Farming in the shade

But here is my best shot at it. We planted beans. No new varieties this year, unfortunately, and it looks like the Marrow and the Green Flageolet have have not sprouted well. I visited Chicago with our two oldest daughters. Daughter #1 had a conference for work, and so the hotel (the biggest expense in Chicago) was covered. We used the GO Card for Chicago to see several different attractions, like the River Architectural Cruise (above) and the view from the Hancock building (below). While we were gone, The Farmer mowed and put up part of the first cutting of hay. He hasn't mowed any more hay, as we've had a veritable monsoon since this hay was put up. It's either feast or famine with the rain here lately. We also celebrated the marriage of daughter #2, and son #1 moved back in to our home. Big changes; no pictures. We kept moving the sheep and cattle around on their rotational grazing plan. We continued to work on the barn, by installing a new s...

A couple of weeks ago, we set up temporary fence to move the cattle to new pasture. It was a Saturday evening, and we'd finished a day of farmers markets and farm work by eating supper around a fire. Just one last thing to do, and we could clean up and fall into bed exhausted. Everyone else was gone, and so The Farmer and I slowly moved the cattle to new grass. Here's where things went south. The parading ladies caught the attention of Mo, the bull, who is in solitary confinement while the calves are being born. As we were slowly walking behind the cows, I looked over and noticed Mo had his head between a gate post and a building. And he was pushing. I left The Farmer and ran over to him, waved him away from the gate, and rejoined the parade. But he was not finished. He was NOT going to stay in solitary confinement any longer. And before we could say, "I'm tired and I dearly hope this doesn't go south!" he broke the gatepost and was free! I have re...

It seems like every year I do a post on dying. Life is easy to share with you. New lambs, new corn plants, spring--it's all good! But you cannot have life without both ends--birth and death. And while I am usually pretty jazzed at the end of life of a corn field (harvest is a pretty exciting time), I am less excited about the death of an animal. Yesterday we found one of our barn cats had been hit, but was still alive. While we made plans to put her out of her misery, she dragged herself off somewhere to die alone. The past week I've been struggling with a lamb with a broken leg. He was too old to teach to drink from a bottle, even though I tried. For a while, we wondered if his mother was still caring for him. But we found his body yesterday when we moved the sheep to a new pasture. This little lady's mother developed mastitis. It went septic, and by the time we realized the severity and decided to treat her with antibiotics (thereby making her no longer organic), ...

Part of the reason for the barn renovation is to have housing for farm help. So, while you won't find drywall in most barns, you will in ours. The whole upper floor, as well as the ceilings of the lower level (as a fire break). I always say that some things are worth hiring out. We've done a fair bit of drywall in our married life, but this is a seriously big project. This is worth hiring out. See what I mean? We would still be carrying all those pieces of drywall up the stairs now if we tried to DIY! The drywall guys were wonderfully skilled, quick, friendly workers. The only grumble I heard was the one running this truck. He muttered, "They would have to give me a different truck on this job." He did a great job, despite his nervousness. Once the whole rack of drywall was suspended in midair, they put a plastic protector over the windowsill, and unloaded each piece through the window. So much faster than carrying them up the stairs! Now that th...