Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

This is supposed to be a blog about the dairy mostly but lately it seems I have been posting about the baby. But you have to excuse me there because she takes up more of my time now than the dairy. In any case it came to my attention this afternoon, after my 3rd wheelbarrow load of wood, that I have neglected to document how we heat the house during the winter. This is our Hardy wood burning furnace. This isn't the best of pictures and was taken back in '04, but it will have to do until I can locate my camera. Until I moved here I had never heard of a wood burning furnace. I don't understand (and therefore am unable to explain fully) how it all works but these are the basics: It runs off of electricity-to power the blower-and has a huge tank of water in it. The wood fire inside the furnace heats the water and that water is piped though copper coils and somehow the heat is blown off of that into the house. So, of couse, it only works with forced air heating systems. ...

Much has been said; mostly by my mom, that Ellen never takes a bad picture and that she is such a smiley girl. Here is proof that it's not always so. Ha! This was up at her Great Grandpa's place last Sunday. I came home and took the picture I featured below when we got back home. Her aunt wanted to take pictures of her in her Christmas riggings, so I left her dressed up when went there. Ellen was not impressed. She let us know in no uncertain terms that she wasn't in to a photo shoot at the time. Maybe it was because there weren't any presents for her under the tree.

Here in blogger land it seems to be customary among some circles to have a Throwback Thursday, where you blog about the past...however long ago it may have been. I shall attempt this off and on as I go. Here is a picture from long ago, where I grew up in Northern California. Many folks think, when I tell them I am from N CA, that I come from San Fransisco or thereabouts, but no, my hometown is much further north than that even. San Fran is a a drive south of several hours. Anyway, this picture (and I am not sure of the quality here) is of the house I grew up in. It is pretty much surrounded by Douglas Fir trees with the occasional alder thrown in for variety. The willow tree is hiding the front window. The front part of the house was built by a bachelor logger who first owned the property back in the '40s I believe. The back half of it was added on later by my dad and uncle, who finished it off for their mother to live in. She bought the property originally. The house is covered i...

Since I likely won't have time to do much posting in the next few days here is your Merry Christmas card from me to you; courtesy of Ellen and her sunny smile. May you have the greatest Christmas yet. Remember the reason for the season, clear your heart from all resentments and regrets, count your blessings, eat a little, laugh a lot and remember to rejoice always. Please note: a Christmas photo from the dairy isn't complete without a hint of dairy-ness. Check out my husband's work boots by the back door in the upper left hand corner of the picture. Is that not hilarious! Merry Christmas!

Yesterday morning I went up the road to do the feeding and Rosie wasn't there with the herd. She gave me quite a scare because I didn't think her udder was big enough for her to be close to calving, but finally, after I'd driven all around the pasture, in the half-dark mind you, dodging limbs and stumps and all, I found them; Rosie and her calf. I was so relieved to see her standing up and with a live calf standing next to her I almost cried. Yes, it's a little heifer calf, and RED like her mother. A little bit darker red, but red just the same. Rosie doesn't have much of an udder, as you can see in the picture, so unfortunately she might become a cull later on down the line, but for now I am just happy she didn't croak in calving and that she had a red heifer that I am not going to worry about that. I couldn't get the camera to cooperate with me, so that is why Rosie has this demented gleam in her eye-the flash kept going off, but all in all the pic ca...

Yesterday morning husband says: " We need to get a Christmas tree for Ellen. Today would be a good day. I'll get the 4-wheeler and the saw out and you can go get it. Men aren't any good at picking out Christmas trees" So he took Ellen up to his mom's and I, being the dutiful wifey, went out and got the tree. He saw me coming buzzing back up the road and laughed and laughed. What a wonderful romantic my husband is. Look at my hair! It certainly looks like I went for a long ride on the 4-wheeler, doesn't it. Ha! It, my hair, always frizzes out in humid weather, and it has been kind of humid here.

For want of anything trenchant to write today; not that I EVER have anything trenchant to write, here is one of the latest Ellen photos. What joy a child has in being totally oblivious to appearances...just enjoy your food, make the most of it and what doesn't make it into your mouth...wear it with pride! (Actually, it isn't a cookie she was eating, it was one of those teether biscuits.)

The past few days have been busy. On Thursday we had to move our heifer herd from Windyville back here to the farm...well, just up the road from the farm here, so husband can take them hay with the tractor. We have a winter pasture we put them in; they still had plenty of grass in the summer pasture in Windyville, but weatherfolks are predicting possible 6 inches of snow this weekend; it's not fun driving a bale of hay 5 or 7 miles or so every couple of days-especially on icy steep roads. So we spent a couple of hours driving back and forth transporting 18 beasts to their new winter home. Two of them were bred so we put them back in with the bull and his heifers. The rest went into the winter pasture. It is funny to watch them react when you put new critters in with an established herd. They get all huffed up and posture and headbutt to establish who will be boss cow-or heifer. They duck their heads, headbutt and go round and round kicking up mud and grass until someone gives ...

Sourdough Bread 7 cups bread flour or all purpose flour-divided (*see my note below on making dough) 2 cups warm water (105 degrees F-110 degrees F) 1 cup sourdough starter 1 ½ packages active dry yeast 2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons sugar 2 tablespoons cornmeal (if you don’t have cornmeal, just regular flour will do OK in a pinch) Making the Dough In a large bowl, using an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook and set on medium speed, combine 2 cups flour, water, sourdough starter, yeast, salt and sugar; beat for 2 minutes. (I just use a wire whisk to start out with, then as the dough gets thicker, graduate to a wooden spoon, or whatever else “feels” right at the time. I tried using an electric mixer and dough hook and couldn’t keep the dough from crawling up the hook into the mixer. Maybe I need more practice) With the mixer on low, add 2 cups more flour, a little at a time, until combined. Increase speed to high; beat until smooth and sticky, about 3 minutes longer. With the mixer o...

In tribute to what those in Oklahoma and other areas of the Mid-West are going through, here is a poem from one of the masters of poetry, along with a couple of photos I took from our ice storm back in January. I feel badly for those who are going through it now, I remember quite vividly how horrible it was to be without power. We were without power for 9 days and it was awful. We had to milk using a generator, and we went down to husband's mom's place to sleep. It stayed cold-well below freezing-for so long and the ice didn't melt and the limbs kept falling and we had to slip and slid around on the ice doing chores. A veritable nightmare. The first pic is a shot of husband's granddad's place and the damage to their shade oak tree. It has recovered a bit by now, but it's still sad. The second pic is some dogwood buds on ice. Robert Frost had it right; ice is great for destruction... Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’...

Whenever we have a storm of some kind we get a calf. We are now kind of in the middle of a freezing rain episode. We got some Saturday night, a bit yesterday, some last night and this moring and we are supposed to get more tonight and tomorrow. What is saving us from a great deal of headache is that it warms up above freezing during the day, so much of it melts off and the roads, so far, are clear. This is a VERY good thing because we NEED to milk truck to be able to make it and pick up the milk. If he doesn't we are supposed to dump the milk because he's not supposed to get milk that has been in the tank for more than 2 days. Husband says sometimes they allow it if the weather has been really cold like this, but we have a fairly small tank that only holds a bit over 2 days worth. Anyway; back to the calf. This morning husband takes hay up the road to the dry cows and finds bull calf. He is back snug and dry under a cedar tree but as soon as husband comes over to inspec...

Haven't spent much time on the computer lately. Guess I got burnt out after the NaBloPoMo run. But it was fun. Yesterday we had a little calf rodeo here. Had to wean 3 of them and put 2 more in the bigger pen. While we were catching on of the weaners another one took a flying leap over the dilapidated fence and landed in the muck back by the barn where the cows stand and..um..."produce" after they have been milked. Dunno why they don't go back out to the field, but no, they just stand and make a deep swamp of unmentionable things. So anyway, the calf lands smack dab into this green swamp, on her side. Husband and I just stand there watching her flail around and get covered in muck. *sigh* For a minute there we were thinking she was going to be stuck in it, but no, she got up and went trotting triumphantly off with the cows. They, however, wouldn't have anything to do with her. Then somehow, while we were taking another calf to the weaner pen, this first...