Gooseridge Farm

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Teff Grass Hay Bad for Horses?

Posted on by Posted in hay .

Last week I made it out to a horse rehabilitation facility which was going to work with and train our newest horse, Dezzie.

As we chatted, I happened to look down and find a huge stalk of Teff Grass hay. Excited, I help it up and said “Ah, you’ve fed Teff Grass, isn’t it awesome?”

The owner looked at me in horror, “No! It’s terrible! Our horses lost tons of weight on it and even our vet said Teff is bad horse hay!”

I looked at the girl in shock! Bad horse hay? I don’t think so!

But looking at the stalk in my hand, she was partially correct: this was in fact BAD horse hay! This hay had already started to seed, and it was past cutting prime. Some grasses like Brome and Timothy ae flexible with cutting and don’t lose nutritional value quickly. Others, like Teff and Orchard MUST be cut at a specific stage to ensure all nutrition is available for the animal who will be eating it.

Who ever had sold the girl this Teff, was basically conning her into it. He knew it was no good. You don’t grow hay and not know when to cut it. Now, whether or not she told him she had starved, rescue horses, I don’t know. But incorrectly cut Teff is bad for starving animals!

Lets get the facts on Teff Grass:

Taken from http://teffgrass.com/feeding-teff

Let me be clear – I researched Teff BEFORE I decided to plant it last year.

Teff is similar to the nutritional profile of Timothy, but, as the website suggests, the feed value lowers when you wait too long to cut it. Having grown it myself for hay, and fed it to my horses AND cows, the animals did VERY well on it, and slurped it up like spagetti! I had to be careful feeding it because they loved it so much they devoured their rations faster than other hays!

BUT . . . I also paid VERY strict attention to when I harvested it, and I cut it right at the correct stage of growth. I even got two MORE cuttings off it later, which were equally good!

Why Teff?

It’s fast.

Teff Grass can be cut 45 days after planting, and every 4-6 weeks there after. It gets thicker each time you cut too!

It’s an annual.

Unlike other grasses, Teff is an annual, so it dies in winter. It’s a “warm season” grass so it performs best in HOT weather. This makes it ideal for southern or western states where “cool season” grasses won’t grow for most of their grazing season.

It’s also good for northern states who need pasture during the short-lived summer months, and want to fatten cattle faster.

Being an annual, it allows farmers to keep something growing in their fields between major crop plantings, yet still get a paycheck from.

So if I love Teff so much, why am I not planting it again?

I would! BUT, I’d most likely plant it for summer pasture for the cows. At the moment I don’t have an extra area to plant as my previous area will be planted with Brome grass. Teff is perfect for farmers harvesting a winter crop such as wheat or brassicas.

Honestly, I’d rather just plant Native Grasses, which are also warm-season, but are perennials so they grow thicker each year. Native grasses are some of the best hay you can feed a horse but that’s a topic for another post!

Bottom line: Teff is excellent grass and hay. But do your research on it before you decide to buy it, so you can go to your hay seller with confidence! Or ask for a nutritional analysis. Or get one done yourself!

Teff Hay at correct stage for cutting, photo taken while cutting first cutting (note the stray timothy heads that snuck into my field?)

Photo of Teff Hay drying in the rows. Being a thin grass most think it dries faster and bale it too quickly. It dries at the same rate as other grasses, so don’t rush it!

*Doesn’t it look like an overgrown lawn?

Burned the Syrup.

Posted on by Posted in maple .

Ah, the life of farming. You work your butt-off for something, only to have it blow-up in your face.

I guess these days I’m never surprised, and try to let these things roll-off like water (if it’s something hard to prevent, and even the ones that were a stupid mistake).

This one, is STILL a bit of a shocker though.

If you know anything about cooking maple syrup first-hand, you know the single most important thing to NEVER do is let your syrup foam-up and scorch.

We keep a big bottle of anti-foaming oil on hand (often in-hand) just in case! Anti-foaming oil is a blend of highly refined seed oils that break the tension of sugary sap-syrup when it begins to foam. It’s so refined that it breaks down almost instantly and forms a scum on the surface of the cooking syrup that you scoop out with a filter stick. It in no way affects the flavor or quality of the syrup . . . unless you do something dumb like dump the whole bottle in!

In the old days, they used butter. But butter affects the flavor and the texture of pure syrup, and we now have access to better quality oils that do the same job, so most people don’t use butter anymore.

With our pan system, we have two potential types of foam-ups: in the sap pans, and in the syrup pans.

The sap pans typically foam within minutes of adding fresh wood to the fire. The burst of extra heat meets a flood of fresh sap and the sap begins to foam. 2-3 drops of anti-foaming oil over it and poof! its gone.

The syrup pan is completely different. When the syrup pan foams, that usually a sign the sugar content spiked too high, too fast and it’s busy converting itself from maple syrup to maple candy! When this happens, it’s because the syrup was not released from your cooker and now it’s beginning to back up into the other pans, which is preventing new syrup from entering the pans. The syrup boils so fast it LIFTS off the bottom of the pan, which allows the pan to super heat itself and instantly BURN anything that suddenly touches it. It also RUINS YOUR PANS.

Adding anti-foaming oil to a syrup pan does not help unless you douse it. Better is to open the syrup valve and let out the syrup into your filtering unit, and let new sap in from the back pans. You could also quickly ladle sap-syrup from your back pans into the front pan to help thin it.

I had this exact issue earlier in the season. Luckily that did not burn my pans or my syrup.

 

HOWEVER, the one that happened last weekend DID.

It was our LAST cook of the season. We were excited to see how much syrup we’d actually finish-up with. The cooker pan usually retains about 5 gallons of pure syrup inside, but it’s mixed into 15-20 gallons of sap-syrup. On our last cook, we dump the two syrup pans into 5 gallon buckets, then dump all the sap from our sap pans into 5 gallon buckets. Then we cook this all down on a separate cooker.

Had we done exactly that, we MIGHT not have burned our syrup into nothingness. But we didn’t.

We had roughly 50 gallons of sap sitting out back that I’d collected earlier in the week. It wasn’t much, maybe 3 hours of cooking and might produce 1 gallon of syrup. It didn’t seem worth it to me.

I knew our neighbors across the street also cooked syrup, but since they tapped silver maples, they had a rough year with very little sap. I thought they might appreciate 50 gallons to cook.

Erik didn’t like my idea to give them our sap, and he decided we should just cook it.

Everything was rolling like normal, all systems “go”. I’d been tending the fire, and splitting wood (and coughing and hacking and choking on the smoke that was aggravating my cold).

The temperature on the syrup pan was climbing quickly, and soon it was already up to 219! I realized I had for gotten our hydrometer cup to test the sugar content and decide what temp would be syrup.

I ran-in to get it, but realized I had forgotten to wash it. I quickly ran hot water through it to clear the sticky syrup out, then I popped back outside.

Erik was tending the fire and jumped out at me instantly!

“You didn’t open the filer box and now you’ve got syrup everywhere because it hit syrup temp while you were gone!”

Now Erik was totally joking, but he was trying to get me worked up. This is also something I could see myself doing and something he would yell at me about.

Unfortunately, while he was busy harassing me, and I was trying to clear my sick, foggy brain and remember what I had been about to do, no one noticed the pans. He started to crack the valve to open the syrup into the filter box, but I told him to turn it off until I knew what temp it needed to be.

I was having a rough time scooping syrup out to dump into the hydrometer. The cooker had been leaking smoke more and more and that day was especially bad. It seemed the syrup was to temp, but thanks to the smoke, my foggy brain and Erik still harassing me, what happened next should NOT have happened.

Were I by myself, I could think better with a foggy brain. I would have run through all my steps logically like I always do. Check the syrup sugar with hydrometer, open filter box, set temp on computer system, set switch to “auto”, check the back pans. When syrup begin to release from the valve, check temp on computer and adjust valve as needed.

However, my foggy brain is easily confused and distracted and has a hard time fighting through the fog to remember what I was doing before getting distracted.

No one turned the computer back to “auto”.

The syrup hit fast and hard, and like lightning it shot through every single pan.

I was the first to notice the smell, and asked Erik what he’d done. He instantly took offense, not thinking that with a major cold I couldn’t ask exactly nicely but everything comes out gruff and husky-sounding. So again, more time wasted arguing about how I asked my question.

Meanwhile, the smell of burned sugar was filling my nose. If someone is scooping scum off the surface of the sap pans and dumping it behind the evaporator, it often hits the chimney and causes a burned smell. This is what I’d figured Erik had done.

Unfortunately, as we walked back into the shack to find out what was going on, EVERY SINGLE PAN was a pile of foam.

Erik quickly shoved the float box down to try to flood the pans with cold, fresh sap while I began dousing the pans with foaming oil.

NOTHING WAS WORKING!

Thinking fast, I quickly ran out and grabbed a bucket of sap I’d brought back from the woods and dumped it into the pans to try to cool them. Erik was standing by the fan plug and I kept yelling at him to pull the plug! Finally it dawned on him what I was saying and we shut the system down.

But it was too late.

Giant chunks of charred syrup began floating up like bodies in a shipwreck from the bottom of the flues. I silently scooped-out the remains of the dead and piled them behind the evaporator.

I carefully ladled-out some of the syrup and tasted it.

Gone. All gone. All 6 gallons down the drain.

It tasted like the charred remains of a marshmellow reduced to a pile of ashes.

And just like that, our maple syrup season was done.

No one could have predicted what happened. It was only our second year using this system and as the more cooks you do the more concentrated the sap gets. You can’t point the finger and say it was anyone’s fault, and you can run through a mile-long list of things that could have been done differently. Ultimately though, you just never know what will happen.

 

I now have the unpleasant task of finding out how badly damaged our pans are. Hopefully they just need cleaning. Sometimes though, pans are totally destroyed in syrup burns.

Finishing-up Maple Syrup Season – What we learned

Posted on by Posted in maple .

It is with a heavy heart that I am officially closing-out maple syrup season. For us it’s been a bit of a bust thanks to temperatures hitting too high, too early in the season. We collected less sap this year than last year, and cooked it down into fewer gallons.

However, nothing is a complete bust if you’ve managing to come away from it learning something new and useful. And this year we really did!

 

Way back when we visited the maple syrup warehouse to buy our supplies, the owner showed us a newly completed research paper that showed how using new taps every year could increase your sap production significantly.

Erik was incredibly skeptical, but we bought 25 new taps as a test to see if the research was correct.

Guess what?

When the production slowed on our trees, and out of 150 old taps we’d have roughly 10 buckets with maybe 2 gallons each, ALL our new taps had AT LEAST 2 gallons, some even 5! The trees were tapped at the same time and in the same area, but those new taps ALL OUT PERFORMED THE OLD TAPS.

It was a bittersweet discovery. We now knew to buy all new taps next year, but had we done it this year we could have quadrupled our syrup this year.

 

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

The taps we use are plastic (I’m not sure if metal taps have the same issues), and plastic is slightly permeable. Bacteria can find tiny niches and stay dormant even after washing thoroughly (which is nearly impossible with a tap anyway). When it once again has warm, sugary, tree sap flowing through it, the bacteria begin multiplying and spreading along the tap until it reaches the tree. The tree senses the bacteria and instantly begins trying to heal itself to prevent rot. It starts to seal over the hole.

The minute temperatures reach 50 degrees, that bacteria begins multiplying like crazy and the tree begins to close.

 

Long ago, taps were made of metal, and were much larger. It’s very likely they never had this issue before. With the invention of “tree-friendly” taps in smaller diameters and made out of plastic, the issue of taps closing too early seems to be a new one.

 

Bottom line: if your season seems to be less productive than it should have been, buy new taps every year. They make cheaper, disposable taps for this very purpose.

 

 

MEMOIR MONDAY: No Power, Round 1

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Last week we were once again without power for over 24 hours, and it got me thinking about when we began to lose power in the camper.

People ask me all the time “Wait, don’t you still have a generator?”

The answer is “no, we don’t. It died that winter, almost taking us with it!”

Late but here it is:

Excerpt from Six Kids, Four Months and One Camper

****Our doublewide had just been delivered*****

The kids had come back from school and since all of them were with us Erik decided to give them the tour. I went into the camper with Earen to prep dinner. It was a brats and hotdogs night. My options were a bit limited since I could only use the grill. Erik came back a few minutes later.

“The kids are busy fighting over sleeping arrangements.” Erik said as he walked back into the camper grinning mischievously.

“Oh yeah? Why am I not surprised!” I walked outside to light the grill. It took me a few tries then I came back. “Man that grill is a pain in the butt to light when it’s windy!”

Erik paid my comments no attention. “I called the guys earlier today for the plumbing and electric hook-ups and they will be out Monday. Monday morning I’ll call the township to come out and get approval for the work so I can get Consumer’s Energy to connect to the pole.”

“I thought you only needed a cement slab and septic?” I was confused.

“Yeah you do, but the township still has to approve your pole before you can let Consumer’s connect to it. We could begin moving into our house as early as Tuesday!” Erik’s grin widened into a full toothy smile, then he tackled me to the floor and wrestled me for a few minutes while I protested about needing to make dinner.

I wasn’t going to get my hopes up about the house.

I finally managed to get back outside with my plate of brats and dogs along with a winter jacket. It was starting to blow pretty good now, and I could see faint wisps of snow dancing across the cold-packed snow ground, swirling and leaping. I was quite sure the driveway would be drifted-over by tomorrow. I opened the grill and laid the food out evenly cross it. Then I stopped.

The fire was out.

That was strange. It was a new propane tank. I turned the nobs off and waited a few minutes to clear any gas, then turned them back on and tried to light them again. The lighter wouldn’t light. It would flame-up, then puff-out instantly. I looked at the side gauge, it was definitely full. I grumbled to myself and left the food while I went in for some matches. Good thing we had a huge box of them thanks to Randy!

I happily trotted back out with my box, pulled the grates off to one side, turned the nobs back on and struck the match.

It blew out instantly.

I frowned. I turned my back tighter to the wind and struck another match. This one flared to life, then blew out as well as soon as it got close to the grill.

So did the third and fourth and fifth.

I got smarter on my sixth. The fire pit behind me was filled with fresh newspaper from Erik’s tractor hunting. I grabbed a few sheets and twisted them into torches then lit them. They flamed to life eagerly, and I lit the gas burners on the grill. They roared into an eager line, but by the time I got to the next burner, the wind had blown the lit one out. I tried for 10 minutes, my eyes welling up with tears.

Why did everything crappy have to happen to me? Here I am, freezing my butt-off in single-digit temperatures trying to feed my family and I still get crap! It wasn’t fair! I was trying super hard to do this! My fingers were so numb I couldn’t hold a match anymore and even with two pairs of pants on, the wind was slicing right through them.

I gave-up and scooped the dogs and brats back onto my plate and slowly slunk back into the camper.

“I gotta cook this on the stove.” I announced woefully.

“No, you can’t, remember? You said you could cook stuff on the grill.” Erik didn’t look up from his Craigslist hunting.

“The fire keeps going-out. The lighter won’t work because it’s too cold, and the flames won’t stay lit on the grill. They keep blowing-out too!” I grabbed some toilet paper out of the bathroom and blew my nose.

“Aww, are woo cwying? Erik asked laughing and poking me in the ribs.

I glared at him, “My fingers are nearly frostbit! I’ve been outside with no gloves trying to get the fire lit!” I looked at the temperature gauge in the bedroom. “And it’s only five degrees out!”

Erik rolled his eyes, “oh, ok baby. I guess you can cook them in the microwave then.”

“What? You can’t cook brats in there.”

“Why not? You can cook hotdogs . . .”

“I don’t know, brats are different. They are raw meat. They will get tough and rubbery in there!”

“Well then I guess you’d better cook them carefully!”

The kids all ran back inside excitedly and out of breath.

“Eian pooped in the toilet!” Abby announced.

“Shut-up Abby! I did not! I found the poop!” Eian shoved her as they both struggled to rip their boots-off quickly.

Earen blinked rapidly in surprise as cold gusts of air blasted him from the slider as he sat on the ground with his toys. In his feverish attempt to run in to tell his story Eian nearly trampled baby Earen.

“Can’t you move him somewhere else?! He’s in my way!” Eian spat as he scowled at his baby brother sitting in front of the sofa.

He plopped down onto the sofa and draped his feet in Earen’s face. Earen began screaming and crying.

“Well then MOVE! I want to sit down! You don’t have to hog everything!” Eian began nudging him to the side with his foot which produced even louder howls from baby Earen.

“Eian! Knock it off dude! You don’t have to be so rude! Get your feet out of his face, he’s just a baby!” Abby yelled at him.

I was standing in the kitchen trying NOT to overcook the brats. I could feel the anger ticking at the back of my head hoping Abby would resolve the situation. I didn’t know if it was an older brother thing, or an Eian thing, but he had NO regard towards his brother at ALL. I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut and not say anything mean.

“What am I supposed to do Abby?! Crunch my legs up like this?” Eian tucked his knees up to his chin and raised his eyebrows at Abby. “Besides if I sit like this Dad will probably fart on me!”

Abby shook her head in wonder. “What? Why would Dad fart on you if you sat like that?”

At that exact moment, having been listening to the conversation and sitting beside Eain on the sofa, Erik farted and began laughing hysterically as both kids screamed and ran to their back bedrooms.

Nuriel and Brea walked inside, and the gust of single digit air knocked the scent of fart further back towards the kids’ room and more screams rippled out of the kids. Erik began laughing so hard he was snorting. Brea and Nuriel exchanged glances and gave me a quizzical look. I simply shrugged and shook my head.

“Did the kids tell you?” Brea asked as she kicked off her last boot.

“Something about poop was all I heard before the screaming began.” I replied, stopping the microwave to flip the brats over.

“Yeah! I guess Eian and Abby were looking around and Eian opened the toilet and there was a huge turd in there!”

“What?!” Erik sprang up suddenly. “Not uh! You guys are such liars! You know how I know? Because the moving people have to flush all the lines with winterizing liquid to keep the pipes from freezing!”

“No, Dad, I SAW it! It was so gross!”

“It was Eian’s!” Abby shrieked from the back bedroom and Eian tackled her down again.

“Was NOT!” He yelled back.

“Did it have chunks of corn in it Brea?” Erik asked gleefully.

“What? Eww! I don’t know! I didn’t stop to poke it! Dad you’re so gross – why couldn’t I have gotten a normal Dad?!” Brea wailed.

“Because I’m a cool Dad, not some boring fuddy-duddy!” Erik replied as he jumped up and began giving her a noogie.

“Wait!” I interrupted. “Those pipes have antifreeze stuff in them! Whoever pooped in the toilet could have damaged the pipes if they tried to flush the toilet! It’s not like a regular house!”

Erik stopped his assault on Brea. “Do you really think the movers took a crap in our toilet?”

I shrugged and opened a can of baked beans.

“Well it couldn’t have been Eian,” Erik continued. “He was with me the entire time I was over there, and when I left all the kids were arguing over bedrooms. He needs total privacy to poop . . .”

“And strip his clothes off!” Abby yelled and giggled from the bedroom.

“Shut-up Abby!” Eian shoved her and walked out of the bedroom and sat at the table. “When will dinner be ready? I’m starving!”

“In just about one minute,” I said, looking at the time on the microwave.

Everything went black.

“Daaad!” Shrieked Brea who was now in the back bedroom when the power went out.

The camper was black as night.

“What’s that beeping sound?” Abby asked, an edge of nervousness to her voice.

“Smoke detector,” I replied, expecting Erik to get up and go fix the generator since I was making dinner.

Erik didn’t budge.

“Dad! Aren’t you going to go fix the generator?!” Brea wailed from somewhere in the camper.

“Nope. I’ve been on my feet working all day, not sitting at home doing nothing like SOME people.” He replied off-handily.

“Well I have not been doing NOTHING all day, but I guess I’ll go fix the generator instead of making dinner . . .” I grumbled as I pulled-on my boots quick. I didn’t bother grabbing my coat since I knew I’d be back inside in a minute.

Typically when the generator blows, you flip the reset switch and start the girl back up again. I was pretty certain it wasn’t the gas. I double-checked it anyway though. Low, but not out. I added more to it to last us through the night and set the reset switch.

Nothing.

The single digit weather felt even colder. Maybe it was finally down into the negatives? I hadn’t checked before leaving but wished now that I had! My fingers were quickly going numb and I was shaking quite violently. I don’t mind the cold as long as I can dress for it, and in my haste I had not put on a jacket!

I tried restarting the generator again. It struggled and coughed and choked and died out again. I tried repeatedly to get it going, but it wasn’t. I knew if I went in to ask Erik for help he’d point out some dumb thing I had forgotten to do and I’d feel like an even bigger idiot for not remembering or thinking of that.

However, I was out of options, so I had to drag him out to help me.

“Move over and let a man get the job done,” Erik gave me a light push as he stooped down to look at the generator.

He tried again and again to restart it, but it coughed and choked and died each time. Finally, he pulled a plug out of the back. It looked like a tiny dipstick on a car.

“Did you check the oil?” He inquired, his question tinted with an edge of smart ass.

“Oil?!”

“Yeah, it takes oil. Just like a car. So I guess you haven’t been keeping an eye on it, have you? If you’re going to be running a machine, it’s your job to keep up on its maintenance.”

I gave him a furious look. “What?! You never said anything about the oil! How am I supposed to know about these things?!”

Erik shrugged smugly. “Maybe do your research online at the library. You don’t have anything to do all day anyway. Might as well spend it trying to learn about the machines you are using . . .”

I was too furious and dumbfounded by his comments to say anything except give him a soul-piercing glare with my eyes. Unfortunately it was too dark for him to see my stare.

“Go get me the yellow oil pan.”

“What? Where is it?”

“I don’t know where you put it! I need it though because this oil needs to be changed!” Erik thrust the dipstick in my face.

“Can’t we do it tomorrow when it’s daylight?” I asked hopefully.

“No! Not unless you want to freeze tonight! This won’t run in cold weather with thick oil. I think I’ve got some extra oil in Randy’s covered trailer. I’ll go look and grab a wrench, you get my oil pan.”

“Um, ok . . .” I still had no idea what this oil pan was, but I kinda had a picture in my head of something like he described. I had never changed the oil on anything, so how was I to know?

My teeth were chattering so violently by this time that I feared I’d break them off. I ran to the slider and begged the girls to throw me my coat and gloves in the bathroom closet. They grabbed them along with a hat (thanks!) and I threw everything on and began to feel a bit better.

I pawed around the round top with a flashlight trying to find this oil pan thing. A flash of yellow in the far part of the wall caught my eye. Oil pan! I think. . . I dragged it back to the generator. Erik followed behind me with a new container of oil and his ratchet set.

He had me hold the oil pan under it and set to work testing ratchet sizes. I glanced at the nut and told him it was a 7/16 size. He ignored me and continued testing all the sizes. I wasn’t skilled with tools, but I could see the size was a common one I had used over the years. I had been right, 7/16 was the only size that fit. He ratcheted the nut off and instantly thick, black goo came oozing out. It was hot and steam poured-up out of the oil pan. Erik began tipping the generator to facilitate faster movement. In 10 minutes we had it drained and re-filled. Erik made me restart it, and it roared to life. The lights flew back on in the camper and the kids all shrieked with delight.

I was thoroughly exhausted now. Earen was still only sleeping every 30 minutes at night lately, and 8:00pm was whooping my butt. The snow looked so fluffy and comfy. Maybe just a quick nap here. I could roll around and pad up a small area and tuck myself in. I was warm and toasty. Just a quick little nap in the soft, cozy snow . . .

Earen’s crying broke my thoughts, and I wearily trudged back to the camper to finish making dinner.

The brats came out tough and rubbery.

Memoir Monday: Don’t get Eaten!

Posted on by Posted in Uncategorized .

Excerpt from book “Six Kids, Four Months and One Camper”:

 

Erik somehow convinced me to go out hunting opening morning. Nuriel would watch Earen when he woke-up until I came back in. Erik had set-up a small pop-up blind on the edge of the woods behind the house for me. That way, I wouldn’t have to waste precious time walking far into the property. He would hunt in the back part of the property  . . . with the cougar. We had set-up a new blind way back on the back 40 acres. It was on the edge of our property next to a field of corn — the perfect place to catch hungry deer. Seeing all the tracks, Erik was certain he’d catch at least one back there!

We both woke-up at 4:30am and donned our camo as quietly as possible so as not to wake the baby. Then by 4:45am we kissed and parted ways – Erik traveling down the two track road towards the hayfield and back 40, myself walking directly behind the house.

Now I had a choice of course. I could go around the first finger of woods and come around the back of it to my blind, or I could walk straight through it to my blind. I didn’t have a flashlight, but the soft glow of my slide phone helped a bit to watch for sticks that might trip me. It did not, however, help me see my way!

I was much too excited to take the extra few minutes to walk around the woods, so I just went right through them. I was so convinced that today would be my lucky day. I was going to shoot a deer! The blind was on several intersecting deer paths, so SOMETHING should walk past me.

I crept through the woods slowly and carefully. Holding my breath, trying my best to balance precariously on small logs as I came to water holes, unsure of how deep they might be despite my rubber muck boots. I thought I had finally found a pathway through the woods when I began to shiver violently.

Ear-piercing howls erupted just 50 feet away from me. My heart stopped beating and the blood drained out of my body. More eerie howls erupted on the other side of me.

Now I began to pick my way through the woods faster. The howls seemed to grow closer. They seemed to be following me. Would a coyote eat me? Sure I was bigger, but so were deer and they ate deer. I was more defenseless than a deer!

I pulled an arrow out of my quiver and held it in my hand ready to stab anything that might come close. I was almost out of the woods. I began to run! I tripped over a branch on the path and stumbled, catching myself before I could fall. I had to find my blind and fast! Maybe they wouldn’t eat me, at least not right off. Maybe they’d just attack me, wound me . . . then decide to eat me!

I finally cleared the woods and was out in the open field. But somehow I felt less safe, more exposed. I heard a growl in front of me and several loud “yips” and “yelps”. The blind, it must be here somewhere! I swung my pathetically glowing phone around trying to locate it. The problem was, it was camo. It blended right in!

The light from my phone caught an orange reflective glow. An eye! It was a coyote eye! I stopped dead in my tracks and held perfectly still. It was straight ahead. It must have been waiting for me near my blind, it must –

Oh. It was the orange reflective sticker on my deer blind. Some smart person had already had the same problem as me and thought to add a reflective sticker to the top to make the dumb thing easier to find! By this point I was no longer concerned with hunting deer, just more concerned about NOT being hunted by coyotes. I ripped the zipper open, dove into my blind and yanked it back shut again. Then I sat listening to grassy steps whispering around my blind. Or was that the wind? I couldn’t tell anymore. I sat huddled on my chair, perfectly still. So much for opening day. I was NOT about to open my blind’s windows in preparation for dawn so I could shoot a deer walking by.

I didn’t exactly know why I felt safer in the blind. Sure they couldn’t see me, but they could definitely still smell me! It would only take them 2 minutes to tear through the thin material and drag me out for breakfast.

After not hearing anything for 30 minutes, I was finally beginning to calm down. Birds began chirping and frogs croaking to life. Sure signs that dawn was on it’s way. Time to get ready for my deer! I carefully and quietly slid open 3 of the 4 zippered windows – enough to see and shoot from.

Suddenly I could hear branches breaking behind me and a loud snort. There was a deer in the woods behind me, but it was still too dark to see! I desperately prayed that it would hang out around me and wait for dawn. I knew it wouldn’t. By the time dawn began to slowly roll-in, I no longer heard the deer. By 7am it had been light for 30 minutes. I got a text from Erik “Bring the tractor, I shot a deer.”

I sighed. I probably wouldn’t get to shoot a deer. Ever.

That’s NOT Chicken You Just Ate . . .

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When I first met Erik and all of his kids, I was in a real shock as to how picky they all were with food. Some worse than others.

I was used to cooking healthy, fresh dinners with lots of fruit, veggies and fresh herbs, and Erik wouldn’t even eat salad!

 

It’s taken a few years, but now I can get them to eat more foods (and Erik loves spinach salad).

Now that we’re living the country life, there are many more foods for the kids to refuse to try to eat. The first one was venison (deer meat). They swore up and down that they’d never eat it, so I only let them eat the hamburger the first year, then served them up steaks the next year.

When they began exclaiming how tender and delicious it was, that’s when we told them what hey were REALLY eating, a year later.

Then there were the rabbits. I had always wanted to try them, so Erik and Eian went out with the shotgun and killed a few wild ones. I excitedly brought them into the house and tossed them onto the counter, then went to dress them, only to realize in horror that they were covered in fleas!

I threw them outside and covered them in snow for 20 minutes.

I cut them up like a chicken and put them into a stew with veggies to cook. They were pretty tasty, and the kids more or less ate their plates.

 

The Guennia hens were another story.

NO ONE wanted to eat them. Erik had bought them for insect control and to guard the chickens. But after dogs ran through the yard and killed 8 chickens and one guennia  hen, we realized it was time to shoot the other two and turn them into dinner (they were extremely loud and obnoxious).

I roasted it like chicken and it came out terribly tough. I cooked it for someone’s birthday over at Randy’s house (Erik’s Dad). Since no one wanted to eat it, I didn’t tell them it was a guennia hen! I still have one in the freezer I need to think of how/when to cook!

 

MUSHROOMS ARE FUN.

Mushrooms are our latest adventure. The easiest of course is the Giant Puffball. We had found several out in the yard last fall, and I decided to cook it up like eggplant. I dredged it in eggs and covered it in breadcrumbs and fried them. Then I doused them with a seasoned tomato sauce, mozzarella, diced tomatoes and fresh basil then threw them under the broiler.

They tasted JUST LIKE EGGPLANT!

So the next night . . .

I was making chicken burgers, and Erik told me to secretly cook-up another puffball mushroom patty and give it to Eian.

So I did, and told him it was a fish patty. He wolfed it down eagerly and was just finishing his plate when I asked him about it:

(Video will be uploaded later, sorry!)

 

He denies liking it. He insists it tasted terrible but he ate it anyway. Eian NEVER eats things he doesn’t like.

I still chop-up mushrooms into tiny pieces and stuff them into dinner. The kids never know it.

Someday they’ll realize they like them . . . .

Until then, it’s back to making dinner and not telling them what’s in it!

Dead as a Doornail.

Posted on by Posted in Calamities, farm animals, Triumphs .

Face it. Part of farm life is critter control, and we’ve been very fortunate not to have had too many issues from wildlife.

Last year, Erik decided to buy a .22. Not just any .22, but a wicked-looking, black-ops styled one! He even put a red dot scope on it so his son could point and shoot with very little skill.

Unfortunately, the poor kid is too afraid of being eaten by coyotes to go out rabbit hunting with it, and Erik never bothered showing me how it works. So . . . .

Yesterday morning I walk out just after 9am like I always do to go feed the chickens and pigeons. Since it had been warming up, I’d left the wooden coop doors open, with the chickens shut inside their chicken-wire room just like I’d done for the last 2 years without issue.

Imagine my horror when I walked-up to find my favorite fat chicken a bloody mess! Her entire back-end was gone and she lay in a collapsed heap on the floor of the coop. No doubt she had died from shock and pain as whatever had gotten her had VERY SLOWLY eaten her, bite by bite.

I have a friend (I love her dearly) who has decided to go vegan to protest the in-humane way animals are kept as food. While I understand her decision is completely her own and I hold no ill will against her for it, I DO get a bit burned with ALL of the exaggerated posts and stories she posts online about how horrible farmers are to animals. To make it worse, she’s a news anchor!

As a farmer, my number one goal is the safety and well-being of my animals. While not all farmers hold these same values, NO ANIMAL does. No animal cares about the well-being of it’s prey/dinner. It doesn’t care if it leaves a family orphaned, nor if it causes excruciating pain. Animals are cold and selfish — they do what they need to survive.

 

As I surveyed the crime scene in my coop, I became aware of a fuzzy body tucked-up in the back under my nesting boxes. Raccoon? Possum? Fox? I saw the small, baseball-sized hole it had made in my chicken wire. Now a vegan would have opened the door, and shooed the critter out, telling it to have a nice day.

But I’m a farmer, and I care about my animals. So I ran to the house to get a gun!

Alas, Erik had been on a gun-buying binge lately, and the .22 was not in the rack. After searching I finally found it, and loaded the clip.

IT TOOK ME 10 MINUTES TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO CHAMBER A ROUND.

Finally happy, I run back outside waving my gun in the air, ready to take-on the critter. But I can’t get the red dot scope to work, and the iron sights are blocked by that dump contraption, so I knew I’d have to point and shoot!

I quietly opened the coop door, and ushered the chickens out to safety (they could care less about the possum OR the dead chicken body).

The fluffy critter still slept. I half wondered if maybe the rooster had attacked and killed it. I could faintly see it breathing, so I guess it was too full of fat chicken to be bothered.

I quietly walked-in, took aim, and fired!

Missed!

The fluffy critter still slept!

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Still missed, but at least now I could see tiny bullet holes in the wall of my coop, so I needed to lower my gun.

Pop! Pop!

A shell casing bonked him and he shuddered slightly.

Man, this guy can sleep through anything!

I lowered the gun again and fired-off four more rounds.

This time I could see it was a possum, he raised his head to hiss at me and wreath slightly.

Pop! Pop!

He lay still.

When I scooped fat chicken out with the shovel, she weighed roughly 20 pounds. I was bummed. I’d hoped to cross her to the Light Brahama rooster and make some meat chickens that grew moderately fast. Oh well.

When I drug the possum out (by his tail) he was a good size fellow! Much lighter than the chicken though.

I dumped their bodies off by the woods, side by side.

Erik later showed me how to turn the red dot on.

I figure some target practice is due with the .22 and my hand gun sometime soon!

Girls Can’t Play Baseball (watch this!)

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A bit off-topic here since the blog is usually for farm and writing related ponderings.

 

My daughter (just turned 13 yrs old) has decided she wants to play baseball. She practiced all summer with her step-brother (6 months older) and it was discovered that she has a wicked throwing arm and good hand-eye coordination. Erik joked again and again that she should play baseball . . .

So I signed her up this year, and instantly Erik began complaining that she’d fail. The league was putting her into the older division which meant farther to throw and to run.

However, my daughter is much taller than her step-brother who is going on his SECOND year playing baseball, plus she runs every day (he does not). So while both kids will be in the same league (heck, maybe even the same team), my daughter has a good chance at DOING BETTER.

WAit . . . . girls can’t play baseball! They play softball!

Incorrect! Baseball was originally played equally by men and women when it was first created in the 1800’s. Softball was created as a way for everyone to stay in shape and play indoors with shorter bases and a larger ball. When the Major League was created in the mid 1900’s, they banned women from the sport, so they picked up softball as a way to still have fun. Not until the late 1900’s did softball officially become recognized as a competitive sports league, but men AND women both play.

We had ability assessments last week for all players. My daughter had no formal experience, and hadn’t thrown the ball since last fall. She had very little batting experience. She was nervous and shifty. While everyone eagerly partnered up to warm-up, no one would partner up with her.

She stood awkwardly, trying to gather her courage.

When the coaches called everyone out in small groups, the boys (and Dads) were surprised by her solid throwing arm.

I stood tall and proud, feet spread, ready to defy anyone who uttered any word against a girl playing baseball.

A small group of  nerdy-looking dads stood watching her, lamenting about why girls shouldn’t play, “she shows too much emotion. That’s why girls don’t play, they are too emotional. She’s having trouble catching it . . . .”

Looking at these dads I doubted any of them managed to practice much with their own kids. One was lamenting he threw-out his back filling-in a hole at the ball field . . .

I held my tongue as long as I could, choosing my words carefully, “Or maybe what you are seeing has nothing to do with her being a girl, but her being a bit self-conscience because it’s her first year playing . . .”

The dads got quiet, and ushered themselves  a bit further away from me.

The results are coming back today as far as her skill levels and what team she will be on. Erik called last night to double-check her division (we signed her up under the younger division since her birthdate was right on the edge). They commented that she had a great arm on her and was holding her own pretty well.

I think that cheered both my daughter AND Erik up. Both were secretly worried that she’d fail miserably.

Erik’s been taking both kids out to the ball fields to practice, and bought a pitching/catching net for them to practice with. She stands a very good chance to come into this better-skilled than her brother.

Now I just need to help her keep her self-confidence in check . . .

Memoir Monday: Randy

Posted on by Posted in Memoir Monday .

This one is for Randy, Erik’s estranged-now-recently-re-acquainted father. He means well, but is a tough pill to swallow at times! There’s a reason why he never got re-married after Erik’s Mom . . .

And he still brings food. I credit this instance for why Earen loves fries so much as a 4 yr old.

Excerpt from “Six Kids, Four Months and One Camper”:

 

Thursday I had just laid Earen down for a nap and was tickled pink to finally get a chance to get outside and work with Sailor since the well guys STILL had not showed up, when Randy’s truck crept up our driveway. I had just stepped outside and Sailor was waiting for me at the gate when I saw his blue GMC. I groaned and could feel tears welling-up in my eyes. I didn’t have a whole lot to look forward to in my day, coffee was a small perk, and being able to get out with my horse was the biggest bonus. At this rate I’d never be able to ride him. And then all I’d have is a cup of lukewarm coffee to look forward to each morning.

Randy had a wide grin on his face and he was holding a large paper bag in his hand. He motioned for me to follow him inside. Sailor let out a tremendous whinny as I turned to go into the camper.

Randy popped his head out of the door and looked at him. “I’m sorry! This isn’t for you!”

He wandered into the camper and sat down at the table then pointed to the seat across from him. I reluctantly sat down as he began pulling items out of the bag. He set an Arby’s roast beef sandwich and container of fries in front of me along with a tall cup of Coke. I had already eaten, but didn’t mention this as Randy was clearly elated to have brought me some food.

“Now I know Erik keeps you locked up here with nothing to eat all day, so I thought I’d have pity on you. Hey, Arby’s is a heck of a lot better than anything you’re gonna make in here,” he motioned around him. “Hey, where’s the little critter?” He suddenly looked around puzzled. My cat Anya jumped up onto the sofa behind him and began rubbing against his arm. “Not you cat! Shoo! I can’t be round you; you aggravate my allergies!”

 

I chuckled. “Earen just went down for a nap, he’ll be asleep for a good 2 hours.”

“Good Lord! Wake the poor kid up! He wants to see his Grandpa! He can’t sleep for 2 hours!”

“Randy I can’t wake him up, even as much as he’d love to see you, it would make him so cranky!”

“And? He needs to learn to get over it. It won’t kill him to skip a nap, will it?”

I paused considering this. It quite possibly could kill ME.

“Don’t keep me from my Grandson. He’s MY Grandson and he wants to see his Grandpa. When is this kid going to be potty trained so I can take him for the day?”

I sighed. “He won’t be potty trained for another year or 2.”

“What? That’s not acceptable. My mother had both me AND my sister trained BY the age of 2! What’s the holdup?”

“There’s no hold-up, it’s just going to depend on him. He’s not even six months old yet – you still have a while.” I stuffed a few fries into my mouth.

The argument didn’t last long as I heard a wail erupting from the other room.

“What was that?” Randy stopped puzzled.

“That was Earen.”

“Oh good, now he can see his Grandpa!”

I wanted to bang my head on the table.

I walked back and got Earen from our bedroom. The look on his face said it all. He was going to be one crabby monster!

“Hi Earen! Grandpa’s here and he brought you food!” Randy picked up the Arby’s bag and waved it for him to see.

“Maybe in a few more months he can, Randy, but right now he doesn’t have any teeth yet. He can eat mushed banana though.” I walked him over and handed him to Randy. Earen began grabbing at his pens and glasses in his pocket.

Randy looked up at me imploringly, “can’t he at least suck on a fry? Look, the poor kid wants the food and you won’t even let him have a taste!” Without waiting for an answer Randy grabbed the longest fry he could find and stuffed it into Earen’s hand and pushed it toward his mouth.

I wanted to bang my head on the table. Again.

When Earen’s hand finally left his mouth, half the fry was missing.

“Where’s the other half?!” I was in shock.

Randy was laughing. Earen was making all sorts of adorable 5 month old baby faces as he sucked on his fry chunk. I reached over and tried to pry his mouth open. He had it clamped shut.

“Earen! Open your mouth!” I scolded him.

“Get back Mom. Let him enjoy his tasty fry!” Randy handed him another fry for his other hand.

Maybe I was overreacting, maybe not. He was MY child and I had final say on anything. Not his Grandpa. Now Earen opened his mouth to stuff both hands of fries into his mouth. I quickly lunged forward and scooped out the mushed-up chunk from his mouth and pried the other two fries from his hands. Earen began wailing.

“What’d you do that for?! He was enjoying fries with his Grandpa and you ruined it!” Randy yelled at me, furious.

“Randy, he can enjoy fries with his Grandpa in a few more months. He’s too little for anything besides mush right now. He could choke!”

“But he didn’t!”

“No, but he could have. His mouth isn’t developed enough to handle solid food yet.”

“He was doing just fine with it.” Randy stuffed Earen back off into my arms. He resumed quietly eating his sandwich with a fierce scowl on his face. I tried making pleasant conversation a few times, but he waved me off. As soon as his sandwich was gone, he stood up to leave. As he got up he knocked the chair over. He glanced at it then pretended not to notice. “Goodbye Earen, sorry Mommy has to ruin everything for us!” Then he walked out the door and drove off.

I banged my head on the table a few times.

 

 

Storm Syrup

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Last week we had some freakishly heavy winds — rolling through at well over 75pmh!

Heavy winds are not uncommon, however, the heaviest ones typically happen in April.

And, while this isn’t actually part of the memoir, this happened months later that same proceeding year.

So, we’ll call this:

“MEMORY MONDAY!”

 

After we moved into our doublewide house, we ended-up with about a dozen or so rubber maid bins left-over from storage.

Eager to jump right into doing something productive with the land, Erik announced we’d be tapping maple trees. He’d done it as a kid for fun, how hard could it be?

He already knew there were several massive maple trees on the property. We’d collect the sap into the large plastic bins, then cook it down at the end of the season.

We drove to Family, Farm and Home and gathered 12 taps, plus a book on how to make it, “How to Tap My Trees”. We bought plastic tubing to fit over the taps, and ran the lines down into the large plastic bins.

For several weeks, we let them collect sap.

Finally on April 12, 2014 the weather suddenly warmed and Erik knew the season was done (plus the sap would rot). We decided that Saturday to cook it all down into syrup.

Erik had decided to make a massive cooker pan out of a metal barrel cut length-wise. The barrel had a coating on the inside, I was skeptical about that. Erik argued that it would be fine. I argued it’d come-off in the fire! He tried buffing/sanding it out, but this seemed to make the barrel worse.

It was Earen’s 1yr old birthday, and Erik’s Dad suddenly called us up wanting to go out for his birthday. We figured we’d be done cooking syrup by that evening, so we agreed.

We cooked the sap alllll day!

I don’t remember how many gallons of sap we had, maybe 45?

Finally it was getting close, so we kept checking the temperature. It refused to push past 217. It was 6pm and we had to leave. They were forecasting rain later, so Erik took the other barrel half and partially covered the syrup cooker half.

And we loaded-up the fire and left it to cook.

While we were busy eating, our neighbor called to let us know she had our dogs.

Our dogs?

Apparently a freak storm had run through the few hours we were gone and tore everything apart — or at least the dog kennel.

We quickly rushed home, mad that we had left in the first place. We didn’t know what to expect when we got home, but the very least a ruined dog kennel and our syrup dumped-over.

Strangely enough, when we pulled-up the driveway, the first thing we noticed was the FIRE STILL BURNING and the syrup UNTOUCHED.

The wind was still gusting and rain was pelting us in sheets, so we quickly dumped the syrup into a giant stock pot to finish-up inside.

We cooked it to 219 and ran it through filters into mason jars. It tasted pretty good! I had never really had real maple syrup before, but when I tasted this stuff I was amazed!

 

We ended-up having some major property damage. Our soft-sided round top had been torn out of the ground and tossed into a mangled heavy several yards away. Everything inside either tossed into the neighbor’s field or soaking-wet. Erik’s 1,000lb lawnmower was flipped onto it’s side . . . but the empty plastic 300 gallon water tanks sat un-phased.

The camper had been turned slightly (that’s 12,000 lbs), the dog kennel blown wide open, and the pigeon coop (300+ lbs) had been PICKED-UP and THROWN 75 feet.

My pigeons were loose everywhere.

We managed to flip the cage back-up and drag it back by the dog kennel (or it’s flip over again in the heavy winds) and I called the pigeons down and they happily dove back into the safety of their house.

We were still finding scattered debris many months later.

As for the syrup? Well, despite the filtering, it still ended-up with at least in inch of junk in the bottom. A mix of maple niter, and primer paint from the barrels.

I’m pretty sure the stuff is toxic. I have one jar left of it as proof of our experience. But despite the yucky stuff in the bottoms, we were hooked on maple syrup, and each year continue to improve our craft and make the best syrup possible!

And now it’s crystal clear!