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!