Grammy and Granddaddy worked in the garden with Luke this morning. Clarabelle's not doing as well in the stanchion as she was before. She's figured out how to get her hoof into the milking bucket, so, because of that, we haven't been getting as much milk lately. Chuck is getting bigger and darker. We're still expecting four Angus calves (I think it's four). The bits of rain we've occasionally been getting has done the pastures a world of good. I think we're getting four eggs a day now, but they're still tiny.
Well, I need to go wash the milking stuff now.
Claire and Kyle are working on fitting school in the rather hectic schedule we have now. I'm trying to do what's expected of me, and finish Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. For the record, I still don't like it, but I've got to finish it. Mama calls that quality in me "obsessive-compulsive" adding that "that isn't always bad." I'm quite sick of novels at the moment though. I long to read a good history book about something I don't know a lot about (pretty much any part of history except Columbus and Colonial America). Any suggestions? Mama's either got a poetry course for me to take or she's working on it, but that seems almost as bad as a novel right now (probably because it's an assignment).
Anyway, the farm somehow continues to operate, most likely by Kyle and Daddy's most-capable hands. Grammy and Granddaddy worked in the garden with Luke this morning. Clarabelle's not doing as well in the stanchion as she was before. She's figured out how to get her hoof into the milking bucket, so, because of that, we haven't been getting as much milk lately. Chuck is getting bigger and darker. We're still expecting four Angus calves (I think it's four). The bits of rain we've occasionally been getting has done the pastures a world of good. I think we're getting four eggs a day now, but they're still tiny.
Well, I need to go wash the milking stuff now.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Pig Slaughtering: Start to Finish
Okay, here it is. The pictures aren't very good, but I think they are good enough. I'm not going to comment on them much though; I usually wasn't actually in the process.
I don't what we'd do without the mule!
Luke got in there and helped a bit. You can just barely see him in this picture.
Again, the mule! This was way better than using the tractor. However, this made it necessary for them to skin and gut right behind the driveway!
Once Daddy and Kyle had skinned the underside of the pig, they pulled him up and skinned his backside.
Then they cut him open...
and dumped out the insides.
The pulley system.
Product #1. Quite good. Mild, though.
I don't what we'd do without the mule!
Luke got in there and helped a bit. You can just barely see him in this picture.
Again, the mule! This was way better than using the tractor. However, this made it necessary for them to skin and gut right behind the driveway!
Once Daddy and Kyle had skinned the underside of the pig, they pulled him up and skinned his backside.
Then they cut him open...
and dumped out the insides.
The pulley system.
Product #1. Quite good. Mild, though.Thursday, September 06, 2007
Yesterday
What a day we had yesterday!!! We took a couple of little steers from our neighbor to the Carpenters, but along the way we had quite the adventure!
Everything went wrong from the beginning (thankfully not all the way to the end!). Daddy didn't hardly sleep the night before, so he went into work around 3:00 am! Then, when he came home to get some sleep before we had to go to the Franklin/Leiper's Fork area, the phone rang more times! I think we got more calls that morning than we have all day today! After lunch Daddy, Kyle, Luke, and I went to load the steers into our neighbor's trailer. That was much harder and way longer than Daddy was expecting, but we did get them loaded! Once we went back to the house to pick up Mama and Claire we were off! Well, after a few more bathroom breaks.
We made it, without any stops, all the way onto the interstate. Luke was finally asleep, Mama and Daddy were conversing, Claire was working on math, and Kyle was reading. Suddenly a truck pulled up along side us and motioned for us to get over (he was quite panicked). He pulled over to tell us what happened. One of those little steers had leaped out of the trailer!!! We quickly scanned the area for something to block the other steer from getting out. We didn't find anything, so we had to use some straps that happened to be in the back of the suburban. Someone else also pulled over to tell us that he had "seen it all, and the cow was back at that T-Rex place."
Once we got the straps on as well as we could quickly we turned around. We made our first stop at the co-op, which happened to be at that exit. We switched trailers to one of the co-op's that happened to have a flat tire, so we switched to a different one. We left the remaining steer in the other trailer, and went to the T-Rex place.
When we got to that place we pulled out the camera a got a few shots of the community coming together in an emergency. A policeman and a constable were already there kind of guarding the little fella. The man who originally pulled us over came along and helped us; I don't think they could have done it without him. Anyway, after a while of chasing that steer through the field across the road, that man decided they needed a 4-wheeler! The constable took him to his house, and he brought the tool that quickly finished the job. That man was great!
There were no more problems for the rest of the way to the Carpenters! They were all very excited to get the little guys, although Kyle, Cole, and Logan had to lower a pile of dirt so the steers didn't jump over the fence! Mrs. Carpenter and Peyton fixed an excellent dinner, and we got a tour of their house. They have a lovely place! I believe we left around 9:00 pm.
Here are some pictures of our day:
Then there was today's experience. I don't particularly feel like going over it at the moment, but Mama posted about it fairly accurately and eloquently. Just ignore the "boring" part of it; I haven't said that in quite a while!
Everything went wrong from the beginning (thankfully not all the way to the end!). Daddy didn't hardly sleep the night before, so he went into work around 3:00 am! Then, when he came home to get some sleep before we had to go to the Franklin/Leiper's Fork area, the phone rang more times! I think we got more calls that morning than we have all day today! After lunch Daddy, Kyle, Luke, and I went to load the steers into our neighbor's trailer. That was much harder and way longer than Daddy was expecting, but we did get them loaded! Once we went back to the house to pick up Mama and Claire we were off! Well, after a few more bathroom breaks.
We made it, without any stops, all the way onto the interstate. Luke was finally asleep, Mama and Daddy were conversing, Claire was working on math, and Kyle was reading. Suddenly a truck pulled up along side us and motioned for us to get over (he was quite panicked). He pulled over to tell us what happened. One of those little steers had leaped out of the trailer!!! We quickly scanned the area for something to block the other steer from getting out. We didn't find anything, so we had to use some straps that happened to be in the back of the suburban. Someone else also pulled over to tell us that he had "seen it all, and the cow was back at that T-Rex place."
Once we got the straps on as well as we could quickly we turned around. We made our first stop at the co-op, which happened to be at that exit. We switched trailers to one of the co-op's that happened to have a flat tire, so we switched to a different one. We left the remaining steer in the other trailer, and went to the T-Rex place.
When we got to that place we pulled out the camera a got a few shots of the community coming together in an emergency. A policeman and a constable were already there kind of guarding the little fella. The man who originally pulled us over came along and helped us; I don't think they could have done it without him. Anyway, after a while of chasing that steer through the field across the road, that man decided they needed a 4-wheeler! The constable took him to his house, and he brought the tool that quickly finished the job. That man was great!
There were no more problems for the rest of the way to the Carpenters! They were all very excited to get the little guys, although Kyle, Cole, and Logan had to lower a pile of dirt so the steers didn't jump over the fence! Mrs. Carpenter and Peyton fixed an excellent dinner, and we got a tour of their house. They have a lovely place! I believe we left around 9:00 pm.
Here are some pictures of our day:
Then there was today's experience. I don't particularly feel like going over it at the moment, but Mama posted about it fairly accurately and eloquently. Just ignore the "boring" part of it; I haven't said that in quite a while!
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