Shoofly Cake Recipe...

It's hard to believe that I've lived in Lancaster County all my life, and have never made a shoofly pie!  I don't do pie crusts, and we've had so many opportunities to enjoy them over the years that I've just never bothered.

I found this recipe, however, for Shoofly Cake that is scrumptious!  I'm embarrassed to say how long it lasted...or not! 

Give it a try...I don't think you'll be disappointed!

*this is especially good when enjoyed warm, right out of the oven...

SHOOFLY CAKE

4 cups flour

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup butter or margarine

2 cups boiling water

1 cup molasses (regular baking molasses...not Black Strap!)

2 tsp baking soda

1.  Combine flour, brown sugar and butter until crumbly.  Reserve 1 ½ cups crumbs for topping.

2.  Combine boiling water, molasses and baking soda.  Stir into remaining crumbs and mix well.  Pour into floured baking pan.  Sprinkle with   1 ½ cups reserved crumbs.

3.  Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Refreshment...

There’s something about Sunday…

First of all, let me say this… For the majority of the week, we go through our routine just like anyone else.  This time of year for us, that means: morning milking, routine morning chores, lunch, a little free time in the afternoon…maybe to run errands, clip cows, do winter maintenance, or even read a book  J …evening milking, supper, homework and bedtime.

However, throughout our week, instead of rubbing shoulders with lots of people, we relate mostly with each other.  Yes, we see the milk man, the breeder, the feed salesman, a neighbor or two, and maybe (but hopefully not!) the vet for a few minutes, but it can get a little lonely by times.  Never boring, but sometimes lonely!  The size of our farm doesn’t warrant hired help, so we don’t have days off or get away at all as a family right now either…so…when Sunday rolls around, we are ready! 

We choose to spend time worshipping with our Church family each week, and do only the necessary chores on Sunday.  We hurry through the morning work and head for Church, knowing that we will be blessed in one way or another.  Perhaps it will be an especially meaningful sermon; perhaps it will be a conversation and laughter with a friend; perhaps it will be watching young people in the congregation being given the chance to share their gifts…or a combination of things.  Today was no exception!

We shared an impromptu afternoon with friends...fabulous food, laughter, a walk, watching the kids enjoy themselves and warm sunshine!  Just what we needed to be refreshed!

It’s evening now.  The barn work is finished, and we have a little time to relax before bedtime.  We’ve been blessed, and have hopefully been able to bless others in some way today!

Thank you friends, for a day of refreshment!

A Bird's Eye View...

When you think of a farm, you would typically think of a very rural area, right?  Perhaps with lots of open space, with some woodland, or large, open fields...

Well, we've often talked about how we feel like we're in a very rural area, but actually, we aren't.  It's amazing how quiet it can be, considering our surroundings.  In reality, we are in close proximity to a city,  and only 1/2 mile (as the crow flies) from a major US Route that crosses the entire country, from near Philadelphia the whole way to Portland, Oregon!

I was looking through one of my photo albums, and came across these pictures from 2004...

One summer day in early July, the resort and golf course across the road from us hosted a hot air balloon festival.  All day long, we watched a helicopter fly around overhead, and we assumed that there were rides available for purchase.  So...late afternoon, Jim walked over to the the golf course with a $20 bill and the camera in his pocket.  He had decided that if $20 would get him in the air, he was up for a ride!

Here are a few of the pictures that he took...

This is coming up on our farm from the west.  Our buildings are in the center of the picture, and to the left is the golf course where the helicopter took off from.  The pictures were taken in July, so the corn to the west of the barn was probably about waist high.  I don't remember what was in the field along the road, but my guess is that it was planted in beans after the barley was harvested, and they're probably not thick enough yet to look green from this distance...

This next picture was taken from the south.  Again, you see the golf course at the top of the picture.  Being July, and midday, the cows are inside with the fans running, out of the heat.  The meadow looks a bit chewed down by now as well.  Those two brown circles in the meadow with red dots in the meadow are hay racks.  The cows would have been outside in the morning and all night, grazing on any grass that they could find, and eating their bedtime snacks out of those racks.  Across the road to the right is our Amish neighbor's field...

. 
This is a picture of the farm (owned by extended family) where we keep our dry cows and heifers, just a few miles away.  The farm is in the middle of the picture, with the pond in the south end of the meadow.  At the top (north) of the picture is a very poplular Outlet Mall; one of several in the area...

The farms in our immediate area are relatively small, and mostly Amish.  However if you travel just 10+ miles in most directions, you find larger farms, primarily owned by "English".

I found these pictures to be fascinating.  For those of you from this area, perhaps you can identify some familiar landmarks!  (Do you know what tourist attraction the parking lot is for at the bottom of this last photo?)

And for those of you from far away, it's just a bird's eye view of our world!


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FREEDOM!

This is where I have spent many of my hours these past few weeks…in front of the computer.  It’s that time of year…

But as you can see, the computer is idle, and the stack of papers at the left is clipped together in a somewhat orderly fashion, and all of the files have been saved to a disc.

I’m FINISHED!  DONE!  FREE! 

 As farmers, we don’t need to estimate our taxes, or send any money to Uncle Sam periodically throughout the year, as long as we file our taxes by March 1.

It’s now February 23^rd…and I am a procrastinator.  I also strongly dislike paper work.  I would rather be up to my  ankles in pazutski than do paperwork!  (well, almost)  Every year it goes this way...I let it go to the last minute, and feel guilty when I do something "fun".  I'ts one of those necessary evils.

I finished the book work last night, double checked it this morning, and dropped it off at the accountant’s at noon today.  Now all we have to do is wait for the damages.

I now have FREEDOM to read a book, dream of my garden, go out for coffee with a friend, or blog without feeling guilty! 

Hmmm...and I guess that also means no more excuses to get out of helping with the morning work in the barn!  :)

It's Bittersweet...

I've thought a long time about posting this...

There might be some of you who don't like the idea...and I don't want to offend anyone...but it's reality here, and it's reality on a lot of farms...

Occasionally, when we have a cow that doesn't settle (become pregnant) easily, our last ditch effort is to have her bred to a cross breed; often an Angus or Hereford.  This often results in a confirmed pregnancy, for whatever reason! 

Being a crossbreed, the resulting calf will never be an asset to the dairy herd.  So...if the calf is a bull, we will make him a steer, and raise him for beef.

The first time we raised a steer, we made some mistakes.  Big mistakes.  We turned him into a pet.  Well...almost.  He got a little too big to cuddle with, but...  When the time came to have him fill our freezer, there were tears all around. 

This time, we tried to steel ourselves for the inevitable...

"Archie" was part Holstein, part Hereford.  He was an adorable little calf, but thank goodness some of that wore off as he got older.  He had basically a nice temperament, but was beginning to push the heifers around in the outside pen.  We also didn't feel very comfortable having Jenna in the pen with him.  He was just BIG!  It was time. So...he is now keeping three families very happy for a L O N G time. 

 It's been bittersweet, but then again, life on the farm can be that way.

By the Side of the Road...

I found this sampling of signs by the side of the road to be an interesting mix...

Where else but in good old Lancaster County?

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Ultimate Kitty...

Some of you may have already met Slinky, but for those of you who haven't...she's the ultimate farm cat...

She hangs out upstairs in the barn most of the time...safe from the dogs...either on top of the hay mow or in the rafters.  She comes downstairs to the cow stable in the mornings while we are milking, and while the dogs are still sleeping.  At the first sound of their collars jingling, she's outta there!

Midway through the morning, she often appears again.  While the dogs are taking their morning snooze in the sun, she hangs out with me.  She rides around on my shoulders...sorry...no good pics! 

 She climbs ladders...

And then sits there looking proud of herself...not to mention purring loudly...

And when those crazy dogs come around again, she finds the highest possible place to perch.  Within their sight, but out of their reach...



She's only been with us for a few short months, but has become our favorite...the ultimate kitty!

A Glimpse of Spring...

I know, you say...it's only Valentines' Day!  We still have two weeks left in February, and all of March to go before we can really call it Spring...but this week I'm seeing glimpses of what is to come. 

The temperature this morning is already above 40 degrees...and it's to be in the 50's later this week! 

The dogs have been lounging in the sunshine, rather than huddled together on their bed in the shop...

The snow is disappearing, and I see that there really is grass  mud underneath...

We're starting to see more people out and about, running along the roads and around the trail at the golf course...  (I should probably join them!)

The breeze has a touch of warmth to it, and I think I'll hang my wash outside today...

And best of all...when I fed the calves this morning, Belle's calf, who has been struggling to be healthy for the past two weeks, came out eagerly to drink her milk.  All of it.  Without hesitation.  That's wonderful news!

We won't put away the winter clothes yet.  The hats, gloves and boots will still dry by the radiator...

...but perhaps those boots will be needed for mud now, instead of snow!

So...while it's warm, I think I'll head out to clean out the chicken pen.  Maybe the chickens will get the hint that spring is in the air, and start laying some more eggs.  One can only hope!

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

There's excitement in the house!

After school today, we went to pick out two new furry friends...Jenna has chosen to raise some goats for a 4-H project! 

Here they are...cute little things, aren't they?

We know next to nothing about goats, but we're ready and willing to learn.  They have got to be the cutest babies I've ever seen!  Honestly!

It will be sometime in April when they are old enough to leave their Mamas, but until then, oh...the anticipation!

The Brains of the Barn...

We call it "the brains of the barn"...and it's one vital part of having a successful dairy operation...good record keeping!

This is the Herdex chart...

From a distance it looks rather like a dirty piece of plexiglass with a bunch of random marks on it! But then...barns tend to be dirty, and metal rusts, so please forgive the rough look. It's quite important!  On this chart, each milking cow has a line of her own.  We keep track of her freshening date (when she has her calf), her heats, breeding dates, and her due date on this chart...

The red marks indicate a fresh date, the green marks indicate a heat or a breeding date, the purple mark indicates that she's been confirmed pregnant by the vet, and the yellow mark indicates that she has been "dried up".  (no longer being milked, and given a rest period before her next calf is due).  Those red and green lines show us at quick glance how long she's been fresh, and where she is in her heat cycle...

This is what we call the "barn desk".  In it, we keep our records...breeding, vaccinations, vet checks, and our heifer book, which is a record of geneology for each animal in the herd...

When Jim's Dad was farming, he bought this little blue notebook (you can see it above, in the barn desk).  In it, he kept track of each cow's freshening date, indicating whether the calf was a heifer or a bull.  You can see by the date, that this book began in November, 1990.

We still use this book...this is the page we are on now, in 2011!  It's fascinating to go back through the book to see how many heifer and bull calves that each cow has had...as well as how quickly she settles in each lactation.  There are approximately 1000 calves recorded in this little notebook!  It would have been interesting to count the heifers and bulls, but I'll save that for another day...I'm guessing there would be about fifty percent heifers vs bulls!

Each heifer calf is recorded in the "heifer book" below.  She is given an ear tag #, and her birthdate, sire, dam, and genetic record is recorded here.  We have genetic records for as far back as seven generations recorded for some of our cows.  Our herd is "closed", which means that we raise all of our own replacement heifers, and don't purchase any from outside sources.  We really count on those heifer calves each year!

So...if there were to be a barn fire, after getting the animals out, the next thing we would grab would be the barn desk and the Herdex chart.  After all, you can't function without "the brains of the barn"!

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Perfect Timing...

Sometimes it's all about timing...


The other day I ran an errand to the other farm, where we keep our dry cows and heifers.  When I was finished with what I was doing,and was about to leave, I felt like I should just stick my head in the barn to check things out.  

 This is what I found...well...kind of...

Rosie, who wasn't due for another ten days, had just had her calf...only the calf's head was twisted backwards and underneath it's body.  Rosie stood there looking at me, mooing, knowing that her calf was in trouble. 

 I was able to quickly get the calf's head untwisted so that she could breathe, and she vigorously shook her head, as if she was saying "Pshew...I'm glad THAT's over!"  Rosie took over from there...

It was through no planning on my part...I was just in the right place at the right time to help out the newest member of the herd.  Thank you God, for perfect timing!

Transferring the Ag Bag....

Well...it's finished! 

Things went relatively well today with transferring the corn silage from the ag bag into the silo.

It took a little while to get set up this morning...there was some hard, crusty snow on the sides of the bag and around the bottom that needed to be cleared away before they could cut the bag and pull it back.

Once the end of the bag was opened, the first glimpse didn't look so great!  The slope end of the bag is never packed as tightly as the rest of the bag, and a tightly packed bag is crucial to preserving the feed! This is the end where the bagger was pulled away, the remaining silage shovelled in by hand, and the end buried to make an airtight seal.  Typically we don't have much trouble, but this year we lost a little silage at this end.  There were a few small holes which created problems!

The white that you see is ice on the silage around the edges, and that's normal.  But some of the silage itself was spoiled.  We were concerned...

 It's never a good sign to see the manure spreader out by the ag bag!  The spoiled silage went right back onto the field for fertilizer.  (and food for the crows, who are now welcome to help themselves!)  Thankfully, it was just one spreader load...

The rest of the plastic is pulled back...

and it looks great!  The cows and the farmers are happy...

The morning continued...Ken is a master with his loader tractor...

The silage is unloaded off the trucks and into the blower...

...and up into the silo.  Can you tell which silo it's going into?



Now Jim has two silos to level, and we have one silo unloader to lower and set up.  Sounds like that will keep us busy for another afternoon.  It wouldn't do to be bored!

 And...now that we're finished transferring the ag bag, the tractor operator is free to go to Florida!


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Getting ready...

Tomorrow is the big day.  It's time to transfer the ag bag to the silo...

Typically, when we chop corn silage in the fall, we are able to produce enough silage to feed all of our animals for the year.  That's wonderful, considering the price of corn!  What we lack, however, is storage space.  So, we filled both silos here at home, put some silage in the old tile silo at the other farm for our dry cows and heifers, and put out an ag bag for extra storage.  The ag bag creates an air tight environment where the silage can cure and remain unspoiled until we are ready for it.  Basically, it's a horizontal silo.

The cold weather and frozen ground make a good combination for making the transfer..

Yesterday afernoon my job was to crawl, walk, slip and slide around the top of the bag, cleaning the snow off with a barn broom.  That was interesting!  Can you picture someone wearing rubber soled boots on a slippery, wet, round plastic bag, trying desperately to keep from falling?  I usually carry the camera, so sorry...no pictures! :)

One of the biggest challenges of putting out an ag bag is keeping the animals away.  Crows are the biggest culprits for causing damage.  Those owls are supposed to help scare them away...so is the shot gun...fired into the air to scare them off whenever they settle too close for comfort!  The smallest of holes can allow air to get into the bag, causing spoilage...Now you know why we won't let the kids play on top of the bag, fun as it may be.

The small hole below was probably caused by one of the dogs as she tried to climb up onto the bag.  When I was clearing off the snow, I found two more small holes near the top that looked like they would have been made by birds.  I taped them up, hoping that the damage is minimal.  We'll see tomorrow!

The silo unloader needed to be raised to the top of the silo, and will be lowered back down to rest on top of the new silage.  I helped Jim to get it set up, and he and Eric cranked it by hand to the top...this is looking up from near the bottom of the silo...

 

Jim then climbed the outside of the silo to check on the gooseneck, which determines which silo the silage goes into as it is blown up the chute.  There was a problem, so he had to remove it, lower it by hand, and take it to the neighboring welding shop for repairs.  It went back up this morning, hand over hand with a rope...that's one heave piece of metal!  You can see Jim up at the top on the platform between the silos...

There was one more obstacle before we could say we're ready to go...the snow!  Ken, the man who will be masterminding the operation, brought his four wheel drive tractor over, and moved lots of snow to make it possible to get the trucks from the bag to the silo..

It can be challenging to find just the right time to transfer the bag...but we think we're ready to go.  It will be a busy day tomorrow!

Ice...

Last night at bedtime, the forcast was for freezing rain and ice over night into the morning...then turning to rain by lunch time.  We really weren't sure what to expect.  When I went out to check a springer before heading to bed near midnight, it was just beginning to mist lightly.  (yes...I should have been in bed much earlier, but I fell asleep on the sofa... :)

At 3:45 am, we woke to the sound of crashing tree branches...our neighbor has a lot of old trees on his property, and though they've been trimmed, the weight of the ice accumulating on the branches must have been the last straw.  Over the course of thirty minutes or so, we heard crash after crash, as the ice did it's work. 

Thankfully, the electric lines weren't on his side of the road!  Losing power was our greatest concern.  We do have a generator, but it's a real hassle to hook it up...and when we use it, everything takes longer.  It generates enough power to run the vacuum pump (to milk), the compressor (to cool the milk), the silo unloader and the barn cleaner, but not all at one time!

So...we decided that we might as well get up and do the milking a little early, in case the ice got worse, tearing power lines...or someone slid into a pole!  We weren't so early that we affected the cows' schedule too much...too much change in routine isn't good for milk production!

By breakfast time, we had mostly light rain...however the ice accumulation on the trees remained, and was beautiful...

                                         

When I was feeding the chickens, I had to laugh...this chicken wanted to come out, but wasn't sure about the snow.  I call her "Fraidy Chicken"...

A few others were a little braver...

...and when I left the chicken house and headed out of the pen...I had to laugh some more.  That's Murphy, the sentry at the gate.  She knows she's not allowed inside the chicken pen, but she will push every limit she's given!  The chickens were very aware of her presence, but didn't seem too worried!

All in all, we didn't fare too badly this time around.  Yes, school was closed again, and the kids are going a little stir crazy (or maybe it's me!)  but it could have been oh, so much worse. The rain is making a sloppy mess, but somehow that seems better than another foot of snow and temperatures in the single digits.  We're counting our blessings!