Photo Friday - Best of 2007

"Pigtails"

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Wonderland

Sorry for the photo-heavy post, but I couldn't help it. It was just so beautiful today, what with the fog, and the hoarfrost, and later a touch of sun and blue sky. After a stressful bit getting Christmas packages mailed to faraway lands, a walk around the farm with camera in hand was the perfect tonic.

With white frosting for contrast, colors pop that you wouldn't ordinarily notice on a typical gray, winter day.


Red berries,


blue-green needles,


a forest of chocolate-colored twigs.

Even weeds in the ditch become artforms under the cloak of the hoarfrost.


Graceful curves,


prickly spikes,


curlycues and starbursts,


and my favorite, tiny buttons that look like hornet nests.

Ollie

Ollie is such an unassuming fellow. He doesn't clamor for the limelight, like those glory-seeking cows.


Here's Ollie and the hole he's digging to China.


Hey there good looking!


Nice tusks!


Oh, now you are showing off!

Obligatory cow pictures

Matt was checking out the blog tonight, to see what I've been posting.

"I don't see any cow pictures on the blog."

So here you go, cow pictures. These gals were standing around in the cattle shed gossiping when I trekked out on my duck hunt yesterday. (Yes, that's our sorry old cattle shed. Stop laughing. I can hear you laughing!)

From left to right is Missus Hamilton (an 11-year-old cow), Pretty Girl (an 8-year-old cow), and one of the twin Herefords (a 6-year-old cow).


The rest of the herd (and Star) was hanging out around the bale feeder. Right now they're finishing off a cornstalk bale. When Matt goes out they start mooing, griping to him about making them eat cornstalks. But they just stared at me. They know I'm of no use to them.


And then they went back to ignoring me.

Matt alternates hay bales with cornstalk bales to stretch our feed budget a bit. Just for the breeding stock, though. Feeder calves are all hay, all the time. But about 4 weeks before calving the cows will go back to all hay, all the time. They'll need the nourishment for that last month of gestation and subsequent nursing duties.

Let's go on a duck hunt

Ever since some idiot boy shot one of my ducks, I've wanted to get a head count and see how many I've got at this point. The ducks just sort of get the run of the place, and keep their distance from us humans as much as possible.

Unbelievably they still swim on the creek, even with high temperatures in the teens and lows edging towards zero. Thankfully I haven't seen any ducksicles yet this year.

I headed out for the creek and found 5 hanging out in this spot


and 5 more a bit farther up stream.


The 5 up stream got nervous about me poking around out there


and swam down to have a convo with the others.


Apparently the verdict was that I'm harmless because they swam back up to their spot up stream, taking a couple extras with them.


So the total thus far is 10 ducks. I headed back up to the feeder calf winter lot. The ducks crawl over the bedding pack and around the hay feeder like maggots on...well, you know. Even though we haven't actually eaten any of them yet, they still earn their keep as cleaner-uppers.


There were 9 ducks on the bedding pack for a total of 19. Then I found these 4 separatists hanging out underneath the corncrib. (And yes, that's a concrete-filled barrel holding up a piece of the corncrib.)


So I found a grand total of 23 ducks on my hunt today. More than I thought I had! Now we'll see how many come through the winter.

Poultry

I took a quick walk out at noon to see what was going on around the barnyard. The temperatures climbed to a balmy 36 degrees today. Everyone was just chilling out, enjoying the sunshine.



I'm not sure at this point how many ducks I actually have. I went into the winter with somewhere around 15. A few weeks ago one of our neighbors called and said, "Two boys just shot one of your ducks! They're still out there - if you run out now you can probably catch them." So Matt ran out and gave them an earful about knowing what they were shooting at. It was one of my favorite drakes, black with a green shimmer to his wings. Matt let the boys keep him because he didn't feel like cleaning a duck that afternoon.

7 ducks come up into the chicken coop at night. I'm thinking there must be more hanging out along the creek on the neighbor's side where it's more sheltered. This weekend I'm going to trek out there and see what I can find out.



The chickens hang out in the corn crib / chicken coop. Except for the band of separatists, who have made their home in the cattle shed. They look generally dishevelled this time of year.

The rooster below is such a handsome boy, the Brad Pitt of the barnyard, even when looking dishevelled. Especially when looking dishevelled. And he has a twin brother. If I was a hen, I'd be swooning.

5 minutes in the life of a dog

Ava, as seen from an upstairs window


Look west. No dangerous maniacal squirrels that direction.


Look east. No trespassing snowmobilers that direction.


I'll just sit here in the middle of the drive and block intruders with my pleasantly plump body.

Just a reminder

Tomorrow (December 12) is the last day for ordering your 2008 Sugar Creek Farm calendar to guarantee Christmas delivery via USPS Priority Mail.

Here are the deadlines for other delivery options:
UPS Ground - New Extended Deadline!!! 12/14/2007
2nd Day Air - New Extended Deadline!!! 12/18/2007
Next Day Air - 12/18/2007
SuperFast - 12/19/2007
SuperMegaFast - 12/20/2007

I am very pleased with the quality of the calendars from Lulu. Quality printing, nice weight of paper, spiral binding.

Thank you to everyone who has already ordered one or a few. You will help put hay in the cows' mouths this winter :)

The Mist

The creek was breathtakingly beautiful this morning, cutting through the brilliant white snow covering the pasture as a ghostly mist rose from it.



Looking back at the cattle's winter pen.

The neighbors were surely looking out their windows and muttering about that neighbor girl with her camera. I drove up and down the road, stopping to take pictures along the way.



The mist traces the path of Sugar Creek through the pasture and under the railroad trestle.

Matt said it was even more beautiful at sunrise. When he and Madeline were out doing chores. And I was still snug in my bed. I am so not a sunrise kind of girl.



The sun in this picture looks like the Wise Men's star. Looking off to the right you get an idea of how close we are to town.

And all of these pictures show how badly I need that lens cleaning kit I put on my Christmas list to Santa.

Random cool pictures

Thanks everyone for your comments on that last post. Whew! I'm ready to get that one off the top of the page. I think it will be valuable, to us anyway and hopefully to others, to keep writing about it - about our decision making process, how we deal with the current cost of inputs situation, setbacks, breakthroughs (hopefully!), etc. The coming year will be very telling. What on earth would we do with our time if we didn't have the challenge of this farm business?

Anyway, on to lighter fare. Here are some random cool photos from the past week:


After last week's ice-topped snow, big old Ike could walk across the back yard without sinking in.


I have finally mastered beef soup bones. We ate vegetable beef soup every single day this week. I feel so well. (Tired, but well.)


The girls have been composing a song together. Madeline writes the words, Olivia helps her figure out the tune with the piano. She even made up a bit of accompianment. It's very cool to see them collaborating, so I only asked them to please not sing that song anymore today because my brain will explode a few times.

I hate this time of year

One of my very first hens - now 4 years old

I hate this time of year. I don't mean Christmas. Oh no. I love the Christmas season. The gift making and baking. The traditions, those passed down and those created or adopted for our own little family. Popcorn and Christmas movies. And of course the music.

No, what I hate about this time of year is the number crunching. Trying to figure out what our costs are going to be for the farm in the coming year, our income, and what will be the difference between the two. Trying to figure out whether or not we will even be able to continue.

And this year probably more than any other. We thought it was bad last year with corn prices doubling. This year soybeans and hay have followed suit. On top of that we lost our rented hayground and will have to purchase all of our hay. If we can even find it to purchase. Matt talked to our hay baler today, and he's not selling anything yet. There's no other hayground to be found to rent. Everything is being plowed under for corn (i.e. ethanol).

If we could find pasture to rent it would help things, because we wouldn't have to start feeding hay as soon next fall. But there's none of that to be found, either.

Besides that, we are to the point where we need land in order to grow our business. We are at the limits of this acreage. We've worked hard to develop our market, and it's still growing. But there is no way to pencil out paying $5k to $7k an acre.

A couple of weeks ago we were planning to purchase 3 more cows for our herd. But after the number crunching we're talking about selling them all. We'd keep the calves we are currently feeding. But it doesn't look like we can afford to feed the cow herd through the winter.

I'm not sure what the point of my whining here is. All in the name of keeping it real, I guess. Farming is not all rainbows and unicorns. (Although, think of the business we could have if we sold unicorns! Hee hee) We've come so far, and yet it feels like we're facing an insurmountable peak.

Snowy

Snowy kitten


Snowy big calves


Snowy little calves + snowy ducks waiting for them to drop something yummy
(How many ducks do you see?)


Snowy duck in midflight, headed for the creek

Winter pig chores

We had our first bout of winter weather this weekend, with a few inches of snow followed by sleet followed by freezing rain. In other words, a slippery mess! I followed Matt & Madeline around on Saturday while they did some of the pig chores. Because I'm helpful like that.

First Matt breaks ice out of the water trough with a hammer...


then pours fresh water in.


Generally Madeline fills a bunch of 5-gallon pails at the hydrant up by the house, then hauls them out to the livestock in the bucket of the tractor.

Then Madeline climbs in...


and checks this litter's feeder to be sure it's full enough and is working properly.


Ava would really like to be in there with her. Ava lives to herd pigs. Except that she doesn't know how to herd, so it's more like chasing in a most unhelpful manner.

Then it's over to the other litter to clean out their feeder...


and give it a spin to bring fresh feed down.


Matt's to the left of the frame hand watering them.

The sows get fed and hand watered.


Then I was cold and went back in the house. Matt & Madeline still had to feed and hand water Oliver, and check the feeder and waterer for the butchers. They're the only group with a heated waterer. Soon the butchers will all be sold, then the 2 young litters can move into their pen. Ollie will go back in with the sows. That will ease the burden of pig chores - just the breeding stock to hand feed and water, and the feeder pigs to check on - until farrowing time comes around again in March.