The Steer

I live on a farm, we sell animals and I am ok with that.  The part I am not ok with is when I ALWAYS get roped into loading them.  They move fast, I have no coordination, they weigh alot, I do not.  So today I am in the barn helping my brother in law load a steer.  We have my mother in law blocking off an area and his girlfriend blocking off an area, this leaves me to have to walk in the manure and try to get a certain one out of the gate.  So for five minutes we just chased these steers in circles, literally.  Then we finally get him out and walking down the aisle, he has to poop as I am directly following him.  Naturally it can not just land it must splatter!  We get him to the front of the barn and he just takes his good old time, like he does not have a care in the world,if he only knew where he was going.  Surprising, he jumps right into the livestock trailer.  The last and very crucial step is too get the barn door shut and get in the truck and start driving before he jumps out the back.  Yeah, he can jump out the back our trailer is so ghetto, we act like it is not ours, lol.  Till next time.

Slow Thursday Morning

Today started out like a normal Thursday morning up at 6:15 to put my oldest son on the bus.  He does not get on the bus till 7 but I get up extra early so I can warm the van up for him.  Yes thats right I drive him to the end of the long drive, I would not want to stand in the cold so I don't want him too.  I came back in after he was gone and laid back in bed with my husband.  The little guy started stirring soon after.  My husband got up and put him in bed with me and he laid down.  Well after two minutes he was ready for his day and he sat up covered my head up and said go sleep mommy.  I was like alright your dad is down stairs thats what I will do.  I got exactly ten minutes of peace before he was back!  Oh well so we started laundry and now I am debating about what to get myself into.  I have alot getting ready to start since we do seasonal produce and bottling milk.  I think today I willl clean some meat out of the freezer and can it.  It is so easy and the plus is if it is tough or older meat the canning process will make it delicious. 

CSA

CSA, Community Supported Agriculture!  Our family farm, Otte Heritage Farms, is offering a produce CSA for the 2012 season.  Our CSA will provide fresh fruit and veggies each week. You have a choice of a bushel size box or a half bushel size box for a certain price.  It is an exciting program for people to get involved in to get fresh local produce.  It will help your way of life in many ways by improving health and helping your local community by buying local. 

Tonight I hope to start a new cheese experiment, updates later.

Small town safety

I have lived in a rural and safe location all of my life.  Our safe, not locking our doors way of life has been abruptly halted.  About 3 months ago there was a double homicide about five country blocks away from here.  Now threre was a robbery with very similar characteristics on the other side of the county.  What are we suppose to do, why do things have to be this way?  What is the motive?  I mean really is this all drug related, I think so.  I just wonder to myself as a mother of three boys, what would these criminals mothers be saying or thinking?  Did they do something to turn them in the wrong direction or was it their friends?  What can I do to prevent this?  So many questions and no answers.

Back to Basics

My husband and I are in the process of starting our own dairy where we will milk our own cows, bottle milk, yogurts, sour cream, and make cheese.This is an exciting time for us because we already are involved in low impact farming in season with our produce and meats we raise and we wanted to expand.  I am really excited about the opportunity to provide the products my family enjoys on a daily basis to others.  We all have the right to know where our food comes from and how it becomes our food.  I have been experiementing in my kitchen with many recipes for yogurts and cheeses.  The yogurt is simple, it is smooth and creamy, yet tangy.  This flavor will take a while to get used too since we are all used to the sugar concentrated varieties we buy at the stores.  We plan on specializing in raw milk cheese, the flavor is soooooooooo much better, just wait you will see.

The van

Ok I was hoping to make the candles today did not happen.  I did go and buy 50 feet of wicks for $3 at the local craft store, kinda made my day everything is always so expensive.  Now to the reason why I got nothing done today:  In Feb of this year I paid to put a brand new transmission in my Town & Country, which was ok because I have 260,000 miles on her, but this week on my way home from delivery some salad it would not shift eventually leaving my stranded on the side of the road.  I was super stressed because I was sure my phone would die soon and I was not walking in the cold.  I called my uncle who came with his buddy to pull me to town, this guy was ripping off the front end of my van. I was getting road rage while being pulled.  Well anyway by the time I get to town all I can think of is I can not afford $2500 for another transmission.  I let it sit and took my moms car to cool off.  Yesterday my husband looked I had busted a line, which made me feel only a little better I was still worried I had ruined my transmission.  We patched the line and got it to the garage, it was repaired today, it works great! Yippee!!!  Now wait for the bill!

Plastic bottle snowmen

Tomorrow when my kids get home from school we are going to make tea light snowmen from an idea in the new issue of the Family Fun magazine.  It looks simple, I hope it all goes well.  I will have pictures to post tomorrow, hopefully I have awesome snowmen to decorate with.