Saturday, December 29, 2012

Christmas Celebrations...

It's been a busy week of family celebrations...

We spent Christmas day with Jim's family.  As usual, we ate really, really well...and had a good time together.  I didn't have my camera along, so there are no pictures...but we enjoyed our time with family!

Today was my family's celebration.  We had a mid-morning brunch here at our house, minus one cousin.  As the cousins get older...with jobs and college...it's becoming harder to juggle the schedules to get everyone together in one place.  But we did it!  The missing cousin arrived around noon, and we had about three hours in the afternoon when all eighteen of us were together.

My parents...


the cousins...

My youngest nephew accompanied us on the piano as we sang some Christmas carols...


And much to the excitement of some, we had a few inches of wet "packy" snow today.  the young ones headed outside.

Mom (Grandma) watching the activity outside from the warm kitchen...



Putting on the finishing touches...




And then the guys headed out to play in the snow with the big toy.  My oldest nephew bought this four wheeler recently, and they had fun with it in the snow.  He has a Go-pro camera attached to his helmet...



Eric took a turn...



Late afternoon called for a round of Dutch Blitz...


We have one more extended family gathering tomorrow, and then our family celebrations are over for this year.  It's been a busy, but fun week of spending time with family!  It may get a little hectic, but we wouldn't want to miss out on any of it!

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas!

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come...
Let earth receive her King.
Let every heart prepare Him room,
Let heaven and nature sing...Let heaven and nature sing...
Let heaven and heaven and nature sing!"


It felt a little bit like heaven and nature were singing last night, as we were given our first white Christmas in a quite some time!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Nasty Birds...

I remember a few years ago...a local shopping mall was having issues with crows hanging out on the roof...making a mess of things.  The "powers that be" were trying to decide what to do about the dirty birds.  Someone suggested that they try to relocate the birds to some farms in the area, where they wouldn't be a nuisance.  Hmmmmm...

#1.  Did you ever hear of a bird being told where to go, or where to stay?

#2.  Do you know of any farmer who really wants a huge flock of crows hanging out on his farm?  Or even a small flock, for that matter?

They are a nuisance...not only are they dirty birds, but they can cause a lot of damage.

Most of our balage ag bags are close to the buildings, and appear to be fine, but we have a couple of groups of bales along the edge of a field that seem to have attracted some unwelcome visitors!

Take a look at these...they look fine from a distance, but if you look closely, you can see a black hole on the bottom right side of the bale closest to the camera...


We've been finding holes like this all over these round bales.  Some of them are at beak level (if the crow was sitting on the ground) and a lot are on the top edges of the bales, as if the birds were sitting on top and leaning down over the side.

This hay was baled wet, and needs to be completely air tight in order to be properly cured and preserved.  When air gets inside the plastic, the hay starts to get moldy, and can eventually be ruined.  Not only does it not taste good, it can be dangerous for the cows to eat.

Most of the holes are rather small, but here's a larger one on the top of the bale.  That plastic is really thick, so the crows had to be really determined to get at whatever they thought was inside.  They most likely were hoping to find some grain.  Too bad for them...


So...armed with my "tools", I headed out to try to repair the damage...


There were sixteen bales in this group, and I used almost all of the ag bag tape to cover the holes tightly, hopefully sealing them in time to prevent further damage.

The first bale that we found with holes in, has been opened up and doesn't appear to be moldy, so we are hoping that we caught them in time!

There's always something to keep us on our toes!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Making Christmas Memories...

No matter that it was warm and damp outside, today was a Christmas cookie baking marathon at my sister's house. Jenna and I, my sister and my niece, and my Mom spent the day together.  We each prepared several types of cookie batter ahead of time, and we baked today from 9 to 5!

The sugar cookies took a long time to decorate...


I saw these at a friend's house this week, so we tried them.  Dip these in your hot chocolate for a yummy treat...


Snickerdoodles...


...made from this recipe, written out by hand in my Grandma Herr's own handwriting!  She would be 113 if she were here today...


While the cookies baked this afternoon, we were serenaded by Mom playing the piano...



All finished!  We will be eating good...


...or perhaps rather, we will have cookies to share for quite a while!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Christmas Greenhouse...

Hidden away in the southern end of the county is a wonderful greenhouse that is a must visit for any of you who live in Lancaster County.

This morning my sister, my Mom and I visited Henrys' Greenhouses  just west of the Buck.  It was my first visit, and I was not disappointed!  They have retail hours several times a year...Christmas being a great time to go and stock up on beautiful flowers and great ideas!

We loved the original ideas that we saw.  There was so much to see before we even got inside!



This is the porch where you enter.  Check out what's growing on the roof over the porch...



I loved the old bicycle leaning on the post.  In the spring, my sister said the old ladder that you see hanging horizontally was filled with hanging baskets...


If you just happen to have some old stairs laying around, you might as well decorate them...


And I loved this old nesting box filled with green and swags...


Then we headed inside.

Make the seat of an old chair into a planter box filled with bulbs...I think these were "paper white" bulbs...


Unique ways to hang plants...


I have some old canning racks like this in the basement...what a creative idea!


This nesting wreath is unique.  It's a wreath form wrapped with wool...hang it out for the birds to pick at and have something soft to line their nests!


The hood of an old Farmall and an old gas can make nice decorations too...


And of course the highlight was seeing the tables full of beautiful poinsettias, in every color, style and size you could imagine...





These were my absolute favorite, so I bought a couple for myself...


And of course there were lots of the traditional reds...


We enjoyed ourselves immensely...


If you have the chance to visit, they're open until December 22nd...Monday-Friday, 9-5 and Saturdays, 8-12.  If you go, allow plenty of time for browsing, and don't forget your checkbook!  :)

I was not asked to write this post, and asked permission before I did.  You can click on the link at the top to visit their blog and get more information and ideas.


Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Inside or Out...

Yesterday, someone asked me to explain about the adult cows...whether they are kept inside the barn all the time, or if they spend any time outside.  So...I'll try to explain how we manage this...from little on up...

When a heifer calf is born, within the first few days of her life, she is typically put into one of our individual calf pens/hutches.  These hutches allow each calf to have her own space...we can easily tell if she's eating or not, and she has a shelter from bad weather (and the sun), and she can also run out back in the summer time.    It's a much healthier place for her to be than inside the barn, sharing germs with her friends.  This picture was taken this summer right after the hutches were repaired.  Now, the backs have been put on to keep the calves warmer...


After she grows too big for the hutches, the heifer moves inside the barn to the box pens, where she shares space with a few friends.  Here, she gradually gets used to the feed that the older animals eat, and learns to drink from an "on demand" water bowl.  As we need room, and as the heifers grow, they eventually end up in "the outside pen".  This pen allows them to move inside and outside of the barn as they chose.  They have food and shelter inside, and room to run outside, and here they get used to an electric fence for the first time.  This is the outside part of the "outside pen" yesterday in the snow...


When the heifers are about 15 months old, they are bred and taken to "the other farm", where they will spend the rest of the time until they freshen.  Over there, they can go inside and out of the barn as they please, and have a large meadow to graze on in the summer time.

Now, on to the adult milking cows...

At night...beginning in late spring when the temperatures are consistently in the mid forties, and until early fall, the cows spend the night outside, unless the weather is really bad.  They love to go out in the meadow to graze, and lay down to sleep.  Then we bring them into the barn before morning milking....it makes the morning a little earlier, but the cows are happier and they (and the barn) stay much cleaner when they're outside!  When the temperatures are colder like now, and all winter long, they will spend the night inside in their stalls.

During the day...when the meadow grass has begun to grow vigorously in the spring, the cows spend a good part of the day outside grazing and moving around as they please.  You should hear them in the spring...after morning milking and when the air is warm, they bawl, hoping that we will let them out!  When we do, for the first time, they run and kick up their heels!  Here's an old post, showing their excitement the first time they are left out in the spring.

On the hot, humid, summer days, they go out for the morning, and come back in by noon.  Then we turn on all the fans because they don't handle heat very well.

This week for the first, we have started keeping the cows off the meadow.  They had been grazing the rye grass fields, but have chewed it down enough...and there's no new regrowth in the meadow, so they just go out into the barnyard for exercise while we clean up the barn...


They really want to go out into the meadow, but they aren't allowed.  They would just make tracks in it and destroy the grass.

Usually one of us puts fresh bedding in the stalls, while the other watches for heats.  This is what we watch for...the cow that is allowing the other cow to jump her, is in heat.  This particular cow is only fresh 45 days, so we won't breed her yet, but will keep track of her heat, and watch her in another 21 days...


Don't you wish you could do this?


Here they come back into their stalls, freshly bed up with sawdust...


Hopefully that wasn't too confusing!  In a nutshell...we put the cows out any time that the weather allows, and when they won't damage the meadow with their sharp hooves!

On another note...

I had some help watching the cows this morning, while Jim cleaned up the barn...


When I put her down, her brother attacked...


...and she played for a while until she got tired of it...


"Make him stop!   He started it!"

Never a dull moment!

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

First Snow of the Season...

It might not be amounting to much, but it's snowing!  Kind of.  It started to rain in the early morning hours, then turned to wet snow around 7:30 this morning.  Now I think it's just a wet mixture, but the ground is still white!

I was working in the house this morning, and around 11:00, decided to go gather some eggs and take my camera for a short walk.  The chickens don't like snow.  Most of them were either inside their shed, or huddled under their porch...


This one was brave...and curious.  She stood there for a while, balancing on one leg, checking me out...


And there was evidence that a few others ventured out into the snow as well...


Next to the chickens, the calves were snug in their hutches.  I put some fresh, dry straw in their pens when I fed them this morning, and you can see here (on the right side) that Jim has put the backs on the hutches for the winter.   They can't run out the back now, but will be protected from the cold winter wind.  The pen on the far left is empty and is being used for extra hay and feed.  When we get another heifer calf, he'll put that back on too...


The older heifers were loving the snow...they ran to the far end of the outside pen to play...


But the cows stayed inside today.  When I peeked in the barn, they were almost all laying down contentedly, chewing their cud and making milk!  The second cow there, #308 was just fresh recently.  It looks like she hasn't quite cleaned up her feed, so we'd better keep an eye on her...


Last night, the forecast was calling for up to 3" of snow, and the kids were hoping for a two hour delay this morning.  Too bad for them, it didn't happen...but it's snow none-the-less, and it sure feels good to be able to be in the warm house, taking a little bit of a break this afternoon!