Month: February 2021 (Page 1 of 2)

The Master Chef this morning for breakfast cooked up a duck egg and put it in one bowl and a chicken egg and put it in the other bowl.  I believe the final vote was three to 2 in preference of duck eggs over chicken eggs.  The duck expert on the farm claims that White Peking ducks have 200 eggs a year on average and the Rouen ducks are not actually very good layers.  Part of the discussion was how duck eggs are a bit more grittier.  I, for one, prefer our fluffy, tasty, chicken eggs.

There is so much joy being a Homemaker.  Feeling entirely Blessed to be a part of these little ones’ lives full time.  I’m going to miss the little pitter patter feet sounds and the simple joy that is contagious around children.

Some heifers and yearlings are grazing on the hill and others have walked down to clean up the hay from yesterday.

We lost a big, beautiful, bred, 5 year old, Black Simmental/Cross cow on Saturday.  It’s sad and frustrating because there was no apparent cause of death.  I keep going back to the saying, my Grandma used to say, “If you are going to have livestock, you’re going to have dead stock.” My Dad shared this article he just read, I guess we’re not the only ones.

There is a fountain that we have, I believe it was installed in the early 90’s, it’s supposed to have a minimum of 50 cattle on it to keep it from freezing up, but right now there’s only Grandpa’s and our horses on it, well, it froze up good.  It causes much inconvenience when it is not working… Even though it has a heater.  So today with this heavenly weather we are working on unthawing it.  Andrew and Simon added heat tape to make it less likely to freeze up again.

We just finished a most pleasant walk, the children were all smiles and the animals were giddy.  Amazing how a person really appreciates 24 degree weather after weeks of frigid weather.

Andrew is encouraging us to work through our squash, so tonight for supper we had pork chops, hubbard squash, garden potatoes, and Montevideo apples we got on our latest trip. The apples were past prime but really tasty peeled, fried in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.  God is such an amazing provider.

Enjoying the morning 🌄 as we pick out poultry we’re ordering for this spring/summer.

With the bright sun the noon chores were brisk, but bearable.  We all appreciate our routine and the fresh air.  With -16 windchill, we weren’t out very long and now it’s time to enjoy a good book.

It has been cold these last few days, windchills dropping us in to forecasted -40 below.  I guess this is supposed to keep the riff raff out… although I’m always tempted to look at Hawaii real estate when it gets this cold, just not sure how to move a herd of cattle that close to the equator 🤔.  I admit we’re due for these temperatures.  This is the coldest it has been all winter.  Everything takes a little bit longer, the fountains need to be checked to make sure they’re not frozen over even though they have heaters in sometimes they just can’t keep up.  Even the machinery kind of creaks and groans on days this cold.  Grandpa always make sure to put extra straw down for the animals to lay down on.