The Eagle!!

This big fellow was sitting and watching me do chores this morning. Every once and a while he'd call out. When I was calling Bindy I'd yell "BINDY" and she'd start to come. Then he'd call out and she'd stop! Crazy cow. This is one of the birds that is cleaning up the entrails by the lagoon. So far the bird count is pretty small but I can defiantly see a difference in bird numbers since butchering day. Last time we counted 4 eagles and this time there has so far only been this one. I've also seen a raven and heard several smaller birds calling between the trees. I carried both boys out to see it after chores but when they went out to play later in the day he was gone. The trees have been covered in frost like this for about a week. Very pretty, but very gray as the sun has not come out at all!!

Bug Eyed and the attacking Pig!!!

This was taken the same day as "Snow Throw". Bindy with her 'OH CRAP' look. Papa was throwing snow at her and you can see he got her at least once!! She just couldn't believe it!! It was really funny. If you look in the pig pen you can see he threw snow at them as well. This was a very bad idea and came back to bite us. The weather was nice and warm and everything was melting. The pigs had mud 6 inches deep.... and we had to butcher 2 the next day. FOUL!!! They were gross!!! We had to wash (Read soak and brush, scrub and rinse and brush again) them before strip skinning. YUCK. We hauled a bunch of leftover hay to the rest of the pigs the same day we took the 2 out and they now have a nice pen again. But they were NASTY. 6 white pigs turned brown overnight!! On the other hand the snow had to go and it was either there or walk half way across the roof to throw it off the end. Note: the blue wheel barrow is placed just so where we normally milk... so Bindy can't make a mess where we have to sit!! She no longer has this area as she no longer needs it.

Another cow funny happened to me the other day. It was actually funny and I really couldn't blame her even though I really wanted too. After it happened I couldn't stop chuckling. But it was NOT funny while it happened. I milk on the right side. Papa milks on the left. This started because I was pregnant with Baby R when we got Bindy and I refused to be stuck between the cow and the fence to milk. Bindy has always been really good about it. Anyway. Because he milks on the fence side he never has any pig problems. I get them all. He's between the cow and the pigs. When I milk she often shifts right to the fence and so the pigs are right there. Well one morning she shifted over to the fence and I moved over and kept on milking. Half asleep as per normal. ALL OF A SUDDEN Bindy lifts off. I swear she picked up her whole body and levitated up and over a good foot. Now that's pretty funny all by it's self. Without remembering that I was milking on that side. She went up and practically landed on me!!! I couldn't get up off my stool fast enough (I had no warning and it's a pretty low stool) and slid off backwards about 2 feet into the shavings. Landed hard on my butt and eagle spread. She kicked a few times and moved around a bit. She managed to spill about 1/3 of the milk in the bucket, which is not bad considering her scare. Right then I almost lost it, I just about got mad. Then I realized WHY!!! Poor Bindy. Then I laughed. One pigs liked to walk along the fence and grunt at me while I was milking. Sometimes he'd squeal and in general make a pest of himself. Well on this day he just about gave both Bindy and I a heart attack. He jumped up on the short wood fence and his front feet LANDED on Bindy's back. The pig in the picture with it's head over the fence is in about the right spot. With Bindy standing right next to that fence they can nose at her but this is the 1st time one attacked. It took Bindy and I a few minutes to get her moved over towards me, were the pig couldn't reach her, the stool placed and the milking resumed... but our hearts were racing for several minutes after that!!! Needless to say we were both rather jumpy for the next couple of mornings. And I didn't get much milk that morning!! Poor old Bindy!!! Now can you really blame her for getting super excited on pig butchering day??? I'm sure I saw her give me a disappointed look when we stopped at 2!! But I did make sure that the 'squealer' was 1 of the 2. Squealer was also known as Wilbur!! Good riddance Pig!!

Oh and when Papa heard about it he laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes and fell over!!! Then he tried to convince me to switch sides. Pregnant or not I am not being stuck between a fence and a COW!!! LOL. I just make sure she doesn't try and lean on the fence while I'm milking...Oh and I'm finding it hard to doze and milk these days.

Tired Baby!!

The other day during pig butchering while the boys were having their science lesson E and Baby R were inside. While we were out there Baby R missed nap time. When we came back in, we checked on them about every 5 minutes and we could hear them as we were right outside, Baby R had fallen asleep on the floor right by inside door. E was still playing and hadn't even noticed!!

One more butchering picture!!

Pig Butchering day.... a bit graphic!!!

The Boys watching Papa give a science lesson. He showed them the intestines, and other organs and gave a little talk about what each one did and why. They loved it. The sled is how we moved the entrails to the lagoon. Yeah we have a lagoon. Papa pulled everything out there to decompose. We also get a lot of birds when we do this. Our compost pile is under a foot or more of snow and frozen so we feed the critters in the winter. Not a bad sized pig. They were July Pigs so they were about 5 months old. These are the biggest two. We had a bit of fun getting just these two into the milking area to shoot them. We had no pigs, then the smallest pigs, then a small one and a big one, then all six, then two middle ones, then finally just the two big ones. Now that these two are gone we feed an entire 5 gallon bucket less of feed!! We have no idea what they weighed as we had no way of weighing them. But you can tell they are a nice size by comparing their size to Papa's. This was our 1st time using the pully system to hang them and we loved it. It works awesome!! And it's really fast.

A Good Week.

We had a great week. Not everything got crossed off the list nor did we have a spectacular moment of excitement, but it was a good, strong, working week. Papa had Monday and Tuesday off and we got two of the pigs killed Monday morning; hanging ready to cut and wrap just 2 hours after death. Monday night was a girls night so I got to take off for a few hours and go out for supper with friends and then we chatted and played games til late. We try and do these girls nights about every 6 weeks, or whenever we can get away with it. They are great fun and we need them to of set the long working days. Papa took all 4 of the kids for the evening and they had fun as well.
Late Monday night Papa hurt his back, bringing in the meat saw, and so Tuesday he went in for a massage. While he was relaxing the kids and I went to town to go grocery shopping. We had a huge cart full and saw lots of people we knew. On the way back to pick up Papa I pulled over to the side of the road to turn around, Papa was walking down the road, and went too far over and got sucked into the snowbank. I didn't even see it coming. But we were very lucky that nothing was broken and it only took us 30 minutes to get out. Papa put chains on and we were about 1/2 out when a little pickup came by and yanked us out. The kids thought it was fun..Momma did not. Thankfully he did not hurt his back again and it's mostly better now. That afternoon when we finally got home, had lunch, put the kids to bed and unloaded the Travelall, we both took 20 minutes to relax before cutting and wrapping our two pigs. Papa cut them in half lenghtwise and then brought in the front shoulders while I got ready inside. I deboned the shoulders; separating out sausage meat ( we froze it to be ground later as our grinder isn't working) and pork stew meat. That is the longest part of the whole cut and wrap process!! After the shoulders were done Papa cut the next section off and brought it in. He took the saw to the ribs (we cut across) and then he took the bacon off the ribs while I took the fat off the chops and, because our meat saw isn't working, I deboned the chops off the backbone and then Papa cut them into chops. Which I packaged and labeled. Ribs as well. Yumm. Then Papa brought in the back legs (hams) and we cut them into roasts and packaged and labeled them as well. It only takes minutes to write about but it takes hours to do. Somewhere in there Papa grabbed the tenderloin from one pig and seasoned it then BBQ'd it. We had tenderloin, rice and corn for supper and then later the kids went to bed. By 11:15 Papa was out milking, the meat was in the freezer and I was washing up, including the floor. I hate waking up to a big mess.
Wednesday was Bible study and we went. LOL. I told the kids if we had a good Bible study we would head to town to see Papa on his lunch break afterwards. We had a great Bible study so we headed off to town and met Papa just running out the door to bring the bacon to the shop to be cured. So we grabbed the bacon and he drove us out there. When we got there we were in for a shock. They no longer DO farm bacon. The animal has to be butchered by them. SO we tried another place but he never did do bacon and then another place and they didn't do it anymore either. So when I got home that afternoon I looked up bacon curing and we are probably going to do it ourselves. It should be interesting and I'll let you know how it goes.
Thursday was a fun day. Unexpectedly I got a phone call from my aunt offering to babysit my kids (all 4) so that Becca and I could go to the city for the day. Becca and I had made plans to go in either Thursday or Friday to pick up a lens for J's glasses. We were going to take the kids and be gone all day. But then my aunt called and it was heaven sent. LOL. Becca and I headed off in her car and my aunt and the kids had a great time eating Mack and Cheese and watching "Animals are Beautiful People". We flew!! I had forgotten how much you could get done in the city without kids. I got J's lens. He lost one in the snow last week. Good luck finding it!! We looked but there is too much snow and it's GLASS!! LOL. He's wearing his spare pair of glasses until we can get the lens in and the screw locktight. We went out for a leisurely lunch, got some groceries ( I saved $12 on 4 things!!), dropped off her computer, replaced a Christmas gift (it didn't work) and went out for ice cream!! We got back in time to make supper. After supper the kids and I headed to my Mom's to wish her a Happy Birthday. Papa was working late that night and we missed him by minutes at Grandma's house. He got home in time to read to the kids and milk the cow before we all fell into bed exhausted.
Friday I started a week long, or more, project of organizing my house. For the last ten months or so we have been 'making do' way to often and now there is lots of work to be done before my house feels well organized again. I cleaned out my bedroom, part of the kitchen and the entrance all on Friday. With so many of us living here we are running out of room in every room. So I am going through and sorting and chucking and re-packing stuff. Stuff we haven't used in the last year is going OUT!!! We are also making some new shelves for my kitchen and hopefully for books as well. The plan is to buy a bunch of mouse and rat safe totes and put the kid's too small clothes out in the shed. But because of the critters almost all of the clothing we have that any one's ever worn is inside. That is a lot of stuff when you have 4 kids!!! If we were done having kids I would just get rid of all the too small stuff but we are not! So I am keeping it :) And no I'm not pregnant!! :)
Today, Saturday, Papa is working and I'm getting ready for house church. I believe it's my turn to host!! Not that I do much to prepare. Not much anyway that didn't need doing anyway. I cleaned off some surfaces, made butter, vacuumed (with the shop vac but that's another post!) did some laundry, made a big crock pot full of Boston Baked Beans ( or rather the crock pot version), showered all the little Grigglets, put away extra stuff and did some dishes. And it's only 4pm!! :) I still have a little list of stuff to do (fold laundry, finish dyeing my couch cover, finish supper) before Papa gets home but I expect he'll be home a bit late and well and ready to sit down and eat supper together!! Then maybe after supper we'll read or watch one of our new "All Creatures Great and Small" together. Hopefully we'll be in bed before 11pm as tomorrow is another day, and probably a good one!!!

Birthday Bash.

It's hard to believe but our oldest son J turned 5 recently. We don't do big birthdays but they do get cake and ice cream, normally with Grandma and Grandpa F and maybe one or 2 other couples. The birthday person gets to pick what they want for supper on their birthday. J wanted waffles. So I made him waffles with blackberry sauce and whipped cream. Yum. He sure can pick them. J wanted an owl cake and I had several hours of 'how on earth can a make an owl on a cake' worries before I just jumped in and did it. And it turned out rather well considering I had really no plans before starting. He was outside playing when I decorated it and when I was done I called him in to see. His eyes lit right up and he said. "It's beautiful." That was music to my ears!! I was so worried it wouldn't/ didn't look anything like an owl!! But he loved it and could hardly take his eyes off it. He had a great Birthday Bash with his owl cake and Oreo ice cream and balloons and spider man face masks. We let the kids pick their own paper cups, napkins and plates and one special thing for their birthdays (normally at the $$ store). J's was spider man masks. He didn't really have a lot to choose from but he really likes his masks. He pretty much made his own cake. I did the eggs and some fine measuring, but he did the rest. What a little man we have!!

Snow throw!!

The weather has been nice and warm, considering, for the last 2 weeks and the trailer roof was getting very iced up. When that happens Papa gets up on the roof and shovels off the edges of the roof just to give it more room to melt and get some of the snow out of the way. So he and the boys went outside and Papa monkeys his way onto the roof and starts shoveling. E and Baby R and I went to the door to see what all the fuss was about. We stood in the doorway and watched him shovel. Every load he would pick up and throw off E would giggle. It was really funny. Throwing it off the roof morphed into throwing partial loads at J who was beside the Travelall. Then before we knew it Papa was throwing snow at US in the doorway. His 1st, 2ND, and 3 shots I wasn't too worried as he had lousy aim, but the 4Th was getting closer and I told E to move out of the door way so I could shut the door but she was too slow and having too much fun. The 5 shot got us. Me, Baby R, L and E. Poor E was COVERED in snow. She was horrified. Truly. Her mouth opened and nothing came out for a long few seconds and then she SCREAMED (by this time she was well away from the door, she can really move if she wants too) . It was terribly funny. Mostly she got it on her head and shirt. But it must have been a direct hit because L, Baby R and I only got barely dusted. Baby R actually liked it. She giggled. It took E a minute to realize that she wasn't hurt, only surprised and then she calmed down right away and just looked like a mini snowman. He got 2 more hits in the door, surprising all of us while this was all happening. Snow everywhere!! I wiped it off E as best as I could, swept it to the door and L grabbed it in his mittens and threw it outside. Then E and I shut the door and left the troublemakers outside. :)
Later while he was shoveling the back half of the trailer the boys were standing at the end watching and all of a sudden the ground trembled and then 15 feet of roof snow (our trailer has 70 foot roofs on either side for the time being) from the wing roof went BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM off the roof. Wave after wave after wave of snow fell off the roof and crashed on the ground. Both boys were totally wide eyed with wonder!! So much snow fell off the roof (probably had about a foot over the whole thing) that Papa had to shovel a path through for Bindy so she could get to the milking area!! Is it any wonder I made sure they did NOT play on the snow piles under the roof line!!!

A visit with the calves.

We went out to my Aunt and Uncles place one Sunday for home church and to get some more hay. While the guys were loading up the hay I trekked out though the knee deep snow to visit with the boys. Both calves are looking well and have grown considerably. I was amazed to find that Billy's (the black one and half Holstein) back was chest high on me!! Bobby, being red welsh, is still the 11 inches shorter but just as heavily bodied as Billy. My cousin Glen was out with me and telling me that the calves were really friendly. After I left he managed to get Billy to come right too him!! But they both have forgotten me and neither would come close. Billy has no fear of the tractor at all and when it came past him he simply moved his head out of the way but did not move his body at all. The tractor was so close that it would have hit his head had he not moved it. I asked my uncle if he was a pain to work with but he just shrugged and said No. That's good anyway. I'm very glad to see they are behaving themselves, though my uncle did tell me Billy was 'stealing' from another cow until they took the calves out, and that they are quite tame and calm. We are not sure if we are going to bring them home in the spring or finish them out at my Aunt and Uncle's place. If they come home they will have to be teatherable again which is part of the reason I'm so happy to see them so calm.