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A few more of my favorite photos from our visit to Living History Farms


The Blacksmith at the 1875 Town of Walnut Hill


A cute little side porch on the 1900 farmhouse


A coat and firewood room outside the 1900 farmhouse. I loved the barn coat hanging on its hook.


I loved the different types of fences, this one at the 1875 Town of Walnut Hill.


and this one at the 1850 Pioneer Farm.

1700 Ioway Indian Farm

Rafe liked the Indian farm, mainly because of their prolific use of sticks. Several times he tried to make off with a souveneir stick from one of the huts.



Matt's paternal grandmother was reportedly part American Indian. She would have fit right in these huts, being under 5 feet tall.


The garden on this "farm" was cool, with it's primitive bean teepee's. But it was a corn plant shy of a three sisters planting.

1900 Horse-Powered Farm

There's no doubt I was born at least a hundred years too late (though I do love my internet). But I'm not sure which one I would choose to live on - the 1850 Pioneer Farm or the 1900 Horse-Powered Farm.



I love the farm buildings of this time. This is the hog house. I wished we could have had a look inside.


I especially loved the chicken house. I took lots of pictures of this for future reference :)


The inside of the chicken house

Living History Farms

We took a few days vacation this week and headed to Des Moines with the kids. The highlight of the trip, for me anyway, was a visit to Living History Farms.

At the 1850 farm, Rafe was enthralled with the spinning wheel. He cozied right up to the gal spinning and just studied every move that she and the spinning wheel made. And he slyly moved his foot on to the treadle to help her make the wheel spin.

Anyone who knows Rafe knows that anything that causes him to be still for more than 2 minutes is really something.

The 1850 farm was fascinating to me because that's about the age of our farm. Before this house was built in 1875, there was a log cabin here that probably looked something like this one.



Outside the cabin a man was shaping logs into square posts and beams for a barn.


The pig pen was interesting. It doesn't look like it would hold our pigs.

Rubbing Elbows

Wednesday evening the girls and I headed over to NIACC for the Midwest Environmental Education Conference . We'd been asked to come and set up a display about our farm as part of their "Appetizers and Advertisers" program.



I wish we could have offered samples of our meat, but we are just plain out of everything except for a couple of t-bone steaks. Sorry, Public, but I'm not sharing my last two t-bones with you.

There were not a huge number of people there, and most were not from the north central Iowa area, so I don't expect much to come of it in the way of new customers. But at least I got a display made that I can use again in the future.



The whole evening was made worthwhile for me just because our table was next to Phyllis and Paul Willis of Niman Ranch. Paul was the first hog producer to sign on with Niman Ranch back in 1995, thus beginning Niman Ranch Pork Company. These are celebrities in the sustainable ag world. And how flattered was I when Phyllis already "knew" us because she's been reading this blog! And how excited was Matt when I told him she had invited us to come and see their farm! We will take you up on that Phyllis, hope you were serious!

In the end I came away with my enthusiasm restored a bit. A good thing. Lord knows it's waned a bit lately.

Fair Report, Part 2

When I said that the dog show was the most exciting part of the fair, I should have qualified that by saying it was the most exciting part for me. Not that it wasn't exciting for Madeline, but I've noticed this week that whenever someone asks her about the fair the first thing she tells them about is the ribbon auction.

Each 4-H'er showing beef, dairy, swine, or sheep is allowed to auction off one of their ribbons on the last day of the fair. Most of the ribbons are bought by very generous grandparents or very generous sponsors - local businesses like the grain elevator, vet, locker, etc.

Madeline took a pen of 3 stocker beef calves. These aren't shown in the ring on halter, but penned and judged as a group. The main considerations are the daily rate of gain and break-even price. We knew our rate of gain was not going to be stellar. We just don't feed our beef feedlot-style. We forewarned Madeline that she probably wouldn't receive a blue ribbon on the project. But we felt it would still be a good experience for her because she would have to explain what we do and why we do it. Something we find ourselves doing quite often.

Off to the fair


She was extremely nervous about talking to the judge. She remarked, "I bet even Grandpa won't buy my ribbon if it's a red or a white." And she had a long day of waiting her turn. The beef show started at 8:30 with the individual market beef animals on halter, then the breeding animals on halter, then the pens of which she was the last to be judged around 1:00.

After the judge was done with her they announced what ribbon each entry received. But they didn't announce any ribbon for her. "Oh great, I was so bad I don't get a ribbon." So they headed over to the 4-H office to find out what was going on. As it turned out, she did get a blue ribbon.



So on ribbon auction day Grandpa started bidding. But the manager of the grain elevator was bidding against him. Grandpa hung in there. As Madeline put it in a cellphone call to me right after, "Jerry kept bidding and bidding against Grandpa, but finally he couldn't take it anymore so Grandpa won AND I GOT THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS FOR MY RIBBON! I told Grandpa thank-you about a hundred times, and then I bought him a malt."

I didn't think she would take a beef project again next year. I think Grandpa just proved me wrong.

Fair Report, Part 1

Well, I'm going to start with the most exciting event first - the dog show. Madeline started training our 1-year-old Great Pyrenees, Ike, as soon as the weather got nice last spring. Once dog classes started the beginning of June she was out there with him just about everyday, spending at least 1/2 hour a day between training and grooming.

The afternoon of the dog show we spent an hour and a half in the bathtub with him - lather, rinse, repeat with whitening shampoo. And then an entire bottle of conditioner.


But boy did he turn out pretty!

Disaster almost struck, however. The show was at 7:00. About 6:00 we were still at home, getting ready, when Matt said, "Where's the dog?"

Either Olivia or Rafe had accidentally let him out. And he wasn't wearing his collar because we'd taken it off for his bath.

Not. Good.

He took off thru the cornfield and headed up the road. I hopped into the truck and took off after him. One good thing to come of dog class is that he loves to get in the truck now. So I got ahead of him on the road, stopped, opened the door, and he hopped right in.

Whew! We're going to have to make a point to keep taking him for a ride in the truck every week or two.

I had ordered Madeline an early birthday present - a new collar and leash from 3 Dirty Dawgz . So I came in the house and said, "Ike's in the truck but he doesn't have his collar on, so you'd better open this and put it on him.", and gave her the package. She was so excited.

Finally we were ready to go.


Ike and Madeline both did really well - especially considering how hot it was, and a scary dog fight that occured partway into the event between 2 other participants' dogs.


One exercise they had to do was to put Ike in a "sit" at one end of the arena, tell him to "stay", walk back to the middle of the arena, and then tell him to "come". He had the "stay" down. Really well. So well that when she called him he just sat there. That got a laugh out of the crowd.

We knew Ike didn't have a chance at winning the agility event against the more sporty dogs, but they had fun trying.


The show lasted about 2 hours, and they finally brought everyone back in the ring to award the ribbons. Madeline was thrilled to receive a blue.

And then she got a surprise - they announced that she had also won a purple ribbon for "Best Junior Handler".


I'm so happy for her and proud of her, she worked really hard. And I can't say that about all of her 4-H projects :)

The proud handler, and the pooped pup

At the Fair

Our county fair is going on this week, thus the bit of silence on the blog. We started Tuesday evening washing the chickens. There's a reason for the saying "madder than a wet hen".

Wednesday morning Madeline had her horticulture project judged and received a super blue. First year 4-H'ers can't have their projects sent to state fair, so a super blue means her project would have been considered for state fair if she was older.

Wednesday afternoon she and Matt took her stocker calves (pen of 3) to the fair. At this moment she's at the beef show, waiting her turn at judging.

Thursday morning the chickens had to be brought to the fair. She took a pen of 3 broilers and 5 fancies, and received 6 blue ribbons.

Today is the beef judging, plus Olivia is participating in the Little Miss Mitchell County contest. These two activities will probably overlap, so I guess I'll go one way and Matt will go the other. This evening Madeline is singing a song for "Share the Fun", which is like a 4-H talent show.

Tomorrow night is the dog show (preceded by a day full of grooming and primping for Ike).

Sunday afternoon is the ribbon auction. She can auction off her beef ribbon (actually a duplicate of her beef ribbon) and gets the proceeds minus a 10% commission that goes to 4-H activities. Grandma has instructed Grandpa to buy the ribbon :)

I'll be back with pictures and updates when the craziness is over!

Dad's Idea of Fun

A ride in the loader bucket.

Mom's idea of an accident waiting to happen.

Dude

This weekend Rafe got hold of my microphone, so Matt started coaching him in rocker-speak ala Les Zahn and First Amendment.


Throw me some metal!


Somebody scream!


Are you ready to rock?


One time!

A hazy view of the Osage Farmers Cooperative Elevator from the hayfield we rent. This is where we buy our corn for the stocker calves, and have all of our swine feed ground, mixed and bagged.

Another One Bites the Dust

*Sigh*

Madeline went out to feed her fancy chix today and came back to report that the calf we call Art was laying on his back with his legs in the air. I knew right away what was going on. Called the vet, knowing there was probably nothing he could do.

Tetanus. Again. Banding them leaves a small open wound, vulnerable to tetanus.

If you've had horses on your farm anytime in the past 100 years, chances are you've got tetanus. It can live in the soil for a coon's age. We had the male calves vaccinated for it this time, but apparently it hadn't had time to build up immunity in their systems. And the vet says there is no such vaccine for swine. (We lost a piglet to tetanus this spring.)

My brother says, "If you're going to have livestock, you're going to have dead stock." We've certainly proved that point.

*Sigh*

Swine Dining

Winston and Sarah have fashioned themselves a swimmin' hole to keep cool on hot days.

Here's Winston dining poolside:


The piglets are getting big. Hard to believe they will be ready to butcher the end of next month.

Makin' Hay While the Sun Shines

These pictures are from Father's Day weekend. The first crop of hay is usually cut well before then, but all the rain we had during May and into the first part of June pushed things back. You need to allow time for the hay to dry after its cut, before baling it, turning it over with the rake a few times to help things along. Finally the planets aligned and we got a few straight days of sunshine.

We rent 14 acres of alfalfa/clover hay from one neighbor, and another 5 acres of grass hay from another neighbor. The alfalfa/clover hay is high in protein and gets fed to the stocker calves that we're feeding out to eat. The grass hay gets fed to the cows.


Matt hires the hay cut...


then does the raking himself...


and then hires the hay baled into large rounds.

Holidays and Sundays don't mean anything - when the hay is ready, it's ready. Our baler came the afternoon of Father's Day to do the baling for us.


Matt gets the bales off the field as quickly as possible. Some are stored in our sheds, some in the neighbor's shed, and some outdoors.

Hopefully the next 2 cuttings will go as well as this first one!

Finally

A little ray of hope in a state under the stranglehold of conventional agriculture. I only wish my own county was so progressive.