Rainy Day Chores and Fun

Well, it is raining today and it is a good thing that I have things in the house to entertain me. It seems when the weather is good then I am outside catching up. This means that many things that require me to be inside like canning and such get put off. I have been putting all my tomatoes in the freezer since I didn't want to spend that many days canning as they came in. So today, out they come and I will be making sauce and canning tomatoes. I also have some jelly that didn't jell so I will re-process that so I can get it off my kitchen counter. I have to leave it on the counter so that I don't forget about it. Today is also a good day to go through the children's winter clothes to see what they have and what they need and what we can get rid of. So those are my chores for the day. Now comes the fun. Rainy days are a good day to sit and play board games with the children. This is the time to pull out those board games that last forever like Monopoly, Risk, Life. Even the little one can play by helping mommy. So with the board games pulled out already the kids get to pick and we will play. Rainy days don't have to be a pain because they keep you from being outside. I think God sends us rainy days during the busy season of planting, growing and harvesting to remind us that it is ok to slow down and have some relaxing fun every now and then. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Peanut Harvest is Sad

Well, this was my first year growing peanuts and I have to say that the harvest is sad. I actually had loads of peanuts, but between the squirrels digging them up and then the new peanuts in the ground sprouting into new plants I didn't get much of a harvest. All the stuff I read said to wait until the leaves on the plant turned yellow...mine never did. Everything else I read said to harvest the first of September....I must have planted too early. Oh well, there is always more to learn. That is what I love about this life, it is an ongoing experiment in which you tweak things here and there learn and then tweak some more. We will take the few pitiful peanuts that we have gotten and roast them. I will use some for granola and then maybe a small batch of homemade peanut butter. You know just enough to make us never want store bought peanut butter again! Next year I will be counting days on the calendar to figure out the appropriate time to harvest. I hate pulling up all those sprouted peanuts! Hope your yearly experiment is fairing well and if not that you are learning from it. Blessings, Kat

Isaac on it's way

Tropical Storm Isaac is on it's way to hit landfall and we are right in the center of it. We are a bit north of the coast so really with a TS we should get a lot of rain, maybe some power outages. Considering our power is prone to go out when the sun is shining this is something we take into consideration. Having been through several hurricanes and oh so many tropical storms we take each one seriously and there are certain preparations that we do to ensure that things run smoothly. So here is our prep list for the next couple of days. 1. Make sure all animals have sufficient bedding so that if there is some flooding into their housing they are still relatively dry. 2. Make sure there is sufficient water in all barns so that we are not having to tote water during the storm. 3. Make sure that all animals have sufficient hay since they won't be able to get out and graze. 4. Fill bottles with water and fill empty spaces in the freezer so that if the power goes out the freezer can stay cold for a few days. Those frozen bottles can also help the refrigerator stay cold. 5. Cook sufficient food so that we have plenty of leftovers to heat and eat if the power is out. 6. Make sure that the grill is on the porch so that it is accessible out of the rain. And make sure there is sufficient fuel for the grill. This is an easy way to heat meals, make coffee (I will not miss my morning coffee), etc. 7. Make sure that all oil lanterns are filled, flashlights have good batteries and candles are already out and ready for use. 8. Check the batteries in the radio. 9. Make sure all gates are closed and latched so that they don't blow around in the wind and damage the hinges. 10. Get out games and things to entertain the children so that they are handy and we aren't trying to see what we have to pull out by flashlight. These are the main things, I also have to finish harvesting the peanuts! And there are a few other little things. We really don't expect much more here than lots of rain and like I said power outage. Minor nuisances and there are preparations that are always on hand for bad weather situation so those don't need to be attended to. Mostly what we have to do around is involves making sure the animals are secure, dry and comfortable. So that is about it for us. Hope those of you in the red zone are prepared for whatever you need to be prepared for. Along the coast you will have a much bigger list than mine. Blessings, Kat

Marine Brandon Raub and A Solzhenitsyn Moment

All Americans should read the Gulag Archipelago by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn. In it you will find the stories of those that found themselves in Stalins Gulags. One of the tactics used by Stalin to make people disappear was to claim mental health issues and Stalin's "mental health" hospitals were full to the brink of those who lead average everyday normal lives, until Stalin's goons came to whisk them away under the guise of mental illness. If you don't think it can't happen here in the land of the free and the brave then think again. Marine Brandon Raub in Virginia is being held in VA mental health facility without charges and nothing more than a citing of mental health issues. All because he exercised his right of free speech and his opinion on his facebook page. Yes, they are watching folks and taking notes.....which one of you will be whisked away because you are now deemed mentally ill. It has been stated that there is no crime and that he is not under arrest, yet he is being held against his will without the freedom to leave at the VA hospital. That is arrest to me. You know they say that movies show enough truth so as to dull the senses of the populace to the real truth happening everyday. There was a movie, can't remember the name, about pre-crime arrests and detentions. Citizens (communist term by the way)were arrested if they even had the thought of committing a crime. If this is going to be the norm, then buckle up your seatbelts folks it is going to be a wild ride and you might be next when the bootjacks show up at your door. If you would like to know more HERE is the Oathkeepers article on the matter. This is the time that we all need to stand together, make this matter known to everyone you know and on every website you can post it on. Write those letters and send in those editorials to your newspapers. If we don't stand against the Gulags now, we all stand the chance of winding up inside one of them. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Tough Time Ahead

Like I said yesterday, there are tough times ahead. Most of the country has been embroiled in a terrible drought this year. That combined with the fact that this is the second year running for the drought in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas and the food situation is going to get pretty grim. Why is this a problem you say? Let me try to explain. The middle of the US is called the bread basket for a reason, it is where most of our grain crops are grown. Wheat and corn are huge there. Because of the drought many of these crops have burned up. Homesteaders have been steadily talking about this online for the past several months. The drought is the most common topic of discussion these days. Many small homesteaders lost their gardens because they simply couldn't keep them watered enough and the high heat burned them up anyway. Yields in basic staple ingredients like corn, wheat and soy are going to be down. When so much of our yield is already promised in contracts with other countries then those contracts are met first, leaving Americans with the leftovers. There isn't going to be much in the way of leftovers folks. Then consider with the corn crop that 40% goes to ethanol production. That leaves 60% of a bad harvest to fill contracts and feed the American populace. Let's see....60% of not much is very little left to feed the American populace. Also consider that these three crops are in just about every type of processed food in the grocery store and then some. Most things on the shelves have at least one of these ingredients. Then when you hit the meat and dairy case, typically those things were fed with corn and soy. Last year many dairymen downsized herds because they simply couldn't afford to feed them. Grain prices this year are rising even higher than last. Then there is the hay situation. If the corn, wheat and soy are burning up so are the hay fields. Farmers can't get in hay to feed for the winter because the grass simply doesn't grow when it is burning up. No hay means you can't feed your livestock. You can't sell them because no one else can feed them either so this means a glut of slaughter animals. Meat prices likely won't go down but will hold steady for a while and then when there is evidence of a shortage it will go up. Many of Texas' beef farmers cut way back to a small core of breeding stock last year, if they cut back this year that is bad bad news as Texas cattle farmers provide the majority of beef in this nation. So, you say well then you will just eat chicken. The heat is killing chickens right and left. I have a neighbor that raises quail and they lost 11,000 in one day due to the heat. And that is with the industrial size fans in the houses. I have another neighbor who raises commercial chickens and they have been looking for new employees to do nothing but clean up the dead chickens, they have so many. The chicken trucks have been running less and less from their farm also. Isn't it amazing how those three little grains affect so much and yet we give them so little thought? Start thinking now, if you haven't already. From the reports I have been reading there is the general consensus that grocery prices will rise anywhere from 30% to 40% by next spring. Build that pantry now and make plans. I know many families that are struggling now with grocery prices, what are they going to do next spring? I know I get astonished each time I go to the grocery and I don't buy that much, but I pay so much more than I used to. I used to be able to keep my house pretty well stocked for an average of 50.00 a month and that was just a couple years ago. Now, I spend about 200.00 a month for the same stuff. While, I don't like doom and gloom I do believe folks need a heads up and this is it...heads up it is gonna be tough to feed your kids. Plan now, prepare now, make changes now. Good luck and God bless, Kat

Update from the Farm

I haven't updated in awhile. I really didn't realize how long it had been. Sorry about that. I will try to do better. Things have been busy around here and some hard decisions being made. With rising grain costs and this terrible drought that most of our country has been under I have been taking a hard look at my goat herd and everything else around here. We currently have 7 does in our herd. We are going to be culling several of those girls simply because they aren't producing or aren't producing well. One of our first nubians has never produced for us. We have tried everything we could try and never gotten a kid from her. I really wanted a doeling from her too. She is a beautiful girl and unfortunately will be the first to go. We have two more that will be culled also. One is old and somewhere along the line I believe developed mastitis which wasn't treated which damaged her udder. When she kidded last year (no kids this year)her udder was hard as a rock and absolutely no milk. We worked on the udder for weeks and finally gave up. Her daughter has the same issues. She freshened last year with a congested udder, was treated and eventually was milking quite well with just over 1/2 a gallon a day once a day milking. However, this year she freshened with the congested udder and after a week or so of working on it we got the vet involved and it is mastitis. We have treated it, but the scarring of the udder tissue has already damaged her production dramatically. There are some forms of mastitis that can be passed from mother to daughter just like CAE can. It isn't CAE (confirmed). So fortunately, I had already started the babies on bottles with milk from another doe. We treated for the mastitis but the damage to her udder has been done. This year we are barely getting a quart of milk a day with twice a day milking. Not even enough to feed her twins (pasteurized of course). She does me no good in my program if I have to steal milk from other does to feed her babies. So she has to go. These decisions are so hard because my girls are well.....my girls. They are a good herd as far as goats go. It would be much better for us to cull these three and replace with one. We simply can't afford to feed livestock that isn't doing anything anymore than we already do with the horses. We didn't have a good kidding year, 3 bucklings and 2 doelings with only 3 of the girls freshening. We are taking a hard look at our buck and the other two girls. Somebody else might be added to the go list. We aren't the only ones taking a hard look at our herds. Grain prices are drastically up and going to get worse, there are massive sell-offs happening and going to be happening in the next few months as livestock producers have to make hard decisions so that they can feed what they can during the winter. This massive drought is taking its toll and for those that buy all their food at the grocery..they will be hit hard with rising food costs. Tough times ahead. More later. Blessings from the farm, Kat