I am on a roll

  This is my third post in a few days, that is more than I did in the past 2 years. I did miss posting and reading blogs and I have found some new ones I enjoy.

  It is still quite the same on the farm. Cows- still no one looks like they are going to have a calf anytime soon, Pigs- still driving me nuts when I go to feed them. I will get in there with them and move their feeders close to the fence and put their feed in and go back out to dump in their milky water and cause the ground is frozen those buggers have moved the feeders where I can't reach them,UGH! If I had a couple of more hands I could take everything in at once. Chickens- still laying a good amount of eggs, although found one dead chicken today. Poor thing and never the one that pecks at me when I gather the eggs. Barn cats- too many, want some!!! Farmers- cold!!!! and the male ones get a little grumpy, lol.

  Well sat down last night and attempted to get some crocheting done but about 2 minutes in to it eyes got heavy. I fought long and hard (about 2 minutes too) and finally gave in to that horrible thing called sleep. Oh the torture, but sometimes we just have to make some sacrafices now don't we. Unfortunately the football afghan I am working on still only has 2 of the 60 footballs done that are needed for it. Hope the family has good patience it may be awhile.

  The girl who helps us made dinner tonight. She brought chicken patty penne parmesan so no cooking for me. Well I said I would make dessert, whatever she wanted and she requested homemade cinnamon rolls that made my hubby happy. So during the time I would make dinner I watched a couple of cooking shows.

   Well that sleep thing is calling me again. Got to be all bright and bushy eyed for the girls in the morning. Toodles for now.

It's a heat wave - Sorta

Oh I can't stand this cold, single digit highs and below zero lows-PHOOEY! Today I suppose is a heat wave compared to the last week or so, it was 26 for a high, woo hoo! Of course we live on a hill so with the wind chill it didn't always feel 26 but an improvement it was over past days. Unfortunately right back down tomorrow for awhile too but it is cold all over. My husband keeps saying just think it is 1 day closer to spring but when it is -5 when he says that it really doesn't make me feel any warmer. Hope you all are keeping warm as possible.

I actually get 2 night milkings off in a row, tonight and tomorrow. What will I do with myself. Actually I have a million things to do, never a dull moment, but I just wonder where to start. I could do a nap, I have heard about those but never quite get to try them out,lol! No better not, besides I am a light sleeper and people are in and out of the door all the time and it wouldn't work for me.

I did put beef stew on for dinner so I don't have to worry about that. I probably will catch up on some book work and maybe later when the guys are watching tv get out my crocheting.

Well going to do laundry, got to get all those layers done so tomorrow morning I can get all bundled up to go milk the girls. I always tell them I am glad I am not a cow cause I get to go in and snuggle under the covers to sleep and they get the barn. If I had to choose, hanging out with the chickens would be better. Their coop is not to bad when I go in to get the eggs. Well toodles for now, keep warm!!!

Back again!

   I know over a year ago I said I was going to start posting again and only got one done. Well I hope to be better this time.

    It has been busy on the farm. We now are milking about 85 cows about 20 dry cows ( sometimes they dry some off when I am not there and I lose count), and about 20 bred heifers. It has quieted down in the new calf department. From the end of October into the beginning of December we had 30 heifers freshen so there were new little ones all the time and boy was I busy with the bottles. No bottles right now everyone drinks out of a bucket and I am happy. Although we did switch towards the end to the acidified milk replacer and the self feeding nipples and that saved a lot of time. I don't think it will be too much longer though before new calves start again just not as quickly because they will be just from the dry cows right now, the heifers won't freshen till spring.

  I have been doing a lot of make from scratch cooking lately. I usually get Sunday night of from milking and I try to make something new from scratch. I have made homemade mayonnaise, tater tots, ketchup, of course lots of bread, chicken soup, beef stew, soft pretzels, lots of bake goods anything to try to eliminate some of the preservatives and such in premade processed foods. Of course we still have our own milk, beef pork and eggs and when the chickens are past egg laying time the go in the pot for the chicken soup. Some probably need to go now but I do love my chickens so they stay longer then they should.

   I hope to get some pictures on and hope I do get the time to keep posting and of course reading some of my favorite blogs too. Gotta to go check on things, so cold here right now going to make sure things are not frozen and such and told the family I would make homemade mac and cheese for dinner so I better get that going. Toodles!

It has been so long!

I see it has been almost 2 years since my last post. We no longer have dial up as today and posting with dial up was so frustrating  so hopefully I will get back at posting. I am also excited to go and read some of the blogs I used too, it was forever to do that with dial up also.

I don't know if much has changed, we still have the dairy farm. No goats now but we have a couple of pigs. Now more then ever with rising costs we are still trying to make sure we are at least semi self sufficient. So we now have our own beef, milk, eggs and soon pork. Unfortunately this year wasn't the greatest gardening year so I did not can too awful much. Really this summer I was quite busy so canning might have taken a back seat but I hope next year the garden does better and I do get a lot done.

Hopefully now with high speed I can get pictures back on and really get back into the blog. I suppose right now I am going to go read some of my old favorites and see how they are doing. Hope to post again soon!

I need to get a wood stove

Towards the back of our property they have been clearing an area to be able to put in a new electric transmission line. This runs all along our property and along most of the neighbors. I have to say I am not particularly happy with this but because of a right of way given to NYSEG back in the 60's by my in-laws and all the other previous owners of neighboring properties there is nothing I can do about it.

The picture doesn't do a good job of actually how big of an area that was cleared. That whole empty area though was all wooded. Quite a few years ago we cleared some of our property and fenced it in for a pasture for the heifers and this transmission line will run right over it, in fact I think a pole has to go right in the middle of it. I went down one day when they were cutting down the trees and found it depressing how quickly with that monster of a machine the can cut and move those trees into piles. It looked as easy and quick as me plucking weeds from the garden.

Now that it is done we are trying to look at the positive side of it. I have always wanted a wood cookstove and now might be the time to get one. There are large piles of logs all along the sides of the clearing so we might as well put them to use. Because of the area it will take to put in a wood cookstove( the clearing needed away from the walls) I might not be able to get one in the kitchen, unless we want to give up using a table. We are definately going to get some sort of woodstove though so the logs just don't sit and rot and save on our heating bill also.

Then my husband said if we can get the rest stumped out( they stumped a side of it for a road) and after a few years for the roots to rot so it can be plowed there can be 6-7 more acres of hay or cornfields.

So I will keep thinking positive things about it even though I wish it was still a wooded area.

Making Jelly

I was able to get the night milking off last night so I made some jelly. Now with the dandelion jelly I made this spring I also have grape, cranberry cider, apple, cherry, and peach wine. I also made some blueberry( not in the picture) but it did not come out quite like I wanted, it is almoat like I could spread it out and let it dry and it would make fruit roll ups. Last year the only jelly I made was the dandelion so the family should be happy with the selection they have this year. I still have more grape to make and we are going to make some apple cider so I will use some of that for jelly also. I will be doing applesauce tomorrow and then I have to can my pumpkin and then my canning ought to slow down and be about done.

With all the rain lately the cows have had to stay in the barn cause the pasture is so muddy. I don't know if they are happy about it or not. When it is raining when we are done milking they are happy to go in the barn but I am sure they would like to get out there during the sunny spots. We had a new calf yesterday, it has ben some time since we had one, it is like feast or famine. We did have a heifer that couldn't freshen by herself and had to have the vet up. It was coming backwards and she must have tried all night cause it was already dead when the vet got here. Unfortunately I think the stress the poor girl went through she died also. She just wouldn't eat afterwards even when it was brought right to her. It is sad but sometimes I know it happens.

I am hoping the sun shines soon again I have some painting to finish up on the outside of the barn. I started about a week ago and ran out of paint so I hope I can get it finished before it gets too cold. Nothing like the last minute but I have been so busy I never made it to it. Looks like maybe Friday, I hope so!

Time for corn chopping

Well the corn chopping has began. We have friends and neighbors who are helping us and it has been a huge blessing. The picture above is a picture of the corn field out behind the house, it was taken about a month ago. You can just barely see the cows at the end of the road in the picture, I think they were trying to figure out how they could get in the corn field. It has been a good year for us with corn, field corn and sweet corn.

My cat, Horatio, hangs out in this corn field about all day every day so since they are chopping this field now he is under house arrest. I wouldn't want anything to happen to him. He is not too happy about it though and is always trying to escape. I catch him peeking out of any window he can get into and when I know a lot of people will be coming in and out I have to put him in the bathroom. He will be very depressed when we finally do release him and his cornfield is gone.

I put up a lot of bags of frozen sweet corn and so did some of the relatives. The neighbor said we planted enough sweet corn for everyone on our hill. We tried to make sure everyone knew to pick some cause there was a lot and would hate to see it go to waste. We definately willl have plenty to make it through till next season. Hope it does as well then!