True Love

Dick Kleis knows how to woo his wife.

Dick Kleis gave his wife Carole a birthday present for herself and their farm. Mr Kleis bought 120,000 pounds of manure for Carole Kleis’ birthday present. Mr Kleis used the manure to spell out a shorthand message to read “Happy Birthday, Love You”.

The Kleis live in eastern Iowa and their farm benefitted from the manure as it went down into the ground and mushed with the snow. Kleis took 3 hours to use his manure loader to drive over their field to spell out the greeting.

Carole Kleis is pleased with her husband’s gift. Dick’s birthday is in may and she is already thinking of ways she can out do him.

The cows look like ships sailing over a white sea.

Winter Storm

Emilie's Birthday

Emilie took her friends out to meet her cows. My friend Dave took these pics.

Zach in the Leaves

Halloween

Ben is the cow, Jack is Peter Pan, and Emilie is a cat.

The kids love our next door neighbors Ruby and Calvin. We do to - they are great people. This was out first stop for the night before we rolled into town where the houses were close enough together for trick or treating. Bonus points to those who "get" my costume - most people were mystified, but three people laughed uproariously.

Carving Pumpkins

Dad was never much for playing with kids when I was little - my mom loved it, but Dad was always very busy. He is making up for lost time with the grandkids. I had a rare day off from work and Dad and I took a break from working on farm machinery to help Emilie's class carve pumpkins. I'm glad he came - several kids did not have any adult show up and we ended up "adopting" several for the project. It was kind of fun to see Dad working so well with the wee ones.

Making Cider

Friends of ours have an awesome cider press and we make an annual party out of turning a bushel or so of apples into cider.

Life is good. Life is indeed good.





Ben may have eaten a good chunk of the raw materials.

Tasty home grown turkey. Mmmm.

Turkeys

We raised heritage bronze turkeys this year. We were pleased with them - they dressed out at 12 to 17 pounds and we sold out the 39 we raised to adulthood. The heritage breed was a better flier than last year's broad breasts. My saint of a wife had to go out every morning and catch miscreants who had flown over the electric poultry netting.

Jack was an excellent assistant at catching the turkeys to load them into the trailer.

Turkeys

Edible Blue Ridge had an online teaser about free range turkeys. Unfortunately, they have our phone number wrong. Ah well.

I've got the turkeys moved for the last time into the side yard under the apple trees. They have done a good job cleaning up the weedy area where I'm going to plant a prizewinning pumpkin patch next year (Big Max not the washed out pale pink giants).

I'll post a few pics of the turkeys soon.

We have shifted processors for our poultry - Tom Silliman of Sweet Dog Farm is going to do our last batch after our usual processor left us in the lurch. He and his family have a small farm in Dyke Virginia and seem like good folks. I ended up spending two hours walking around with Tom when I dropped off the chickens. He's quite creative and has come up with chicken tractor modifications that were very interesting. Bonus: I was able to tell my wife that I'm not the only one who is continuously developing new chicken tractor versions.

Tom has a real MacGyver vibe going and I was very impressed with his version of the Wizbang poultry plucker.

On the subject of chicken tractors, I also need to do a post explaining why my PVC hoophouse is NOT the way to go. Not any time soon, mind you - the day job keeps me happily occupied most of the time. I'm hoping to do a lot of blogging and picture posting over the Christmas break.

In the meantime, you can check out Sweet Dog Farm's much more technologically savvy blog here.

Kathryn Russell

The local farming community took a heavy blow last Thursday when Kathryn Russell was killed in a car accident at the intersection of Plank and 29.

Kathryn was a wonderful woman who left behind eight children. She was always ready to advise and help young farmers getting a start and gave me some great guidance towards becoming a marketer - the side of farming that I least enjoy. She and I had worked together several times and she was very kind when it came to selling my chickens and turkeys to her milk share customers.

I got to know her through the local eat local board when her barn burned down - I offered to house some of her cows through the winter. We were going to do that again this winter - I'm getting a thirty acre pasture this fall that my seven girls can't possibly eat down so we figured she would bring a few girls over - she'd get a couple months of free feed and I'd be able to graze down a sward that hasn't been touched since March. I was looking forward to it - when she'd stop by we end up leaning on her truck and talking about random stuff for an hour.

Hold a thought for her family or, if you are so inclined, offer a little prayer.

Cow Pics

Apple Butter Day

Weaning the Pigs

After twelve weeks, it's time for the pigs to be on their own. I put my ball cap on one pig in order to show scale. Mom did a great job- they are healthy little beasts.

Piglets

Bonnie's Calf

Bonnie's Calf at two weeks.

Biodiversity: Rabbit Edition

Emilie caught a wild rabbit in a side pasture. She named it Cloud, but the mean old parents told her she had to let it go back to its family. I'm a little shocked that she was able to catch it in the first place.

Emilie and Brownie Take Two

Ben and Brownie

Emilie and Brownie

Emilie's work with the calf paid off in the show ring. I hovered around like a nervous parent but she just walked that 700 pound heifer around like it was no big deal.

Pregnant Bonnie

Think the calf is ready to drop? The baby bulge has moved downwards. She calved the next day - a bouncing bull calf. I'll post a picture soon.

Albemarle County Fair

Emilie and Jack did a great job at the 4-H tent at the Albemarle County fair. They helped kids pet the bottle calf, Emilie's heifer Brownie, and took turns manning the chick and duckling exhibit so that they could help other kids pet the wee poultry.

Ben loves Emilie's 4-H heifer too.

Grandpa Bill, Ben, Sally, wee Zach, Jack, and Grandma Mary waiting for the 4-H livestock show.

Emilie with her trophy for Brownie. All the cloverbuds (4-Hers under 8) got a trophy, but we'll credit it to Brownie's first place finish in the dairy heifer category. Of course, she was the only dairy heifer at the fair, so she was also last place.

Nervous butterflies before the show.

Ben lending moral support.

With Grandma and Grandpa before the show.

Piglet Rodeo

I was so proud of my lightly constructed chicken tractor mark IV. Unfortunately, that lightness came at the cost of structural strength. The piglets discovered that they could break in and eat the chicken food. They didn't prey on the chickens, but it is only a matter of time before their predatory instincts kick in, so I finally broke down and closed all their escape hatches into the main pasture. They'll have to be content with the half acre they share with their mom.

So thus will be the last marauding piglets video. Brownie seems bemused by the porcine perambulators.

Mark II Chicken Tractor: The Eggmobile

The hoops on this tractor are made of cattle panels. It is very sturdy and durable, but too heavy for anyone else in the family to move. I fell victim to the typical Tueting habit of: "If a 2 x 4 is good, than a 2 x 8 is even better!"

Hay Pictures

Dad and I are making hay with my tiny old equipment this year. It is brutal work, but we are outside and can actually see a physical representation of what our labor has wrought.

Besides, how many guys can say they spend the summer working with their fathers?We filled the barn at the rental place, then our own barn, and then had to resort to making large piles and then covering them with tarps.
A second pile on the side of the barn. You can see the last pile to the right, now tarp covered.
Dad admiring the fruits of our labor.
Not only do I work him hard, I make him drink with the animals.

I'm a monster.
Bonnie won't give Dad a break: "I don't care if you are tired. These ears aren't going to scratch themselves."

More Mark IV Chicken Tractor

Covered Bridge Art

I think this picture is gorgeous. Of course, the farmer ought to fence his cows out of the water, but who am I to let that little quibble get in the way of aesthetic appreciation?

Bonnie: Internet Star

While working on the fair poster, I was looking for an illustration of dairy breeds and stumbled across a very familiar picture.

Oregon State University is using a picture from this blog to illustrate multi-species sustainable grazing.

Here is the page.

Cool.