Figures

Just when I think everything is going hunky-dory, and it's smooth sailing...what happens? Oh yeah, I've got at least 2 kids with some kind of milk allergy. Not a huge problem, not really. Ice cream socials and any processed food will be an issue, but not an unavoidable one. But it is a HUGE problem - like 800 lbs worth - when you have a DAIRY COW in the backyard. There's NO WAY we can use or drink 10-15 gallons A DAY of milk, and somehow explain to a cranky toddler and baby why everyone else can have it and NOT THEM. Friggin' a...So, now we're re-evaluating our farmyard strategy. We're gonna try raw milk again to see if they react at all (ANY pasteurized dairy causes severe rashes for at least a week, and inevitably leads to some kind of yeast infection after the week is up from the messed up gut), and if we can get by on no reactions with raw milk, we'll keep the cow. If not, she's getting sold. Ticks me off to no end, mostly because of the irony involved - we get a cow to have fresh milk and now the kids we bought the cow to get the milk for can't drink it. Irony at it's most ironic, if you ask me. I've got my feelers out for some dairy goats and I'm talking to a guy about trading our sheep for his trio of milkers. I'm picking up some goats milk again tomorrow from a local dairy to see if my toddler reacts (so far, so good) and to see if one of my babies can tolerate it. I made the mistake of not reading a box of crackers lastnight before giving him some. Today we're dealing with a raw rash and a massively cranky boy. Gotta nip this in the bud so we can have our happy babies back. Keep ya posted.

So here's the story...

Things have been crazy over the past few months. So much has happened I don't know where to begin. For one, the hubby has been crazy busy. Like 16-18 hour workday busy. And what happens when the hubby is away? The kids know. They can almost smell the moment that he walks out the door and...then all hell breaks loose. So mommy here has been going mildly insane and losing all of what's left of her hearing. Nothing big. Who needs to hear? I'll be thankful for this partial hearing loss when they're all toddlers. :)

Our hens decided to stop laying and went through a mini-moult. We couldn't figure out what was going on until one day the yard looked like a chicken exploded. Feathers EVERYWHERE! Since they had just started laying it made absolutely NO SENSE that they started a moult...I mean, come on, they were only BARELY 5 months old. Then, one night, I noticed we were one hen short. My favorite hen, to boot. The only Rhode Island Red who followed me around the yard and had a very lop-sided crop. The ONLY hen that was still consistently laying one egg a day. I noticed the rooster acting funny and all of the hens lingering around the coop after sunset - they never do that. Ever. They usually march into the coop one-by-one, settle in and it's lights out. So, when I saw that I had to investigate. After a head count I noticed who was missing and went looking. I found something I didn't want to - my poor girl drug into the middle of our pasture and literally eaten to the bone by some wild animal. I was sick to my stomach. My poor girl. Turns out skunks are more deadly (and prolific in this area) than we realized. The poor girls were scared into a moult. :( We have since moved them into a more secure spot, given them lots of TLC and extra lighting and we're now getting eggs again. And when I say eggs, I mean super JUMBO sized beauties. These babies are almost too big to fit in our egg cartons. I'm in egg heaven again. And they are spared the stew pot (when we didn't know what was going on we..or I had...contemplated making them dinner), at least for now.

The cow is being a stinker. I didn't ever understand why you'd see old TV shows where they nicknamed their cows "Bossy". I finally understand it. This cow has more gumption than any animal I've ever known. When Honey cow wants something, she gets it. If you're outside, you better watch it. If she's in heat, you're likely to get mounted. If she wants a scratch, you better not be otherwise occupied. She wants what she wants, and she wants it right NOW. Good grief.

She has taken to breaking into the hay room and helping herself. The other night I opened up the barn only to find her staring me down, followed by an enormous belch. Well, hello to you too...sheesh. Cows. I'm not complaining. I love the darn bovine to bits. I didn't think I'd love cows more than sheep. I always envisioned myself as a quiet, docile sheep person. The soft 'baaaing' was endearing, afterall. Who wouldn't love it? And the thought of lamb chops on the table regularly was also quite motivating too...But cows are just, well, addictive. Once you have a good one, you start thinking about getting another one. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we don't have enough land or $$$ to support another one on our small property, so we'll be a one cow farm. Maybe one day when we're moved onto 10+ acres in the boonies I can have my herd of ol' bossies, but for now she'll do.

The sheep are still...sheep. They're more like little ghosts. You don't really know they're there unless they sneak up on you. They are remarkably easy keepers because of their size and don't seem to get phased by much, including the cold, snowy weather we're having. As long as they have a dry place and some hay, they're happy. And they don't even need that much hay. Seriously, they are the perfect homestead animal. Now, if we could catch them they'd be even more perfect, but I'm not gonna get carried away here...

It's been a while!

I promise to post soon. It's been a crazy/insane/hectic time here for us - having 5 kids all vying for my attention + cow/sheep/chickens will do that. :) New posts are a-comin'! Until then, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Hen fruit x 3!

Over the past week we've been getting more eggs! Our hens are starting to lay more and more, which is, as you know, completely and utterly fan-freekin'-tastic! Now both of our AustraWhites are laying everyday, one egg a day. One of our brown egg layers has been laying one nice, rosy brown egg a day and today...one more started laying! Whoever it was, I feel sorry for her. The egg was HUGE! OUCH! It had been broken by one of the hens stepping on it (it was in the middle of the coop floor, so understandable) and had a double yolk. Not something you see everyday! I'm thinking it is probably one of our partridge Brahma girls, but it may take some stakeout time to figure out exactly who is laying what. I'll keep ya posted. This is exciting!

Crazy/wonderful life

One of the things I don't generally talk about, at least blog-wise is much about our personal life here at Saudafell. We are fairly private people, or used to be anyway, and sharing our family situation is something I generally shy away from on the internet. But, with the farm and our family so intricately connected it's hard not to share something once in a while.  From what I've written so far in our blog, most blog readers can infer we have a large family. What is not common knowledge, and what I usually don't share often, is that we got to large-family size fairly quickly - we've only been married for 3 years and have 5 kids, 2 years old and under. We had high order multiples (yes, 4 babies at once) early this year, who are now nearly 6 months old. We have a 2 year old as well who has recently decided that her roll in life is to do everything contrary to what I'd like her to do. And we are beginning to farm. Some people would think we're nuts. Our family, at least some of them, have told us flat out we're crazy for even trying to take on more right now. Some days I honestly think they're right. Why would someone, especially ME (aka Mommy) want to take on a cow, sheep, chickens, dogs and land maintenance to boot? The answer is simple - because we want to. Because it's something to break up the responsibilities of the day. The time it takes to care for the livestock provides a very, very necessary break from baby duties and laundry and dishes. It's cathartic to scrub out a stock tank. It's a fulfilling experience to get fresh, pastured eggs out of a nest everyday. Knowing that our livestock helps to take care of our family provides a small measure of security in a very insecure world. And who wouldn't want a living, non-gasoline using, self fertilizing lawn mower? Honestly, it is pretty awesome.

Lately, both of us have felt like we're being swallowed up by life. Taking care of a toddler alone is a task. Throw in 4 newborns and most people would scoff at the idea that it's even possible to do it all without losing your mind. I can attest that it's possible to do it, and come very close to losing your mind if that's all you do all day, every day. Non-stop. I don't think many people can put themselves in our shoes, but can relate to a point. It's hard to fully comprehend the full scope of what it's like to care for 4 newborns at once. Only a hand-full of people blessed (or cursed...yes, sometimes it feels like a curse) with this many kids all at the same time can fully understand what a struggle it is everyday to just keep your head above water. We have good days. We have bad days. Some days I win a battle, while the kids win the war. I'm at the point now that I need to just pull back from many things that have been in my life for a long time - consistent church activity, some of my strongly held convictions, old routines, and old habits - to fully focus on the 6 most important things in my life: my husband, and baby A, B, C, D & my toddler. I've had so much pent up guilt, resentment and more guilt over what I haven't been able to do, and I finally admitted to myself - I can't do it all. No one can keep up with that pace. No one. If I can care for and nurture 5 kids all day, feed and water livestock, gather eggs and brush a cow down, I call that an accomplishment for the day. What neither one of us can do anymore is live up to outside expectations and pressures. We need to take care of ourselves and our farm. Everything non-essential will be there when we can get to it. Everything else can wait. With all this unrest and busyness in our lives, farming gives us an outlet. It provides something for both of us to do besides babies. Something we can do together, my husband and I. Our land and livestock have a symbiotic, almost spiritual quality to them - we take care of each other, and in turn we both benefit from the arrangement. While I feel like life is kicking me squarely in the head, I never feel overwhelmed when I can get outside to breathe in some fresh air, shovel manure, listen to a rooster crow and talk to the hens. It's almost as though time moves slower. It's an escape from one reality into another, only separated by plywood, plaster, siding and chain link.

My girls haven't let me down!

Lately, I've had the feeling these hens were holding out on me. I was nearly convinced they were stashing their eggs away in some secret nest and one day I'd find about 100 of them in some cubby-hole somewhere. Today I even reorganized our catch-all goat shed in hopes that I'd find something. The shed now looks 100% better, and I even discovered we have goat hay mangers & a couple of tiki torches stashed in there...but, alas, no eggs. The entire time those nosy hens were nonchalantly watching me, while casually scratching away at the ground 5 feet away. I thought I was onto something. One of our Rhode Island Red hens was looking very guilty yesterday when I walked by and saw her on the wood pile. Turns out, my paranoia was unjustified. Two more of our hens started laying today in the cow manger. When I went out to collect one egg I was surprised with 2 more - one brown speckled and one dove brown egg. Aren't they glorious?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Our hens would say it's the latter. Our Rooster, Mr. Roo (creative, I know), says it's downright awesome. A barnyard full of single ladies, and they're all his! My poor girls. He won't leave them alone. It's all crowing, chest beating (if he had a chest to beat, I'm certain he would, in a heartbeat) and mounting our hens. He's downright mean about it sometimes. Our hens will be missing their back feathers after a few months of this. Geesh. He is quite good at keeping the hens all within his line-of-sight. He is doing his job with keeping them in line and safe quite well. He escorts them into the coop at night, too. His vigilance actually came in handy the other day when a gigantic barn owl decided she wanted chicken dinner. No chickens were lost, and all were safely rounded up and escorted into their coop for the night. At least we'll get chicks out of it in the spring, but seriously. Our yard is now a chicken sex den. I guess it could be worse.

A tale of a silly cow

This morning started out thoroughly uneventful. Babies crying, toddler screaming, husband looking half comatose, my hair defying gravity in a few spots and one eyeball sort of sealed shut from being half asleep. You know, the usual. Then, just as I am sitting down to feed a famished baby, I see a disturbing sight out the window. Come to think of it, that window is pretty notorious for me seeing disturbing sights out it. Maybe I should just keep it shut. Anyway, there is the cow. Eating chicken feed. No, eating sounds too casual. There was the cow HOOVERING chicken feed, is more like it. I tell my husband what she's doing, who then asks me who was the last person to get in the chicken feed. We both shut the container religiously to keep a munchy cow and sly sheep out of it. If we don't, they know. Somehow, some way they KNOW. So, something was fishy. I put a baby down, get dressed and run outside to see how the heck the cow got in the chicken feed. Then I see it - one very busted, splintered feed storage container with a 500# cow eating as fast as she possibly could before I took away her loot. She knew what I was going to do. Cows are way smarter than people give them credit for, seriously. She was determined to get into that feed, pushed it over and rammed it with her head until it busted. Dang cow. The poor, splintered container is in the chicken coop and now I have a very put-out cow. The sheep tried to get in on the action, but she kept chasing them off. It was quite the sight. I'm sure I added to the specter with me wearing a pink floral bed jacket, gravity defying hair, one sealed eyeball, flipflops and capris. I hope my neighbors were inside with their blinds shut, 'cus that was one embarassing way to start the day.

Catching up!

For the past few weeks I've been on an internet-free vacation. It got to the point that I finally had to cut the internet off, at least social networking and checking anything but the news, just so I could get things done. It's amazing how much time can be wasted on the internet just checking blogs or the news and most especially on facebook. Though I don't think I've gotten many projects done, I have been able to focus more on my kids which has been huge. The quadruplets are now rolling over and wanting more play-time, which means less sleepytime and more work for me! Add a 2 year old to the mix who is getting VERY jealous because her rival nemesis' are taking up more of mommy's precious attention.... and pretty much every hour of my day until they are all in bed is swamped. My husband is very literally amazed that I can keep my sanity. So am I!

As an update:

The cow is now completely feeling better. Cow patties abound. She kicks up her heels frequently and annoys the crap out of the sheep. She is pretty hilarious. Most of the day she spends out in the pasture either chewing her cud or eating the tall grass and conspicuously spying on the neighbors. Another thing I never knew before owning a cow - they are NOSY. Holy cow. Like nosy old lady who watches everyone out her front window kind of nosy. If ANYTHING and I mean ANYTHING is going on, she's got one eyeball trained on it. She's observant, surprisingly so actually. Whenever anyone goes out to the corral or barn she is the first one there hoping for A) grain or B) A scratch on the head - in that order. One of our neighbors came over and helped us fix the busted irrigation sprinklers so we can irrigate our pasture to lengthen the amount of time before we need to start digging into our new hay stores. Turns out he is a retired landscaper, so he has all the equipment for sprinklers, etc.! Score!

The pickled garlic was a huge success! For the first few days it bubbled like sauerkraut and had to be 'burped'. I basically sacrificed a canning lid and just poked a hole in it so I wouldn't have overflow onto the counter if I forgot to 'burp' it. The garlic is surprisingly good. Very mildy garlicky and salty/tangy at the same time. It'd be great in a vinaigrette  or put over a salad. I may make more. We still have a whole jar of it - a whole jar goes a long, LONG way. So be forewarned.

And finally...I am so ready for the fall. This hot weather is really kicking my trash. And I think the sheep and cow and chickens and dogs are all ready for it to be cooler too. If anything it'll cut way back on the fly and wasp population (I have a new found hatred for both of these annoying little wastes of carbon-based life), and allow more out-of-shelter time until the rain and snow come in. I say, bring it on!

Hen fruit!

One of our hens FINALLY started laying - one of our AustraWhite girls. I was starting to get worried. We don't check the inside of their coop more than a couple of times a week, mostly just to check their big food trough. They are out from the morning when we open the coop, to dusk when the rooster shoos them all in for the night. The entire day they're roaming around our property eating bugs, seeds 'n grass to their little clucking delights! So, one night I opened the their coop to do a head-count, and WOWIE! 2 eggs sitting neatly on the floor bedding. The next day, nothing. She changed where she wanted to lay her eggs. I guess that's one of the downsides of having pastured, free-range hens. For over a week I looked and looked, only to find her hunkered down in the cow's manger, of all places. 8 eggs in her little straw nest! All of them were still good (there's a simple way of checking them that involves the egg, a cup of water and seeing whether it floats/doesn't float). She lays one egg a day and man...they are delicious! I feel rich eating these eggs. The yolks are so golden that it's almost a burnt golden orange color, instead of the supermarket yellow yolks. Definitely worth the wait! Now we're just waiting on our other hens to start laying! I saw one of the black star hens staking out a nest box today, so I'm thinkin' she's getting ready to start laying any day now. We really need all of them to get started on the laying...we go through A LOT of eggs here in our house. At least 3-6 a day. Come on girls, momma wants a quiche!

We have HAY!

The hay guy, Lynn, who from this point on will be called Hay Guy came bright and early on Saturday morning with a truckload of hay he drove down from Idaho! I thought he was driving it up from Centerville, but no...2 1/2 hours from Idaho just to bring it here. WOW! He delivered it directly to our barn and unloaded & stacked it for $5/bale. That's a pretty dang good deal. We're gonna get another 100 bales sometime in September when he bales his last hay harvest. The hay we bought is a red clover/alfalfa mix, so it takes a little longer for it to cure and dry from what he told us. Honey and the sheep will be in hay heaven! As it was, we had to shoo all 4 of them away from his trailer - they started eating it while it was still loaded on his truck! He told us he actually had a cow bloat and nearly die from eating too much of this hay, so we have to watch the cow. We have her stall locked from the inside now so she can't get to the hay. It works out pretty well - the inside of the barn is actually clean now! No more poo from nosy cows and chickens and sheep. Now it's house shoe worthy...well, almost.

My 2 year old was very, very interested in what Hay Guy was doing in her barn so she came out to watch. Mommy and her stayed out there to help and watch the guy...well, mostly to open up the gate for him when he needed to drive home!

Of life and Carbon Monoxide

Everyone out there should have a CO (carbon monoxide) detector in their home if they have ANY gas appliances, stoves, fireplace inserts, water heaters or furnaces that run on natural gas. I know that I have heard the gas company and the news alerts on it, but we figured we'd be OK. Afterall, that sort of thing only happens to irresponsible people who run generators in their living rooms (no joke, someone did that last winter during a power outage...who does that? Seriously...can we say Darwin award?). To be 'safe' we bought one CO detector for our daughter's room, since she is closest in proximity to the furnace and other 'risky' areas using natural gas in our house. Or so we thought.

Here's the scenario: I finish cooking on my handy, dandy gas stove (I love gas stoves). I had been cooking up some steaks, chicken, sauces - the whole shebang. I love cooking. I finish my culinary masterpieces and what happens? We eat, I clean up a bit, the hubby left to do his thing and I fed some babies. I felt a little yucky, but attributed it to my recent gluten intolerance issue & the fact that I haven't been as good about avoiding gluten as I should. So, no biggie, right? Wrong. Next thing I know, as I am putting babies down for their afternoon naps I hear a loud *BEEP BEEP BEEP* and then another *BEEP BEEP BEEP*. I'm thinking what the heck is that? None of the smoke detectors were going off. Everything upstairs was turned off. I am busy tending to my kids, so another 30 minutes goes by before I get some free time to investigate what is making that noise.  No alarms were going off upstairs...then I realize it's coming from downstairs. In my 2 year old's bedroom. From the CO detector. Thinking - Nah, it can't be. - I change the batteries. It kept beeping. Finally, it hit me - we have a CO leak in the house, with me and 5 babies in it. And it was a bad one, if the number on the CO meter was accurate - 54 ppm in the basement. Dangerous levels begin at 100 ppm. HOLY %*%@#!!!!! I don't think I've ever EVER run as fast, or looked the most like a headless chicken, as I did just a moment after realizing how much danger we were all in. I couldn't look scared because my 2 year old would notice, so I am hurriedly telling her to get her shoes and toy because we were gonna go for a 'bye bye ride in the car'. AGH! The gas guy gets here and determines the CO meter was being generous. The levels in the house were bad - 40 ppm UPSTAIRS and 54 ppm DOWNSTAIRS. He told me that it wouldn't have taken long to be at life threatening levels and we had to open the windows immediately to get the airflow going. Great. Found the leak was coming from our older, improperly adjusted gas stove that I've been cooking on since we moved into this place earlier this year. Everyone was ok, but it was a huge wakeup call. So the lesson is, folks, if you don't think it's gonna happen to you, it will. And make sure you have CO detectors in your house. It very literally saved my life and the lives of my 5 kids this past Saturday. We now have a CO detector for every room in the house plus the hallways. Overkill? Maybe. But better safe than dead.

Hay! Hay! Hay!

We finally found hay! After looking EVERYWHERE we found some a little ways down the road for $4/bale for a 70 lbs bale. Not too shabby, especially since most of the hay around here has been going for at least $7/bale...AT LEAST. Most of the local, non-out-of-state hay on KSL has been around $8/bale including delivery. I know that's not super high for some areas of the US, but for out here it's high. For us it's high given the number of bales we need to buy for this cow. After googling 'how much hay does a cow eat' I happened across a forum entry from a dairy farmer who used this figure for his cows: 31 lbs hay/cow x _______days. So using that figure we are getting A LOT of hay to not only feed her through the winter/early spring, but also our 3 little sheep. She probably won't be eating it all, and the sheep are very thrifty eaters, but better safe than sorry. The farmer is gonna deliver about 1/4 of our hay order to our barn this Friday and the rest when he bales his next crop, which should be in a couple of weeks. We ended up going with a red clover hay, which (from what I've researched) is just as nutritious as alfalfa hay for cows, but generally just not as popular or as widely available mostly because the stand of clover has to be reseeded every few years. The University of Wisconsin did a study on dairy cattle & red clover and found it was just as good as alfalfa at providing nutrients AND didn't affect the milk production levels at all. Honey is loving our clover patches all over both pastures, so I'm thinking it'll be a hit. Since it's not expensive to buy, I'm thinking we might stick with this hay if we can. It's cheap, will be good for our dairy cow and (hopefully!) this farmer will keep producing it!

Garlicpalooza

Remember how I had garlic coming out of my ears a few days ago? Yeah, I still do. But today I found the time (which is a huge thing for me considering I have 5 young kids!) to pickle, freeze AND make dinner tonight with what was left of our first 3 lbs of garlic. Go me!

Trying to use up such an...odoriferous vegetable as garlic requires getting creative. Not wanting to waste it, I decided to pickle some. I've never pickled a garlic anything in my life. Actually, I haven't pickled ANYTHING in my life. Guess I need to get on that now, huh? I used a basic recipe I found in one of my german cookbooks for pickling:

2 cups garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups water
4 tsp salt
2 tsp dried herbs (I used thyme)

This was all assembled into a quart mason jar and is now fermenting happily on my counter for the next 3-7 days. I'll let ya know how it goes. Maybe pickled garlic is a delicacy that's been lost through the generations? Or maybe there's a reason no one eats it much. Either way, we now have a quart of it and someone's gotta eat it. Here's to hoping it's good!

My second way of preserving our garlicky abundance was to freeze it. I found a few options online while researching 'freezing garlic', and I opted for the oil method. Basically, I took a ratio of 2 parts garlic to 1 part olive oil, added it to my food processor and processed until it looked like minced garlic paste. Stored it in a mason jar and put it in the freezer. From what the food storage website said it should stay semi-firm and I can just pull out enough of the garlic mixture to cook with when I need garlic. Easy peasy! I tried it tonight when making dinner and it was great! Definitely going to do this again (possibly soon...we do have another 3 lbs to use up) when I have another free mason jar!

Cow trots (and I don't mean the walking kind)

You've never experienced anything until you've had a cow with an upset stomach - Think copious, squirty poo. The regular stuff is bad enough! When we bought Honey a couple of weeks ago I noticed she had some 'crud' stuck to her tail. Not thinking much of it, I brushed it off as nothing. Boy, was that a mistake. Being the big greenhorn that I am, I didn't even think to ask the rancher - 'Hey, dude, what's with the poo on the cow?'. As far as I knew, cows all had poo on their derrieres. But, after nearly 1.5 weeks of non-stop poo from this cow, and none of it in the classical 'cow pie' form - even after giving her probiotics, baking soda, ACV-  enough was enough - I called the vet. After her little jaunt with the steers next door her condition got worse and absolutely nothing we did was helping like it was before. Long story short - the vet  tells me she probably has coccidiosis after I tell him her condition, history & level of poopy symptoms and she needs to go on a coccidiostat I can buy at the feed store ASAP. Wonderful. I have no idea what the heck that is or what a coccidiostat is for that matter. Did I mention we're completely green to cattle? Give me a rabbit or even a sheep now, I'm good. I can diagnose, treat and name body parts, cuts and even color patterns to specific breeds (I medaled in breed id in 4-H, not to toot my own horn or anything...but I do have a couple of trophies & plaques). Large, no, gigantic! hoofed bovines baffle me simply because I've never had them before.
*Mental note: buy a dang book on cattle husbandry already.*

So, the cow has been on this coccidiostat for the past 4 days and she's starting to feel good.  Her energy level is noticeably up from what it had been, she's chasing the sheep, running around the chickens, bucking and kicking up her heels. But the poo is still not normal. Not being patient whatsoever, I started getting concerned after a few days and not seeing much improvement. Today I talked to the vet and he assured me this stuff will work, but it takes time - like up to 2 weeks for the coccidiostat to clear the infection, and another 1-2 weeks for her stomach to repair and physical condition to improve. Poor girl. Her poor stomach has basically been ravaged by a protozoan parasite that eats up her intestinal lining, kinda like what happens to someone with cholera or giardia. Not fun. But, she is doing much, much better. And she could have had it much, much worse from what I've read of symptoms and what happens when high parasite levels are present. As uncomfortable and poopy as she is, it could have been a lot worse. Scary thought. But now I am an expert on coccidiosis in cattle. Hopefully I never have to be again.

 Next up for Honey (once her tummy is finally settled) - A BATH!

barn boots. water drips around. cow gazes on

Getting out of the house for me is next to impossible nowadays. Having 5 kids ages 2 and under can do that. Back when I was a young, sportin' chick on the town I would have laughed if someone told me I'd consider a drive to the gas station as a mini-vacation of sorts. But, now I do. Go figure. So, getting to the feed store to buy all the cow supplies was never going to happen if it was left to me. Guess what? My husband surprised me by going after work yesterday! He bought me barn boots and Probios for the cow (she's got a little bit of an upset tummy, poor thing) and bags of grain for the sheep. Yep, we're real sexy here at Saudafell. Grain, barn boots and probiotic gel. Oh baby. But, in all seriousness, I don't know how I lived without barn boots before now. They're big. They're drab green. And basically all awesomeness!! I just want to jump in a big puddle and splash around in them. Maybe I'll write a haiku to the boots. Or not. Let's not get carried away now, Nat. Oh, and on a side note - the cow loved her Probios...and thought the boots were ok too.

I'll be safe from vampires tonight!

One of the things I absolutely don't like doing is peeling garlic. It's something about the paper-thin peels around the cloves that stick to your hands and fly all over the counter and floor that drives me up a wall. I try to avoid peeling them at all costs. Weird? Maybe, but hey. A couple of weeks ago I saw a gigantic bag of peeled garlic at our warehouse grocery store and bought it. Apparently my husband also hates peeling garlic because he bought another bag and brought it home. Now I have two 3 lbs bags of peeled garlic cloves in my refrigerator. The inner foodie in me came out today (and the pragmatist - I have 6 lbs of garlic to use up) and I decided to make something with it. The result was FANTASTIC! And it has the added perk of being not only high in natural antioxidants, but it's also a natural bug and human repellant if you eat enough of it. And you're definitely safe if Dracula decided to pay you a late night visit (pull in the welcome mat and keep the windows shut just in case though, ok?)

40 Clove Garlic Chicken
(found on the Spice World, Inc. website - the company that packages the gigantic bag of garlic)

1 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2-3 lbs. roasting chicken, washed and cut into pieces
Salt and white pepper, to taste
4 Tbsp. fresh rosemary
1 cup flour
40 large peeled garlic cloves

1 cup dry white wine (Maybe I used a teensie weensie bit more than this...it turned out great!)
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream

Heat the butter and olive oil in a heavy skillet. Season chicken with salt, pepper and rosemary. Dredge chicken in flour. When the pan is hot but not smoking, add chicken, skin down. Sauté until golden brown on both sides. Remove. Add garlic and sauté until light brown. Add white wine and chicken stock. Return chicken to pan. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove chicken and keep warm. Turn heat to high and reduce liquid by half. Remove to blender, add cream and puree sauce. Serve over chicken.

I managed to cook this up this afternoon while juggling a 2 year old running around screaming 'I'm crrrrazzzzyyyy, Momma' and 4 babies pitching hissy fits that their binkies fell out - so it's really easy and quick to make. The sauce was so good that I doubled the recipe to make extra sauce to serve over pasta! Even my picky two year old loved it. And since it's basically oozing garlic, that's something. So, there ya have it - use for 1/2 a bag of garlic. Now what to do with the other half?

Natural Flying Insect Repellent ala Cow

 Anyone who owns a cow quickly finds out that flies REALLY like cows. They sorta go together like peanut butter and jelly, or manure and..uh...flies. We don't really like using non-organic type solutions around our farm. No round-up (straight vinegar works wonders on sidewalk weeds), no commercial pesticides if we can help it and no chemical insecticides on our livestock or pets unless it's a very last resort. SO, once Honey was delivered to our farm I realized we needed a fly repellent badly. She had been kept on a big, dry pasture with a bunch of other cattle since the rancher bought her from a dairy. So, you can imagine how she looked. And how many flies hitched a ride with her up to our place. On Keeping a Family Cow forum I found a thread on Flying Insect Spray for Cows and tried it with what I had on hand. It's really easy to make, and works GREAT. Our poor cow was not used to being handled, but even she held still so I could spray her down with this stuff once she realized the flies had stopped biting!

From the Keeping a Family Cow  Forum
Organic Flying Insect Spray

3/4 Vegetable Oil (I've used Grapeseed oil for mine)
1/4 cup organic Apple Cider Vinegar
Squirt of liquid dish soap
40 drops citronella essential oil
30 drops lemongrass essential oil
20 drops camphor essential oil
20 drops cedarwood essential oil
15 drops clove essential oil
Water
Fills a 32 oz bottle. Apply 2X a day, morning and evening

 My recipe using what I had on hand

3/4 cup Grapeseed Oil
1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar or White Vinegar
40 drops Tea Tree essential oil
40 drops Peppermint essential oil
20 drops Lemon essential oil
Water
Makes 28 oz. Apply 2X per day to resident Bovine.

I have been making this recipe up by the gallon and found the spray lasts a whole 24 hours after you apply it at keeping flies at bay. It works great, can be made up in bulk, is CHEAP, completely non-toxic and keeps the flies off my Honey! How can ya beat that?

Whoever said catching a greased pig was hard never tried catching a cow...

What does a big dumb dog, a busted fence, a sunburn and a cow have in common? I'll tell ya. Today started out with a bang. I woke up to a screaming set of babies. Nothing unusual about that at all. It happens every morning like clockwork at the same time every single day. I walked past the bedroom window, just as I do every morning, on my way to heat up some bottles and I saw something much different than the usual pastoral scene in my front pasture. Nothing. I saw nothing. Nothing is quite unusual. Normally there's birds or grazing sheep or SOMETHING in my pasture. This morning...not a thing except for a panting, very out of breath old, dumb St. Bernard who broke into the pasture overnight. I panicked. He isn't supposed to be back there. I had visions of mauled sheep and injured cow. So there I am, half asleep, half dressed, hair all skiwompy running outside to find out HOW this big, dumb dog managed to get into the pasture. What I found was a soggy mess from the irrigation being left on all night, 2 soaked, panicked dogs, 3 out-of-sorts sheep and...NO COW. I then panicked. Where did she go? I checked the barn - no cow. I checked everywhere in the front pasture - no cow. Then I go into the back pasture...

The fencing for the back pasture was completely mangled. I could see the scene in my head of how the entire situation this morning had panned out, and how our poor cow, Honey, had, in a panic, repeatedly tried to bust through the fence to escape her new canine friend. In 3 places the fence has 'cow' indentations on it, and in one spot the field fencing AND electrical line was completely broken. I guess 500 lbs of panicked bovine being nipped at by a dumb, old dog can do that to a fence. No amount of fencing could have kept her in at that point.

We spent the entire morning and afternoon trying to catch her. My poor husband at one point did get close enough to put a rope around her neck...then she drug him through a patch of brambles and thistles, and followed it up with him getting stuck in a mucky swampy puddle up to his knees. Sounds like fun, huh?  *Mental note - we need to halter train her FAST* By time we realized we needed help all 3 of us (my dad was helping) were fly bitten, sunburned and itching from grass allergies. Fortunately, our neighbor has cows and had the time to help us later in the afternoon. It took all of 20 minutes to catch her with him helping...boy, did we feel like greenhorns. We learned the hard way that you don't chase a cow. You have to act like you're not trying to catch a cow to catch a cow. Who knew? By the time we wrangled her back into our property, the poor thing was dehydrated and sick from her jaunt with the boys next door. She isn't exactly tough stuff. Her reward was being locked in her stall with a big pile of alfalfa, some electrolytes, water and grain. She's a happy camper now, but I think the whole thing today kinda traumatized her a bit. She's not too keen on leaving the barn AT ALL now. She'll come outside for maybe 10 minutes, then book it back to her stall.

This is what I learned today:


1) Cows are hard impossible to catch if they don't want to be caught.

2) Dogs and thunderstorms don't mix. Ever. We had a freak thunderstorm this morning that sent them reeling. 400 lbs of dog and a flimsy gate don't really go together...soooo, we're gonna get them penned up too. It's for their protection. Hoof in face isn't a good look for a dog...

3) Whoever said a greased pig was hard to catch, obviously never tried to catch a 500 lbs heifer on the run.

4) I hate grass.

Troughs, barn boots & hay, oh my!

On my list of things we desperately needed, like, yesterday:

Barn boots - for all of us. Poop on the shoes is never a good look for anyone, man or beast.
A water big mother of a water trough - our Honey gets thirsty!
A cow halter - an animal that's gonna get to be 1500+ lbs needs it and the training that goes with it. Seriously.
A salt lick. Self explanatory.
About 100 lbs of C.O.B. - for the uninitiated that stands for Corn, Oats & Barley mix. It's like sheep/cow crack.
A measured scoop and bin for said 100 lbs of C.O.B. Did I mention it's like sheep/cow crack? They try to get into it like it's crack too.
And 5 tons of hay in my barn, delivered, stacked and fitted in there like neat little tetris pieces.

Yep, that's it. 

I never thought I'd seriously be needing barn boots. Welcome to country life!

Honey & her Boyfriends!

Miss Honey wasn't on the farm for more than a few hours before she attracted the attention of the 6 resident steers next doors. If they're by the fence they moo until she comes over. If she's by the fence, she moos until they come over. It's totally cute. They're such nice boys. And such little beefcakes too! Gotta say, this girl works it!

Meet the SSSS

The S.S.S.S - Special Stealth Soay Sheep. This is the face of C.O.B junkies. They see me and come a'runnin'. It's cute during the day, but at night it can get spooky. I never knew sheep could be so quiet, but they can. They're stealth sheep. Nothing spookier than being crept up on in a pitch black pasture and turning around to find 6 sheepie eyes staring you down for some grain. Special forces has nothing on these guys. They're good. Real good. And cute to boot! Guess we need to name all of them, huh?

The sheep in the front is Prancer. She is a very content, happy yearling lamb that stots (yes, it is a word..it's what sheep do when they're happy) all over the yard nearly daily. Her momma is to the right and her auntie is in the back left of the photo. They both need names. Ideas?

On a rainy day...

...the sheep and chickens play!

Of cows and little sheep

This photo just makes me giggle. Prancer & Honey have this thing going where they annoy eachother. Prancer was left behind by mom & aunt and didn't realize it. Honey came between her and the sheep...she books it. Cow looks at her like 'Dude, what's up?' and begins chasing her a second after this was taken. Life on a farm. It's entertaining.

Now presenting, Miss Honey Cow!

After much heated conversation, Dorothy's name won out over Ethel, Clementine and Alice. Ok, actually, the hubby's name had won first, but no one was calling her Ethel. It just wasn't rolling off the tongue. And Dorothy was calling her Honey cow, so guess what her name is? Yep, she's Honey. Though I think her new name fits her much better than Ethel. She is pretty sweet, just like Honey. :)

A cow by any other name...

Ok, our big ol' holstein heifer needs a name. The criteria for the name are as follows:

1) Something that won't sound ridiculous when I'm calling her name in the middle of our pasture to get her into the barn
2) Something cute
3) Something the kids can pronounce and say, even with a lisp, that won't sound ridiculous, awful or lewd.

So, with that criteria here's what we came up with:

Me: Clementine
Hubby: Ethel
Dorothy: Honey
Nana: Alice

What does she look like to you?

How now Black & White cow?

So we've been trying to figure out if we should add a cow or more sheep to our little piece of paradise. Our three little Soay sheep aren't exactly knocking down the grass and clover as fast as we'd like, so I've been thinking maybe we need a few more sheep. Hubby was thinking a cow. It's been a pretty tough decision since we don't have a lot of space to work with, and basically need to make every square inch of this place count. On KSL Classifieds a few weeks ago I happened across a farm in Montana that had Cotswold sheep. Black cotswold sheep! Yeah, I began drooling over the idea of 20+ lbs of black, silky gorgeous wool, called up the lady and put a verbal reserve on 3 of her sheep at $250 a head. But then I still had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it just wasn't right. Generally, I follow that hunch, but I was still lusting over the 60 lbs of wool I'd be getting every shearing. My husband put an end to my lusting when he said 'Nope, we need to make it count. What will they contribute?'. When all I could think of was eating our pasture down and making wool, well, it couldn't be justified. So...that knocked me off my wool-lust and back to reality. Cow it was. We'd just keep our little stinker Soay Sheep as pasture companions and get a dairy cow. Finding one was a little harder...

Do you have any idea how much a cow costs? Or even how hard it is to find a decent milking quality heifer (a heifer is a female how that has not yet given birth aka virgin cow)? It's difficult. And expensive. We could get 4 sheep for the price of one mature, in-milk, dairy cow. After much looking, and even less success after multiple inquiries on listed ads I found a couple of 7 month old heifers listed by a man in Elberta, Utah...more than 1 1/2 hours away from us. Since we lack a stock trailer (it's on the list of BIG things we need to get...) I figured it was a long shot that he'd even deliver, or it'd be so much that I'd have to say no to the cow. But...SUCCESS! He said he'd bring her up this Saturday and DA DA DA DAAAHHH!! for FREE. HOT DIGGITY!

Now the hard part...naming her.

Soay Sheep!

We have sheep - Soay Sheep! I love KSL Classifieds. I check them once in a while (ok, maybe I am completely addicted to checking them daily, multiple times a day...) and found that a local rancher had listed these little beauties for sale! Soay sheep are a very rare, heritage breed sheep from a small, uninhabited island in the northern UK, St. Kirta. It is thought that these sheep are relicts of the primitive, barely-improved sheep the ancient Europeans brought into the British Isles thousands of years ago. In fact, Soay sheep were already present and thriving when the Vikings began visiting the British Isles. The name Soay is actually derived from the name the Vikings gave their little island, Sauda-ey, which literally means Sheep Island. It's after these sheep that we named our farm. Sauda - Sheep, Fell - Mountain. Since we live in the mountains I figured it was a pretty cool name...it has a certain ring to it. But, back to the sheep - they're tiny little sheep, only about 50 lbs when mature that have naturally docked tails. They run like freekin' gazelles, are very thrifty with their eating habits/requirements and very hardy & parasite resistant. AND they produce a very fine, short stapled mahogany colored wool similar in fineness to cashmere or merino that naturally sheds! No shearing! I won't get much wool from them, but it'll be enough for me! Basically, they are the perfect sheep for us to have. Hard to get sick/kill, no shearing or docking, and easy to maintain. Oh boy, this will be interesting!

A girl's castle is her coop

You'd think that finding a chicken coop on a budget for a dozen birds would be an easy thing, right? Yeah, that's what I thought...until I started looking. I think I've missed a calling as  a builder of custom chicken coops.We're talkin' $400 for a small coop that'd fit half a dozen hens, and that's for a no-frills, bargain basement, economy model coop at the local feed store. The kind that we need (a 4X8 sized coop) runs anywhere from $1200 to $2000! And man oh man, these coops are pretty sweet.  They look like something that'd be sitting on Martha Stewart's lawn, with chicken sweater wearing diapered hens gracing the nest boxes and runs - basically nothing that has any business anywhere outside of a HOA neighborhood near actual livestock. Call me crazy, but I just have a problem spending a small fortune on something that will quickly be covered in feathers, bedding and poop in a few days. It just seems like a waste. So, since we have some pullets that seriously need to get out of my laundry room and eating some bugs, my hubby and I found a suitable, quick and easy to clean alternative at the local warehouse store - a vented garden shed - that we'll be retrofitting for the girls this week. Since neither of us has skill with a hammer, nor a fearlessness around power tools (yet), any latent carpentry gene will remain untapped for now. We don't have a whole lot of free time to learn how to build something at this point,  so something pre-made and just needing a lil' bit of retrofitting is our best bet!

 The requirements for our girls at this point is pretty simple - a place for food that's easy for them to get to, but out of reach for potential pests (i.e. rodents, skunks, or bigger critters attracted to the feed, but later more interested in THEM as dinner), a water source that's fresh and easily accessible, a roof over their heads and secure from predators day & night, a roost to sleep on and a sheltered run for them to peck around during the daytime. Once they're bigger we'll be letting them free-range, but since they're prime McMeals at this point for foxes, coyotes and hawks, they're better off in a run!

Meet the girls!

Here at Saudafell we have a few new residents...12 to be exact. Meet the girls! This is the look chickens give when thinking: 'What in the &*%!$ is THAT?!'. Yeah, they weren't too enthused about having a big silver camera stuck in their cage.

We have 2 Austra Whites, 2 Buff Brahmas, 1 Light Brahma, 1 Black Langshan, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 1 Rhode Island Red, 1 Delaware and 2 Black Sex Link (aka Black Star) chicks.

The Brahmas, Langshan, Orpingtons and Delaware are heirloom breeds that have 'threatened' and 'watch' status according to the ALBC - American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. With fewer people raising these wonderful birds on family farms, and with the introduction of production breeds in commercial chicken operations, many of these old-timey chicken breeds are in danger of extinction. Yes, extinction. Crazy, huh? If the work of countless numbers of old farmers in developing these breeds is lost, we're facing a bigger problem as human beings on this planet. The genetics these birds bring with them were developed through methodical selection for various factors over long periods of time (sometimes hundreds of years) including hardiness in heat/cold, laying ability, activity in foraging, calmness and even ability to resist frost bite. Just like the threat of monocultures in modern agriculture, the threat of bottlenecking genetics in animal species is also clear and present. We are happy to do our part in keeping these breeds around and thriving on our little piece of the world, and look forward to lots of eggs this summer! And quiche...and custard...and omelets..and..well,you get the idea. As you can tell, I'm pretty excited about the food part of their contributions!