Random Five Friday...

It's been almost a week since I've posted, and I feel like I'm finally catching up with laundry...redding up...cleaning...and with life in general.  There's always something to do, and here is a sampling of what's happening here. I'm joining up with Nancy, at Random Five Friday today.

1. Even though most things in the garden are dying...or almost dead...the zinnias are still blooming their heads off.  I brought this bouquet in yesterday, and played around on Picasa with the picture this morning...

Zinnias are such cheery flowers, and so easy to grow!

2.  Our nephew has been doing some painting here this week.  With an old house, there's always somewhere that paint is peeling, and he did a great job.  He painted the pillars out front...painted the white wooden siding on the front porch...and here he's finishing up on the balcony ceiling!  It's amazing what some scraping and painting will do to make things look fresh and clean!

3.  Some of the harvesting is finished, but there's still more left to do.  In this picture looking to the west from the barn, you can see three fields.  The corn field on the left is late corn...planted after the last cutting of rye grass...and will be chopped for silage and put into an ag bag.  That will hopefully happen on Monday.  The corn field on the right, and the soybean field in the middle are drying down and will be combined sometime in the coming weeks...

4.  This was one of Jim's projects this morning...forking out a box pen...by hand...

5.  I think the hydrangeas are especially pretty this time of year.  I have several bushes, and they all bloom different colors in the summer, but this time of year as they are drying, I think they are at their most beautiful!

I could probably do a "random ten" or so, but I'll save the rest for another day!

Enjoy your day!

Random 5 Friday...

It's Friday!  Of course, you knew that already!  Especially if you have school aged kids, you know just how exciting Fridays are!  They're looking forward to a couple of days off...to sleeping in tomorrow morning...

But oh...that's right...we're farmers, so Fridays don't matter!   :)

Saturday is just another day, with the same schedule.  We'll get our "time off" for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.

I'm joining up with Random 5 Friday today.  Here are five random thoughts from around the farm...

1.  I tried a couple of new things in the garden this year.  I made a raised bed out of some old pallets, and tucked an herb garden in the corner of my perennial bed close to the house.  I planted parsley, oregano, chives, cilantro, and basil.  It's too cold for the basil at night, so I've been covering it.  It was getting way too spindly in the house, so I gave it a shot.  The bed is pretty protected, and I'm hoping it won't get too cold...

I also planted my lettuce, cabbage and kale in these pallets (in the garden) to try to keep the weeds down.  For some reason, the weeds just love to take over these plants when I put them directly in the garden soil...

2.  We're down to our last four round bales of balage.  They will last us perhaps two weeks yet, and then we'll be feeding all dry hay to the cows. They'll be grazing as well, but by the time we're ready to bale first cutting of alfalfa, the hay mow will be getting empty...

3.  A few weeks ago, Jim "retired" our old New Idea manure spreader...

This is one of the few...perhaps the only...piece of brand new equipment that we bought.  Back in September of 1996, we purchased this manure spreader for $4850.  We spread manure every day, so Jim figured out the with the daily manure spreading, and cleaning out heifer pens several times a year for 16 1/2 years, that his trusty old spreader has hauled between 6500 - 7000 loads of manure!  The web has been replaced several times, and routine maintenance has been done, but it's now been replaced by a used, and slightly larger one. This old spreader owed us nothing!  It will be a great spreader for someone who has a few steers, or some horses, but it's daily, heavy work is over.

4.  My chickens are laying eggs like crazy again, now that the days are getting longer.  We lost some customers over the winter to our Amish neighbors, because we didn't have light in our chicken shed.  Now we have to build up a customer base again.  Three dozen eggs per day is a few more than we need...

5. My fern leaf peony's blooms are just about to open!  I got this flower from a lady at Church a bunch of years ago, and it's cheery blooms are one of the first to open...

This was fun...I hope you enjoyed it too!

Smell That Fresh Country Air...

I made the mistake of hanging out our bath towels to dry on Saturday...

It was a gorgeous drying day, with a strong south air, but...

...it was also a great day for hauling pit manure.

Take a whiff...can you smell that fresh country air?

"Pazutski"...

One of the daily jobs that needs to be done, regardless of the weather, is cleaning out the cow gutters and spreading "pazutski".

Have you ever heard of "Pazutski"? 

Pazutski is another name for cow manure, cow poop, or anything else you might want to call it!  I have no idea where the word came from, how to spell it for sure, or if it's even a word...it's just what my family has called it ever since I was a little girl...

We don't have a manure pit, so each morning, Jim backs the manure spreader under the elevators and turns on the barn cleaner.  Behind each row of cows is a gutter about ten inches deep.  Laying in the gutter is a heavy chain which makes a complete circle...through the barn, up the elevator and back down again.  Paddles are attached to the chain about fifteen inches apart.  When the chain moves, the manure moves through the barn, up the elevator, and falls into the manure spreader.  Jim stands on the edge of the spreader and scrapes the paddles clean.  Then we spread corn fodder or straw in the empty gutters.  This makes more bulk and helps the manure to move up the elevators more easily.  It's also great for the soil...



The trusty old Farmall M is the work horse for this job.  Jim's dad bought the tractor many years ago, and it's still going strong!  (It's a 1950 something)  It has no power steering, so it's a bear to steer, and it's the only tractor we own that  I don't know how to start or drive.  I'm happy to keep it that way...that way I can avoid doing this job!  :)

Regardless of the weather, this job needs to be done.  So, you can imagine that in the winter time, this can be a challenge.  Sometimes Jim has to plow a path under the elevators and through the field to get the tractor and spreader through.  In the single digits this morning, he said it was FREEZING on the tractor!  Right now he's spreading on some rental ground about a mile away, so has a cold ride!  On his way home, he's usually heading into the wind, and is glad for the cold weather gear!



So...as long as cows keep making pazutski, we'll have something to do!  It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it!

It's a dirty job...

It's a dirty, stinky job, but it has to be done.  Every day.  Hot or cold, sunny or rainy; even in the middle of last year's blizzards it had to be done.  I'm glad it's not MY job...Jim gets the honors of hauling manure out of the dairy barn every day.

Several times a year, the heifer pens also need to be cleaned out completely.  In the fall, after the fields are clear and there's a place to spread the manure, Jim cleans out the pens, and again in the spring.  "Pen pack" makes a great fertilizer!  It doesn't smell the greatest, but it's good for the soil, and it's great to have the pens empty and ready for winter.

Last week, before he began cleaning out pens, Jim put  a new web on the manure spreader.  This is probably the third time he's replaced it since we bought the spreader...a bunch of years ago. 

Here he is, piecing the new web together...

Halfway done...

Complete!  The web moves in a circle, pushing the load of manure towards the back of the spreader, where the beaters send it flying through the air and out onto the field.  You don't want to be standing too close!  The spreader won't look this clean for a long, long time...

 Oh wait..no job is ever complete until you've thoroughly greased all the moving parts!

And now the fun begins...cleaning out the pens at the "other farm"...a family farm that we rent and where we keep our dry cows and bred heifers...



And of course, on a cold, windy day, a thermos of coffee is a must...

 Ahhhhhhh...

This is how Jim is spending his day today...how about you?