Farm Chaos Moves to the City

Bittersweet.

Wednesday is family day at the farm.  

Abbey joined us last week before she packed up her things to move into college.  She couldn't wait to hold those new piglets:

Soooo cute.  Both of them!!

MOVE IN DAY!!!!

I relied on Abbey's typical "I've got everything covered" skills.  Mistake number one.  

We went to the wrong dorm.  Right college....wrong dorm:

When pointed to the correct dorm, we waited for all the kids to catch up:

We hauled her things up the stairs........to find a locked door:

This is fun!!

I have moved college kids for years now. I've never had this many "helpers" before:

My words in Omaha..."We'll take the little kids.  They'll be good helpers!!"

My words in Lincoln..."Why the heck did we bring these little kids?"  Mistake number two.

Mary Kate and I volunteered to unpack her clothes box so we could see what clothes she snuck out of our closets.

Jackpot.  Yes, Mary Kate keeps licorice in her closet.  You would too if you had 15 siblings.

Now Abbey is spending her day with other cool people....band people....roommates who don't share her last name....people who don't give her a daily "to do" list.....people who don't wear clothes out of her closet.... 

Bitter...sad she isn't here.  She did the grocery shopping.

Sweet...can't wait to see her march in the Cornhusker Marchihg Band and thrive in her study of elementary/early childhood education.

Fail...Fail...Fail

I win some and I lose some.

Here's the weekly update of losses:

Fail Round One:

Luke and I went to the beehives to collect honey.

We were prepared to blow smoke in the hive to make the bees climb down inside, clearing the way to lift our trays loaded with honey.  NOPE.

I got the new trays fixed up to replace those COMPLETELY FULL trays we would be taking to harvest.  NOPE

As we approached, I told Luke, "This is not a good sign.  There are NO bees flying around the entrance.  Normally we see at least 50 bees near the hive."

Ugh!!  Such a disappointing find!  Maybe 10 bees total and honey devoured by beetles & maggots (sorry..gross but true).

We checked the second hive to find it in better shape, but on it's way to demise if I don't interrupt the beetle life cycle.  

Bottom line....no cornbread with honey this winter.  Sadness.

Fail Round Two:

These should have little heads, feet or at least BEAKS poking through.  Friday afternoon proved to be a smelly day as one exploded in the high-tech incubator.

Bottom line....buying a "real" incubator.

Fail Round Three:

Our ATV is in currently the shop, so we have to do chores with a pickup.  Any pickup we can get out there. Our newest truck belongs to our oldest son, Ryne.  The oldest, cheapest and ugliest one we've got.  The truck......not Ryne.

The truck is old to the world, but new to the farm.  My wise husband warned that it was not the best choice for chore work since it's 2-wheel drive.  Circumstances were such that the only available truck this morning was "Mr. Ugly".  Luke used it for chores.  

The math problem of the day:

One old, ugly, 2-wheel drive truck + One muddy, slippery hill = truck/hay wagon collision.

Just when we thought the truck couldn't get any uglier.

Fail Round Four:

The pesky squash bug won the fight.

These are the cucumber plants that were thriving just two weeks ago.  Good thing I had Mary Kate make so many pickles early in cucumber season.

These once produced zucchini, yellow squash, pattypan squash and butternut squash.  I will spend the winter planning the demise of the squash bug.

That's enough fail for one week.  One would think I would become discouraged with fail after fail after fail.

I am a "big picture" girl.  Life, for me, isn't about bugs, zucchini. honey or turkeys.  Life is about enjoying moments like this:

Life is good:)

Tacos for Thanksgiving

My first batch of turkeys arrived last Monday.  

Ten cute little poults, just days old.  We were told we were a few weeks behind "normal" people who want them ready for Thanksgiving.  

Typical.  We normally come into a race in last place but claw and scratch our way to the finish line.  Never first, but we finish.

Not this time.

These poults enjoyed their first few days in our "starter" room where they have 24-hour food available and few visitors (we try to keep them a secret until they are bigger...stronger).

Once again the babies....

....are smarter than they look! 

Side note--yes, that's a lighter.

Safety first on our farm!!

These rascals found the poults, played with them & left the door open when they left to find the next bit of mischief.  

Enter cats...

They got in and killed them ALL!!!

Short life. Three days.

I assembled the kids and showed them the carnage.  I also announced that because of the carelessness of the babies leaving the door open and because the carelessness of the big kids not supervising the babies, we would be having TACOS FOR THANKSGIVING!!!

Dumb cats.  

Dumb babies.

Good thing we made a lot salsa.

One Way to Avoid the Butcher

Well.....I lied.

I spread the word to all my customers that early fall would be the time to order your pork for the winter because we had two last giant gilts (females) headed into the Oakland butcher.

This morning, when doing chores, Simon stumbled upon these:

I'm in Maine so I can't confirm, but I'm told she gave birth to 10, but only 6 are alive.  Every picture I have seen shows 5. Maybe they're counting one twice.  I do that with my kids all the time...."Why do I keep counting 17???"

Now THAT is one way to avoid going to the butcher.  Oldest trick in the book!!

Many of you know I have been PUSHING Joel to butcher these pigs.  It had gotten to this point:

"Hi, Honey, how was your day?  Butcher the pigs."

"What time do you want dinner...before or after you butcher the pigs?"

"It's raining...a perfect time to butcher the pigs."

"It's clear and sunny...a perfect time to butcher the pigs."

"The Oakland butcher called.  He wants you to butcher the pigs."

"Your MOTHER called.  She wants you to butcher the pigs."

Why the persistence?  Well, besides having a naturally nagging personality, I run the finances and once pigs reach optimal weight, they are worth WAY more money dead than alive.

Why the "dragging of feet?"  He really loves his pigs.  He constantly plays this card:

"Honey, we can't butcher THAT one, I think she's pregnant.  THAT one is also pregnant.  There's a pretty good chance THAT last one is also pregnant."

Ugh.  My weak spot.  My answer...butcher the boar (male).  We did.  Not soon enough!!!

Here's what I'm SURE you don't know.  NOBODY ever knows if a gilt is pregnant.  I've read every blog with pig and pregnancy in the title and they all swear it's a "wait and see" game.  It takes 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days gestation for a batch of piglets.  

Meet Farmer Chunk:

Chunk says he can tell--and I quote:

"There's this pointy thing in a pigs bottom.  Right under the tail.  If it points up, she's pregnant.  If it points down, she's not pregnant. If it is in the middle, she hasn't decided yet."

He called it on this one.  

This shows 5 of the 6....see??

People told us from the beginning to NOT name the animals we intend to eat. Hard on the kids.  We solved that in our own style...we label the pigs with names of people we don't like!!  HA!!!  Yes, I take requests without asking any questions as long as the name isn't Kathy or Joel.

If you are worried about getting that last batch of pork from my one remaining gilt, Chunk, the swineOB, has visited the pigpen:

"The remaining sow", he reports, "is in the "undecided" position."

Good as gold.  

"Honey, We're the Weird Ones"

If you read my previous post, you know I brought Fiddlestix food to Maine with me.  We bought ALMOST NOTHING at the local grocer and stopped outside our cottage area to buy fresh raspberries & blueberries.  

How's the food???  FABULOUS!  Just like home:):)

Sunday:  a quiet day at the cottage resting up from a busy conference in Atlanta and a very late night of travel.  Veggie hash with eggs as local as I could find:

Monday:

Hike...

Followed by a well-deserved kale salad:

Tuesday was a rainy morning so I popped this guy in the oven with all the veggies from the farm.  Oh, where are the other 12 mouths I usually feed?  This could last us the rest of the trip!!

Weather cleared up after lunch so we went on a 6&1/2 mile walk around a beautiful lake:

We worked up an appetite for pizza using the last of the tomatoes:(

Breakfast was kale and eggs:

We had a great scenic drive with a few hours of hiking to break it up.  Beautiful scenery all day!!

Yes, I packed a lunch:):)

Beet pizza for dinner tonight:

Tomorrow is our last day here so we will be cleaning out the fridge & packing.  I may have been over-zealous when packing the coolers in my Omaha kitchen.  We have eaten some of everything I bought, but my eyes were bigger than our stomachs.  The woman who owns the cottage lives just down the lane and her garden is WAY behind ours (flowers on plants but no veggies yet) so I will leave her my extras.

Here's how we ended every day:

Joel's new invention.  S'mores with an added layer of fresh raspberries and/or blueberries.  He's a genius!!

On our various ventures this week, we would come across long lines at a burger truck, or full waiting area of a restaraunt.  I exclaimed today, "Isn't is SO weird how people come on vacation and eat out every meal?  I mean not just eat or once...eat out the WHOLE TIME they are vacationing."

He took the portable cooler off my shoulder...yes, it contained all the fixings for our chicken sandwiches in the park....and lovingly said, "Honey, I'm pretty sure we're the weird ones."

I just don't see it.

Fiddlestix Farms in Maine?

It's vacation time again.  Not a trip...that is with kids.  A vacation....that is just the two of us.

As much as I love seeing a new part of the country and I love cooking just for two, I HATE going to the grocery store for the week's worth of food when everything darn thing I buy is growing in my garden at home.

Up until now I've just "taken it for the team" and paid few hundred dollars to buy what would cost me exactly NOTHING at home.

Not this year, baby.  This is MY year.  We are headed to Atlanta for a two day medical conference and flying from there to Bangor. Maine to spend a week in a place we've always wanted to go.  

I decided on Thursday morning that I was "all in" for packing my own food.  We were scheduled to fly Thursday late afternoon.  I went to a local ice manufacturer and bought two shipping coolers with dry ice and shipping boxes.  I went to my farm, picked everything I planned to cook next week, brought it home, washed it and packed it very strategically in coolers.  One of frozen food, one of chilled produce.  

Joel is such a willing partner.  I just got a, "Let me get this right.  We're packing two coolers and paying the baggage fee to ship them to Maine so we don't have to buy the food there?  It's now 4:00 and we fly at 5:30 and we're still standing in the kitchen."

"Yep."  

Halfway to the airport I get to say, "Hey, just had a thought.....this is a multi-city trip.  Any idea what baggage fees are on Delta?  Suppose we'll have to pay TWICE to get these coolers to Maine?  Once in Omaha and once in Atlanta?  Because if that's the case.....probably cheaper to just buy the food in Maine."

Yeah, that was ON THE WAY to the airport.  Sometimes I don't even know why he stays married to me. 

Well, a little smooth talking at the Delta desk and here is the picture of the attendant sending our bags to Atlanta and our food directly to Maine ($30/cooler), where it will (hopefully) be waiting in the baggage office when we arrive.

We get the question, "Is there dry ice in these?"

"Yes"

"How many pounds?"

"How many pounds is allowed?"

"Five"

"Perfect...there's five"

Oh yeah...who's the smart one now??

Actually...don't answer that.  We haven't landed yet, soooooo we could find rotten food, no food at all or confiscated coolers for having too much dry ice...possibly.