I’ve been a lame blogger but a busy homesteader, Part 1: Cow Drama

I think it’s been several weeks since our last update of any value. But holy smokes, have we been busy here on Blueberry Acres Farm. Let me just give you the down and dirty update of the last few weeks on the cow front:

Went to cow auction to buy feeder cow. Purchased Holstein heifer. I received hilarious education in cattle prices that I will use to shame myself in later post.

Two days after receiving feeder cow that we have decided to originally name DANGHOLSTEIN! (explanation to follow later again…), we purchased a guard donkey named Festus for 50 smackers off Craigslist.

We work it out with our neighbor to get his cousin to cut our side pasture, which is 8-10 acres of too high grass. As a result, we need to move our tiny herd to what I refer to as our valley pasture so that he can cut our hay.

I wake up early on Mother’s day. I know…I should have gotten to sleep in, but that stupid circadian rhythm kicked in. I decide instead of waiting for Sheldon to handle walking these cows through what was probably snakey infested waist high grass, I would put on my big girl panties and do it myself. Blueberry decided to watch from the fence line (probably because I threatened her with every trick in the book to keep her out of the same probably snakey pasture) and cheered me on. While Festus nibbled on my hair, DANGHOLSTEIN followed too close next to him (did I mention that she was about 900 pounds at purchase?), and our Belties following a polite distance behind, I rattled my bucket of sweet feed for all I was worth while simultaneously scanning for snakes and cursing my now lost courage. But, I got those cows/donkey through the gate and closed it up. I was quite proud of myself!

Awaken the next morning to find all 3 cows back in the side pasture along with Festus. Curse them all tremendously and attempt to get them back into the valley pasture. Have the freaking GENIUS idea that I can just lead them from the gate in the “backyard” to the next gate to the valley pasture. Did I mention that I have to get across a totally open space, around Blueberry’s playset and our clothesline to get to this second gate? It made sense at the time. I let Festus out first (tactical mistake, I know that now) and get him to the second gate with ease, feed rattling, and only a little bit of anxiety. Think that this actually means that the cows will follow suit. See that Pia (the pregnant Beltie) is up next, open the gate and somehow manage to get her all the way across the backyard without incident. Turn to open the gate, turn back around and that ninja cow is gone. She is moving up the yard towards the front yard. Somehow I manage to redirect her and again lose her at the gate. She makes her way back to the original gate where she attempts to get back in to her little pal Maureen. I manage to get her back into this gate without incident other than the fact that I need to change my pants now. Decide that I can once again duplicate my walk through the snakey pasture, so attempt to get Larry, Curly and Moe to follow me, only to realize halfway through the pasture that I am Larry/Curly/Moe and these cows have outsmarted me…they are walking in the opposite direction despite my big bucket of sweet feed. Take the walk of shame back to the house passing Festus who I let back in the side pasture in defeat.

A couple of days after getting Festus home, I find myself running down the dirt road yelling DANGHOLSTEIN! as she runs away from me in a focused attempt to get to our neighbor’s herd of cattle. No amount of sweet feed treats was bringing her back. About this time Sheldon pulls up on his way home from work. I tell him what happens, and he goes to park his truck in front of the house, which is about 1/4 mile away from me. By this point, somehow Pia had found the weak spot in the fence (that DANGHOLSTEIN!) had served to make when she leapt over it and she was now on the loose too. So, I’m standing on our road with DANGHOLSTEIN! the feeder cow going one way and Pia, the beloved mother Beltie who was helping to start our herd going the other way. I decided to handle Pia and God bless her, she came right back to me with nothing other than voice commands and kind words. She got right back in the pasture. About this time, I had called for reinforcements from Sheldon (by called, I mean shrieked into the phone in the most unappealling way possible) and he pulled up to deal with DANGHOLSTEIN!…he crested the hill on our road just in time to watch her do a cow-jumping-over-the-moon impersonation when she cleared our neighbor’s cattle fence to get to the cow of her dreams. She did not even touch his perfectly sound fence-just cleared that thing like it was a foot high.

Fast forward a couple of weeks…

Fences are repaired. Sheldon wanted to get an electric cattle fence for DANGHOLSTEIN!, but I think I have talked him down off that ledge. Seems kinda silly for one feeder cow who is probably only a month or two from becoming dinner.

The Belties and Festus are still in the valley pasture awaiting the mysterious cousin who is supposed to cut our hay. It’s been hard to get more than a day or two without some kind of moisture, so I’m sure we’re at the bottom of his list of things to do. We’re considering hiring someone to do it (because we don’t have the necessary equipment, nor do we have a need for it with our small 15ish acreage), but we’re hoping that Cousin Whateverhisname comes through.

DANGHOLSTEIN! remains in with the neighbor’s cattle. He is a super nice guy who is going to bring her over to us and actually put her into the correct valley for us (actually for me since I’m the only one home during the day) next time he manages to get her in the corral. Otherwise, he’s cool with her remaining there until it’s time to do otherwise. Can you imagine a neighbor in a suburb being that laid back about an animal infringing on their property? Yeah, me neither…

We made the investment in our own little stock trailer. We had found a very inexpensive rental place for trailers in a nearby town, but when we saw the opportunity to get our own, we thought it would be a good investment for us in the long run.

It looks like we will be getting a bull in the near future. Our original bull didn’t pass his motility test (for those of you scratching your head, that means his swimmers were sluggish….), but this bull is from the same farm and from what I can gather, comes from Missouri Beltie royalty. If he passes all of his necessary tests, we’ll add him to the herd with the hopes that when the time is right for Maureen, they will make sweet cow music together.

Well, I know this post is devoid of helpful links or interesting pics, but dang..this is about all I can manage these days. If I could go back and tell my 2012 winter self to sleep up in preparation for our first spring/summer on the farm, I would have. Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to find my flux capacitor….

We’ll share more soon. Lots of chicken and turkey drama in part 2. Until then, happy homesteading!

Choosing a heritage breed cow for your homestead

It’s been a few days of having our beginning herd home here on Blueberry Acres and we’re learning that much like every other animal, cows have their own unique identity and personality. Maureen (the little one) is highly curious about our barn cats. She is quite nosey and it’s obvious that she wants to explore the cats with smell and probably taste since she licked the wooden fence post that one of our barn cats, Peter had sat on just seconds prior. Pia (the pregnant one) is a little more cautious. Apparently we are her third farm and she is a little more apprehensive about us and the situation in general. She doesn’t seem to display the same amount of “ooooh a cat!” as Maureen, and I suppose that is ok.

But, beyond these specific personality traits, our decision to build a herd of Belted Galloways was a strategic one. We knew we wanted to concentrate on a heritage or less common breed. Here are some of the things that we discovered specific to this particular heritage breed:

Temperment: Generally speaking, these cattle are more docile. They are not overly aggressive and as a result, we believe that they will be very well suited to our small hobby farm.

Size: Galloways are typically smaller than your average Angus cow. Maureen was born in 2011 and the top of her head doesn’t even come to my shoulder (and let’s not lie-my shoulder isn’t that far off the ground) which makes her a little easier to handle. In addition to just having less body mass, this also makes them easier and cheaper to transport.

Feed: Galloways are excellent at processing food/grass where some breeds will desire more specific grasslands, Galloways are genetically predisposed to make the most of the grassland that they have due to their heritage. In addition, Galloways have been known to consume about 75% of what a typical Angus would take in but still produce the same amount of meat. However, that is not to mean that they produce lower quality beef. Quite the opposite, as Galloways are known for…

Beef: High quality, lower fat meat is the by-product of both their genetic makeup as much as the fact that most Galloway producers (like us) are either grass-fed and/or grass-fed AND finished. We’ll be in that later category-grass all the way.

Adaptable to varied conditions: Given that this breed started in Scotland, I don’t think I would recommend them for a farm in Hawaii, but in the diverse Missouri climate, they are well-suited as they will produce a double coat in the winter to protect them from harsh winds and weather.

So, for us, this breed just became the best of the best in terms of value, disposition, and meat quality. As our herd grows, we will eventually begin breeding ourselves as well as selling meat products. As our herd grows, we may add an Angus or two just to see what a Beltie/Angus cross is like, but we will also make sure that we do our part to preserve the lineage of this amazing breed. The breeder that we purchased our girls from also sold us some ground beef and it was FANTASTIC! We know that building a herd is going to be slow going for this uncommon breed, but we think the investment will be well worth it. After all, isn’t homesteading all about the journey and not the destination? Happy Homesteading!

This post also appeared on Modern Homesteaders. We love the info there-go check them out!

Chicken coffee klatsch

Not much to say about this other than chickens….

Chickens running from me as I employ Blueberry’s method of herding them. That is to yell CHICKENS! while coming at them. It’s not a method I recommend.

Blueberry has named this guy (gal?) Peepers. We aren’t sure what kind of chicken he is as he was the “free exotic” that we got with our other chickens from Murray McMurray. Frankly, the way he looks and moves, I think a Roadrunner snuck into the mix.

This is Bob. Obviously he is not a chicken. He is my 15 year old cat who often lays across my laptop when I’m trying to work, blog, surf, whatever. He contributed to this post by getting off the keys.

I think this is my favorite picture with the black and white Jersey Giants and the White Rocks. I like to imagine them around the water tub giggling and telling stories. Probably about the dorky chicken who just stepped into the middle of the clean tub depositing dirt. Thanks for nothin dude.

All Women are prissy, backstabbing cows: A rant on farmgirl tough

Ha! Made you look. Don’t you hate those types of statements that make it seem as if we can all be shoved into one specific box? Some of my very favorite stereotypes and flawed logic statements (courtesy of Buzzle) are:

I’m Christian, so I must hate homosexuals.

I’m German, so I must be a Nazi.

I’m an atheist, so I must hate the world.

I’m Mexican, so I must have hopped the border.

I’m rich, so I must be a conceited snob.

I’m a guy, so I must only want to get into your pants.

I’m young, so I must be naive.

I’m from the Middle East, so I must be a terrorist.

All Italians are in the mob.

All Irishmen do is drink and beat their wives.

All Farmgirls are tough.

Whoa…wait a minute. What about that last one? All Farmgirls are tough. Why is that on the list? Well, let’s talk about it and my difficulty with the word tough.

Rosie-totally farmgirl tough
courtesy of wikipantings.org

A few weeks ago, our houseguest Mr. C., Sheldon and I were all sitting around the kitchen table playing cards. Suddenly out of the blue, Mr. C. asks me if I have a tattoo. I reply that I don’t (I’m sure with a whatyoutalkinboutWillis kind of face) and go on with the conversation. But, something about that exchange sticks with me. Finally, a few days later, this was the convo between Sheldon and me in bed (hot steamy scene NOT about to ensue):

Me: Hey-why did Mr. C. ask me about a tattoo? That seemed really out of the blue. Where did that come from?

Sheldon: Well, sometimes you come across as tough.

Me: Tough? What the FDashDashDash does that mean?

Sheldon: You know. Tough. I don’t know. Tough.

Me: You say that like it’s an insult. Like I must have a tattoo because I’m rough, tough and barely a woman. Where is this logic going anyway?

To which I think Sheldon responded by snoring. End of convo. To be fair, it wasn’t his argument.

But, I cannot tell a lie. This whole interaction first with Mr. C. and then with Sheldon just grated on me. I’m not a dip swillin, curse word flinging (well not every day), hard chargin broad. I don’t think there is anything wrong with tattoos but I have no interest in them. I have a handbag collection that I refer to as “my precious babies.” I can’t stand it when my eyebrows are ungroomed. I love pink and would wear it daily if I didn’t look like an idiot trying to cram into my 4 year old’s clothes. I love manis, pedis and kleenex commercials. I often drive the tractor singing the theme from Green Acres in my head all the while imagining myself as Eva’s character. Why the flock is someone calling me tough????!!!!

courtesy imdb

Fast forward many weeks and I’m still masticating on this idea. Let’s face it-if you want to homestead on a quarter acres or a thousand acres, you must have a degree of mental and physical fortitude. Why just this morning I killed a spider in my kitchen without even squealing. If that doesn’t show development along those lines, I don’t know what does. However, the word tough seems to have a connotation in this exchange that I simply cannot wrap my mind around-like it’s an insult. And to be fair-it’s not just this exchange. Go Bing the words tough farm girl and click on images. The amount of weirdness that comes up from the web is a bit off-putting, to say the least. Which to be fair to Mr. C. tells me that lots of folks hold a similar viewpoint when faced with someone who doesn’t exude softness on a daily (sigh, sometimes not even weekly) basis.

So, what’s a homesteading girl to do? I cannot imagine how anyone-male or female could live this life and still maintain that 24/7 stereotypical idea of feminine beauty. Much like baseball, there’s no crying in homesteading. But for women, I think the standards can be incredibly unfair. Yes, I haul 40 lb bags of dirt along side my husband. Yes, I spend hours cleaning the chicken coops. Yes, I drive the tractor, move the rocks and Lord help me, have participated in the demise of farm animals. I suppose that makes me tough, but why does being tough carry the implication that I am not soft, lovely and womanly? I do not know. Sigh. Why do I keep writing these blog posts that have no real solution?

For me, it all goes back to why we do this…The Blueberry. A lovely little girl who loves tutus but has no compunction about picking up a worm and shoving it in my face. Hopefully she will be better equipped to face a world where dichotomy in women is more embraced and we don’t all have to fit into a specific box to be pretty, womanly, smart or capable. My hope is that one day someone will refer to her as tough and she will smile and say thank you while changing the oil in her tractor in her couture gown. Seems totally realistic, right? Let’s hear it for #farmgirltough!

Talking to our kids about tragedy: One homesteader’s take

Well, my goodness. It’s been a helluva week. First the tragedy in Boston and now when I turn on the news, I hear about the fertilizer plant in West, Tx that killed multiple people, injured countless others and leveled many many homes and businesses. It is enough to make a parent want to put their kids back to bed and shut all the curtains until ..oh, forever?

While being a hermit may sound appealing, the hard truth is that this is the world we live in now. Horrible people do horrible things on a massive scale. Dangerous facilities that aren’t supposed to be dangerous can erupt in a mountain of fire when conditions are right. As I thought about this, I have to draw upon my own professional experience. I’ve counseled hundreds of people through loss, grief, sadness and change. However, I’m not a counselor by education or trade…it’s merely part of my “day job”, so instead, I want to share with you decisions as parents we made in our home. Regardless of terror, nature or accident, the bottom line is that innocent lives are lost every day for various reasons….and we need to be prepared for how to talk to our children about that.

Earlier this week as the news of the Boston Marathon broke, my first thought was to a couple of my oldest friends whose son runs the marathon every year. Typically they go to Boston to cheer him on and my gut reaction was for their safety. As Blueberry attempted to look over my shoulder as I looked up race checkpoints and tried to figure out when their son might have crossed the finish line (he’s just fine btw), I realized that she was picking up on my worry even if she didn’t see any of the video or pictures of what was happening. And then this morning, she was sitting with Sheldon and I as we watched the morning news when they broke in with an update on West. As much as we want to shield and inoculate our children against the horrors of a modern world, we simply cannot. It’s everywhere…and even if we go on a no TV/Internet diet, let’s face it-our kids all know how to read worry on our faces.

So, as I think about how to address these horrors with our little Blueberry, I try to think about a homesteaders spin. I cannot speak for all homesteaders, but generally speaking, those I have talked to seem to be straight shooters who are interested in educating and communicating with their children in a direct way. Most of the homesteading parent blogs/articles that I have read lead me to believe that many are like us-we want to protect our kids but still understand that they need to grow up informed, educated and prepared to face a world without mommy and daddy constantly hovering like a helicopter. That kind of parenting outlook needs to bleed into how we address tragedy. If you’re struggling with this concept, I can’t give you the perfect answer. Only a parent knows what their child can/cannot take. But I can tell you how we handled some events over the last two years or so.

In some cases, we opted to not mention it at all. For example, the case of Sandy Hook. That was a tragedy that as a Mom, I simply could not bring myself to talk about without a high degree of emotion. Both Sheldon and I agreed that we would not expose Blueberry to any of that coverage, nor would we discuss it as a family. Articles like this one from PBS agree that you have to make a determination by age if it’s even appropriate to address.

In some cases, we talked in generalities. For example, the Boston Marathon bombing. I discussed that something had exploded in Boston and some people were hurt. I also took that as an opportunity to talk about police officers, fire fighters and countless others who were doing whatever they could to help make people safe. Boston’s Children’s Hospital has some excellent yet simple advice for walking through this process with your kids from talking about tragedy to helping them cope with frightening events.

In other cases, we talked openly. As the story of West broke this morning, we didn’t restrict it at all. At the time I’m writing this post, it sounds like it was an accident caused by just some really unusual circumstances coming together. It’s a huge tragedy, but one that needs to be understood so that conditions aren’t repeated. I think it’s important that if our kids can handle it, then they hear about things like this. Modern, industrialized commerce comes at a cost and this one was a terrible, terrible cost. The thing that I don’t want to do is get up on my homesteading bandwagon and talk about “we shouldn’t be producing this kind of crap! It’s too dangerous! Curses to chemicals!” Sigh. It’s too easy to do that when you hear about terrible stories like this caused by chemicals that I wish we weren’t using, but I truly believe that it disrespects the humans who were just trying to make a living and lost their lives for it.

In addition, we’ve had a number of family losses over the last 18 months through the death of a parent to the loss of multiple grandparents. This has caused us to expose our little Blueberry to death much sooner than we would have anticipated or liked. With each event, we were able to talk about what happened typically without too much detail, how we hoped that person was at peace and headed to Heaven-that’s our own belief system. It’s led to a ton of questions, which we have welcomed. These are often out of the blue and typically are related to death as a process. The Child Development Institute suggests that parents encourage questions and reassure kids that it’s ok to feel however they feel. In our case, we have done this, but an unexpected joy that has been born about these questions has been that she has wanted to understand more about Heaven, Hell, The Holy Trinity, birth, love and more. She’s rarely sad when she asks these questions-it’s more of a desire to understand than a desire to be morose. As a result, I’m not sorry we approached it the way we have. At almost 5, our kiddo has a sensitivity that is appropriate for her age, but also understands a little more that life is precious and death is inevitable. And let’s face it-a handle on death is a necessary attribute for even the littlest of homesteaders.

So, that’s how we have handled both the distant and local tragedies. Basically the same way we work to approach homesteading. Directly, honestly, with respect for the beings involved and with the understanding that we don’t know it all. Would love to hear from some other homesteading parents about how you handle this “messy” part of parenting. And our prayers continue to go out to everyone who was impacted by the tragic events this week. Take care y’all!

Keeping our kids (and us) safe out in the sun: Natural/Organic sunscreens

Original post appeared on Modern Homesteaders-go check them out!

Ah, the sun. It feels so good against the skin of my bare arms. Until I remember that I haven’t applied sunblock in 6 hours and every little scratch from that chicken wire that I’m working feels like a million bee stings. Enter in that essential summer tool: sunblock.

Sounds easy enough, right? But, it’s really not. Many consumers are simply unaware of the toxic soup that they are applying on their skin every single time they open a bottle. We’re not just talking kinda bad stuff…we’re talking chemicals that have the potential to increase skin tumor risk, disrupt hormone balance, sprays/powders that coat little lungs, and products that don’t work well enough to provide any actual protection from the sun. If you are interested in reading about some of the products that failed to past muster with the Environmental Working Group, you can see their hall of shame here.

Homesteaders generally seem to be a more informed bunch of folks, but even we struggle to make the right choice in balancing good for us and good for our pocketbook. In our research, we have found that both the EWG’s recommended list and this resource on The Daily Green offered some alternative options to the super pricey bottles. You are still going to pay more than you would for the cheapo drug store kind, but the benefits absolutely outweigh the risks in this case.

I’ve also seen some recipes for homemade sunblock, but I will be honest-I’ve been a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of ingredients to give it a try. Would love to hear from our readers if you have cracked the sunblock code! Happy spring!

http://www.theprairiehomestead.com Go check them out!

Desperately seeking oreos….

Oreo cows that is! We are ready to add cows to the pasture here at Blueberry Acres and I’m wondering if any of you out there in the blogosphere have suggestions for finding Belted Galloways, aka oreo cows. We have contacted breeders but are finding that so many of them are more interested in show cows vs. hamburger cows that I’m not confident that we are contacting the right people! So, other farmer/homesteaders…have you had experience in researching and buying the “alternative” breeds? We would love to hear from you!

pic courtesy of wikipedia

Blueberry Acres Farm

Growing heritage animals, heirloom produce and happy people

Tag Archives: Homesteading