The Meares Homestead

As I sit here contemplating what to write about, especially since it has been 8 months since I last made an entry, I am struck with the feeling that nothing special has happened. I got away from writing cause I was having a hard time getting out of the doldrums and nothing in life seems interesting enough to tell others about when life just seems to be passing by. But much has happened like the Christmas Eve blizzard that occurred while we were away visiting family in Indiana, losing our first goat to an unknown death (and then another and then almost 2 more), dealing with raising teenage boys, having my husband gone for his job for 10 weeks, starting a monthly Mom's support meeting for all homeschoolers in the area and so much more. Sometimes the things we go through on a daily basis get pushed into the background and don't seem very interesting. So let's see....

Patty, our almost 2 year old heifer went to see the butcher in January. It is bittersweet butchering an animal that was born here on the homestead. We watched her birth and that night I heard her momma, Shirley, crying out. So I crawled out of bed and drug myself out to see what was the matter. Well, that little cow Patty had gotten herself on the other side of the gate that was opened just enough for all the goats to go through and was asleep on the other side. Momma Shirley was not pleased with this situation. This was a perfect opportunity for me, though. I was able to check over this small calf, which isn't something that could be done earlier. Momma had too many protective hormones raging to even attempt it. I discovered that even though we had seen the calf sucking on the teat, she hadn't been able to suck hard enough for the plugs to come out for the milk to flow. So, in the middle of the night with no one else awake or even aware that I was outside, I lead momma Shirley to the milking stanchion, fed her some grain and worked with all my might squeezing the teats to remove the plugs. Then I brought in Patty and helped her get some much needed nourishment. Patty grew and grew into a friendly heifer, but too much so. She was getting quite aggressive especially with me. Jeff could still show her who was boss, but it was all I could do to hit her hard enough with a stick to get her to back off. I always had to watch my back when I was in the corral where she was. She started being mean to the goats, too. She could throw a yearling goat with her head and I worried about them. It was time for her to go and now it is time to enjoy the fruits of our labor. She was twice as big as the first heifer we had butchered. The first was a full-blooded Dexter. Patty was a Dexter Angus cross. It took us 2 years to finish the first beef in the freezer and 2 years to grow up the second beef. That is good timing. Unfortunately, we are having a hard time getting momma Shirley to take (get pregnant) this time and she has gotten some pretty severe frostbite to a few of her teats. This concerns me and she will be the most difficult animal to get rid of if it ends up that we have to butcher her. She has been my milk cow for 5 years and after spending that much time with her, I have grown to love her quite a bit.

Winter has lasted longer this year than at any point since we have lived here. With hungry mouths to feed, we have nearly exhausted our hay bales and just broke open the last one. Even though we have been downsizing our herd, minus 1 heifer and 5 goats, it still only takes about 2 weeks for them to finish off a 1/2 ton hay bale. We still have 20 goats and our milk cow and we have learned over the years that pitching hay into a feeder saves a ton of wasted hay. There still is waste, but it is minimal. That hay is wasted for eating, but it makes great compost for the gardens. It is a lot of hard work to clean it all up, but it is worth it in the end. We don't know yet when in March Jeff will be back on the road for work, but I hope the weather clears enough for him to get the gardens tilled beforehand. I can till them, but I don't like to. I think that tiller has a mind of its own when I run it. It is a pretty funny site to see it take off across the garden without me as the operator and there I am running after it. Yes, it's funny until it crashes into the fence. Just imagine . . .

We had a great time visiting friends and family back in Indiana for Christmas. We hadn't been back in over 4 years, since my mom died. We missed the big blizzard back on the homestead. We had asked some great neighbors to feed and water the livestock and chickens while we were gone. Little did we know that a blizzard, that would be so bad that they had to drive through farmers' fields just to get to our house, would let loose over our little piece of home. The anti-freeze water spiquots were frozen and they found a dead goat when they got here on Christmas Day. They went above and beyond what we could have ever asked for them to do. We are still in awe when we talk about how wonderful they were and how much hard work they had to do. For example, they had to carry water from the kitchen to the water trough at the barn in freezing temperatures and 40 to 50 mph winds and blowing snow for at least 2 days. I don't have any good pictures of the blizzard because we weren't here, but they told us they had to shovel out the 5 to 6 foot drifts from the back deck just to get into the house. Country folk are a breed unto themselves. When we asked ourselves, while we were contemplating returning early from our trip, what we would do if in the same situation as them, our answer was, "Whatever it takes." We knew we had left our homestead in the right hands.

Until next time . . .

With Many Goaty Blessings,

Julie

On a farm in Kansas

Today we will have heat indices between 103 and 105 degrees.  Summer officially arrived yesterday and today there is no doubt that the heat of Summer is here to stay.  We have been so fortunate and only turned on our air conditioning a few days ago.  We are hold-outs and since we, like most others, are trying to conserve money and enery consumption, we wait as long as we can before we turn on the furnace or air conditioner.

I picked the cherry tree last week. I waited too long and many were already bad, but I was able to give a bucket full to Jeff's Aunt Dee and I got a bucket full.  After I pitted them and cut off the few bad spots, I got nearly an ice cream bucket full.  That sure isn't very many, but I had so many last year that we haven't used up yet, that sometimes less is good.  After I pitted them, I just stuck them in the freezer. I intend to make cherry jam from them.  There aren't enough to really bother canning cherries or pie filling.

I checked the rest of our fruit bearing trees/vines and the grape vine is loaded again this year.  The peaches have all fallen off.  I imagine with the high winds we have had, the growing fruit couldn't hold on.  The fruit was pretty sparse anyway, so I am not surprised.  The apple trees are fruitless and our other smaller trees are too young to have produced.  We are fighting diseases on our fruit trees and from our research, we must forego any natural remedies and use some awful chemicals.  Unfortunately, the brown rot the peach trees have has not natural solution.  It is a fungus that attacks the fruit just when it is ready to pick.

My two boys went to church camp this last week. For the first time in 17 years, my husband and I had an entire week to enjoy each other without our kids being present.  We started out the week on Tuesday cleaning up more storm damaged tree limbs.  In fact, there was a huge limb that fell on our tomato garden covering all the plants.  We worked early that day to get it off our plants in hopes that we could save the garden.  Interestingly enough, the big homemade tomato cages saved our plants.  Only three cages were completely smashed.  We lost one of our bell pepper plants when it got broken in half from the limb falling and there is only one tomato plant that is questionable.  We are so blessed.  Here it is a week later, though, and all the branches and leaves are still in the yard.  We just didn't finish the job.  This week may prove dryer to get the trailer in the yard to load it all up.

This week we are blessed to have my brother and his family here from Indiana for a visit.  I have two nieces and a nephew that I rarely get to see and they enjoy coming to the farm.  Unfortunately, it is going to be too hot to do much outside, so hopefully we can find some fun things to do indoors.  It was quite a treat, really. The boys had no idea they were coming and when we picked them up from the return of camp on Saturday, we had my nephew,. Brandon, go up to them first.  This really threw them off for a few minutes, but then when they figured it out, they were excited, too.  How fun!

Not too much exciting is going on right now.  We are blessed and wonderfully made.

With many goaty blessings,

Julie

On a farm in Kansas

I can't believe it has been a month since my last blog post. Time sure flies when I am so busy. Spring is the time for planting and mowing and graduations and weddings... and severe storms. We experienced the worst storm since we moved here 5 years ago on Friday, May 15. We were not home at the time, because we were attending the homeschool graduation of a young man we know from church. Apparently, but not confirmed, a funnel cloud destroyed 4 of our trees and damaged a 5th. Did you iknow that a funnel cloud is rotation in the sky and isn't termed a tornado until the rotation touches the ground? I didn't know this until this incident happened. Amazingly, there was no other damage, minus the few shingles off the house, except the trees and the boys' fort.  Let these pictures explain.

Notice the twisting of the tree? This was our first indication that this damage was caused by something more than just high winds. This tree is near the road  in a small grove of tree, about 12, and is the only one that sustained damage.  Unfortunately, the small, decorative old barn wood fence in the foreground was destroyed when the tree was manually taken down.

These two tree came down out by our chicken house, but were far enough away from any structures to cause any damage. Amazingly, none of our free-range chickens were near it when it fell.

Really, these two pictures don't tell of the massive size of this tree. The first shows the tree from the back door of our house. Even though it fell on the tree, it didn't do any damage to our deck. Praise God. The second pictures shows the immense limb that fell directly on the fort. Unfortuately, the fort was destroyed. The boys didn't really use it to play on anymore, but the current use was a practice tree stand for bow hunting. We may rebuild, but we don't know yet.  There are more pictures which show greater detail in my photo album, which you can access at the top of the page. The album is called Storm damage.  Original, huh?

On a lighter side, we had our first clutch hatched out a few days ago.  It was ducklings and she hatched an even 12.  This duck decided to lay her clutch under the barn. I am not sure what prompts and animal to do what they do, but I am sure that if there are any eggs left in there that didn't hatch or weren't fertile, we will know it from the smell in the barn in a month or so.

I have an interesting story to tell you about this picture. That male guinea to the left of the momma hen and her ducklings is the guardian of the babies. He does this every year. I don't know why, but he goes everywhere these ducks go and protects them from any other birds that might come in  their path, to include other ducks and chickens. It is one of the most amazing things we have ever seen and just goes to show you how much God cares for his creatures.

Since I last wrote, Jeff spent a few weeks working in Houston. He actually flew home on Thursday, the day before the storm hit. Thank you Jesus. I would have been lost to deal with so much damage by myself. We don't know yet, but he may be finished working til Fall. This gives us lots of opportunity to work on things here on the homestead. One of the big projects is to build a new area for the buck and some wethers.

Oh, some more good news: We thought the ice storm and late freeze killed off this year's peach harvest, but we were wrong. The peaches are growing, as are the apples, grapes, and cherries. In fact, we are in for another bumper crop of cherries this year.  Other than the time it takes to pit all those wonderful red fruit that stains the hands, cherries are very easy to can or process. I love cherries and I am so thankful we have this great tree on the homestead.

The garden spots that I posted pictures of a while ago are nearly full with crops now.  Not everything has come up yet, but the planting is, for the most part, done. We have planted potatoes, red, yellow and white onions, garlic, green beans, watermelon, cucumbers, muskmelon, pumpkin, peas, tomatoes, bell peppers.  I lost my strawberries and basil last year, so I am hoping to find a spot to start another small perennial garden for those. Having free-range chickens puts a damper on utilizing certain areas and the spot has to be fenced to keep them out. It is more complicated than just saying, "Hey, how about that spot?"

We opened the pasture to the livestock almost 2 weeks ago and I am so pleasantly surprised how eating fresh grass has increased Shirley, our milk cow's, production. We did not get her bred last year, so I am going to see how long I can milk her.  She is a Dexter and they don't give a ton of milk like a Jersey would.  The most she has ever given is nearly 3/4 of a gallon milking her once per day. She was down to a quart and a half the last of hay feeding, but is now up to over a 1/2 gallon. This may not sound like much, but imagine going to the store and buying 1/2 gallon of milk every single day, period. It grows in the refrigerator and it seems like it is multiplying on its own at times. I need to make cheese and ice cream. Now mulitply that by 2. We also get a 1/2 gallon in once per day milking from Sandy, our milk goat. So in a week's time, we get 7 gallons of milk.  Whew! I just wish there were so many more things to do with milk.  If you have any ideas for lots and lots of milk, please let me know. This is about the time I start to get desperate. The cats and chickens get their bellies full of milk often as we just don't use it up fast enough before it goes bad.

Well, I have rambled on enough. I will try to do a better job of blogging, so you don't have so much to read.

With many goaty blessings,

Julie

in Kansas

Since Jeff started working for Tri-Tool and traveling all over the country to do repair or maintenance work for various power plants and other companies that need the same type of service, I have made a whole lot of trips to the airport.  This company is so great to work for.  They arrange and pay for all the flights and rental cars, so at least we don't have to worry about how to get Jeff to a job.  He wasn't home long from Maine before he flew back out to California.  He worked at a fossil fuel power plant just outside of Death Valley for only a few days.  He flew out on Thursday and came back home on Sunday.  That was a quick trip, but we were fortunate that Jeff's brother and family were coming to visit on that Sunday.  They ended up picking Jeff up at the airport, which was a wonderful blessing.  I didn't have to take another 4 1/2 hours out of my day to go to Kansas City.  This job is just what we had wanted.  He is here most of the time and gone some of the time.  It affords us the opportunity to work somewhat full-time on the farm. 

I told you about the ice storm we had and it did destroy the peach crop for this year.  Too bad, really, but the apple and cherry trees will still give us a harvest, as far as we can tell.  It is too soon to tell if the grapevine will produce, but I am still hopeful. Here is very cool picture my niece took when the cherry tree was in full bloom.

We live in the Flint Hills of Kansas and we are surrounded by the hills and plains that are trademark to Kansas.  Here is a picture of our place from way out in the pasture adjoining our property.

We have been having several days of severe weather.  Interestingly enough, we haven't had any rain.  The wind is attrocious at 25 to 40 mph and the lightning can be very scary at times.  I wasn't interested in listening to the thunder and watching the amazing lightning all night long again last night, so the boys and I slept in the basement.  Jeff was at Men's Retreat in Missouri.

The Monday after Jeff returned from California and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and niece were here, a fellow goat raiser, Gail, called me to help her out.  She had a goat in labor and in trouble.  Jeff and I went over, as did my friend Marilyn, who introduced me to Gail.  The poor doe had been in labor for way too long and was not doing so great.  I had to go in to pull out the kids.  If the kids aren't delivered within a certain period of time from when labor starts, they will die and the doe will also die if intervention doesn't happen soon enough.  I was sure we were dealing with dead babies and the focus was to save the momma.  She was a little pygmy goat and this was her third kidding.  She shouldn't have had this trouble, but she did and now it was crunch time.  As I got my hand inside her, I could feel a kid and I soon realized it was coming breech, but the legs were tucked under instead of sticking out like they should be.  This was the problem and why she could not deliver.  I was able to get the legs outstretched and pulled the kid out.  She was a beautiful doeling, but she was already gone.  Hoping that was the end, I put my arm back inside her and found two more babies.  Basically they were trying to come out at the same time.  The second was also breech and the legs were again tucked under.  I was able to get them straightened out and pulled out a nice buckling, which to all of our surprise was alive.  He was wiped off and wrapped in a towel to be kept warm.  Jeff was more than happy to help with that.  I then had to get the third baby out.  This proved to be the most difficult.  The head kept flipping to the side.  I would get the head lined up and start to pull the legs and it wouldn't come.  Then back to aligning the head, pulling the legs, aligning the head and so on. I suppose I tried 5 or 6 times, before I finally decided to just pull the head and forget about the feet.  Afterall, it is generally understood that when the head flips like this, it is because the baby is dead.  Unbelievably and amazingly, the little head emerged with eyes open.  We were overjoyed.  The little buckling survived that entire ordeal.  So not only did we save the momma, but two little bucklings were there for her take care of.  It was quite emotional for me and I had a hard time containing my tears when it was all said and done.

I thought I would leave you with an interesting picture.  Jeff found this pinecone in a parking lot in California near the ocean at Pismo Beach.  Kyle is holding it to head for size comparison.

With many goaty blessing,

Julie

in Kansas

Just when everyone was getting Spring fever, Spring kind of flew the coop.  We had so much beautiful weather here, then just as smoothly as Spring peaked into Kansas, it pulled right back out again.  We were able to get many things done around the homestead before the cold pushed its way in again.  This time of year is well known for the burning of the prairies.  Kansas has very few trees and lots of open land that is used for grazing cattle.  The burning is such a beautiful site.  We came home from Wednesday church night a week ago at almost 10 o'clock and saw the sky lit up with the warm glow of a prairie fire.  As we drove down the gravel road to our house, it looked as if it was in our back yard.  We ran into the house, grabbed the camera and Bowser, our Dachsund, and drove off to find it.  It ended up being over 10 miles away, but once we found it, we had to take some pictures.  Pictures of nighttime prairie burning are somewhat difficult to take, we found, but I hope you can see the beauty in it.

We went from warmth and beauty of Creation awakening after the dormant winter to, well, then we woke up to this:

As we had hoped, the ice covering on the fruit trees actually saved the blossoms.  We were so thankful.  Tonight, however, we are to reach a near record low of 22 degrees with wind chills in the low teens.  I just checked on the peach trees and they are still looking wonderfully alive.  Unfortunately, tonight will be their demise and there is nothing I can do about it.  How sad.  We thank God continually for the goodness He gave us with the abundant harvest of last year.

My husband is in Maine as I type this.  He will be home this week sometime.  We miss him when he is gone, but God is supplying our financial needs by providing jobs.  Yes, he is away, but his job is such that he gets to spend a lot of time at home, as well.  We have the best of both worlds.

I am now milking one of my goats.  Sandy is my long-time milker.  She is such a good producer.  She is nursing triplets and still gives us 1/2 gallon of milk per day.  Even though she is the herd boss and can be quite a handful at times, I am grateful I have her.  When she first came to live with us, she was scared of people and didn't want to be touched.  Then when she kidded, she had so much milk and was quite engorged and came down with milk fever, she didn't have any options but to let us treat and handle her.  She is a nice milker now.  She still has the habit to raise her right back leg when I milk, but she doesn't jump or try to kick over the bucket.  Of course, if I don't pay attention when she gets that leg up there, she will bring it down right on the edge of the bucket and dump all that milk.  When that happens the cats come running.  Can't you just see that? Milk spilling off the edges of the milking stanchion onto the cats' heads and backs, all the while they are oblivious to it because they are getting their favorite treat.  Oh, to be a farm cat.

With many goaty blessings,
Julie

in Kansas

Friday night, my family and I went to Topeka so the men-folk could watch the last home game of the season for Road Runners Hockey team.  It is a fun time for me, because I get to go shopping all by myself.  No one to ask when we are leaving or to act bored when I just want to take my time and look around.  I went to Sam's Club first to pick up a few things, but I don't care how few things I get there, I can never get out the door without spending at least $100.  I feel like I made up for it, though.  I went to Walgreens and bought 3 boxes of Kleenex, a bottle of Listerine, one each Reach toothbrush and floss, Sambucol natural cold medicine, and Walgreen's version of Zyrtec and I paid 79 cents for it all strictly by using coupons.  I like that!

Then I met up with a friend and went shopping with her and her daughter.  We had a nice time.  We definitely need to do that more often.  It is so good to get away from the farm sometimes.  I like being here, but getting away on occasion is good, too.

We didn't get home until 11 something and Kyle had to get his uniform ready to go to a CAP function this Saturday at 6 am.  CAP is the acrynonym for Civil Air Patrol.  CAP is a volunteer youth and adult organization under the United States Air Force whose members are trained in aeronautics and emergency services.  This is the organization that actually found Steve Fawcett's plane in the mountains.  If you would like more information, click here www.gocivilairpatrol.com.  Anyway, Kyle went to Salina with the local wing to get his orientation flights in,but they ended up not flying.  Something about the weather in Kansas City was stormy.  Too bad for Kyle.  He was so disappointed.  Nathan is still considering whether he wants to fly or not.  I understand that flying can be scary, but he will never know if he thinks it is something he wants to do unless he tries at least once.

Jeff got up early Saturday morning to take Kyle in to town, so he just stayed until the tire place opened.  We just had the shocks and struts replaced on our van by them, but something was still not right. He got right in and they discovered that we had two tires with the tread separating.  Thankfully, they had the two tires we needed in stock and they got that done.  Wow, the van drives so much smoother than before.  Now we have to fix several other smaller things and maybe a larger thing or two, but we are just thankful to have a vehicle to drive.  The clutch went out in our little Saturn and we haven't decided just what we are going to do with that.

I am still dealing with a sick goat.  She kidded on Monday early, early in the morning and by Monday night she had a fever of almost 105 and double mastitis.  I had to go to town to get a bottle of a special antibiotic to give her from the local vet.  Even though they really don't know much about goats, they try.  Fortunately, I have several other outlets to get expert advice on treating sick ones.  I have been corresponding with the goat vet at Washington State University.  She is very knowledgeable and I appreciate her help.  We have been bottle feeding the triplets of this sick momma.  Yesterday, we put them together and we hoped she would have enough milk to take care of them.  Today, I gave them a supplemental bottle, because I just don't think they are getting quite enough.  Thank God my milk cow is still giving over 1/2 gallon after over a year of lactation.

Jeff has worked so hard since he got home from California.  He now has two large water tanks by the far gardens for watering by gravity feed.  Here are a couple of pictures.  Notice the white container on the far end.  This garden has peas just starting to come up.

The tires are where we planted our potatoes. There are also onions and garlic planted in this garden.  Before you ask, because I know you will wonder.  You see goats and our milk cow in these pictures because these gardens are actually in our corral.  A few years ago, we stopped feeding those big round bales to our animals and where they were, the hay rotted and composted into wonderful garden soil.  We fenced off these areas and now they are used to produce wonderful garden goodies.

Jeff has spent the last couple of days pruning one of our apple trees.  I know it is really too late to prune, but this particular tree has not given us anything edible for over 2 years and it needed pruning, badly.  This is an interesting apple tree.  It gives 5 different kinds of apples. Almost every year, at least one variety takes a year off from production.  It will be nice when we can harvest some from it.  It has been suffering from brown rot, as has all our peach trees. I know it looks like a mess and it is.  I can't wait until he is finished and the area is all cleaned up.

We have an abundance of extra fencing, mostly stuff we were given.  I need an idea for storing it.  Right now, it literally is lined up under this apple tree.  It is unsightly, but handy.  I would like for it to disappear to a more inconspicuous place.

It is nice outside, but windy. It is suppose to rain tonight and I hope it does.  Our gardens will love it.

Hope you weekend is just as nice.

With many goaty blessings,

Julie

in Kansas

Today, I am determined to finish setting up this website.  I have put it off for much too long.  After all, how difficult can it be?  The templates are already there and I just have to fill in the information.

Today, I am determined to make a Root Beer Float Cake.  I found the recipe on one of my Yahoo groups and I just need to try it.  I rarely make desserts around here, but this one caught my eye.  I sure hope the boys like it.

Today, I am determined to finish cleaning my house.  It seems the dirt on the floor is never ending.  I love this time of year and at the same time, I despise this time of year.  We are in and out so much and dirt loves to travel.  I think the dirt on my floor was at one time on the arches of Eiffel Tower.  Well traveled dirt is the hardest to clean up, too.  It doesn't feel as if its travels are over and fights that dust pan with all its worth.

Today, I am determined to get my boys to clean off their desks so school work goes so much smoother.  It is so hard to concentrate when a bunch of junk is cluttering up the thinking space. I want Nathan to find a new place for his desk, altogether.  He needs more light and he hates the idea of having a desk in his room.  Yes, his room as two windows and tons of natural light, be he says he can't concentrate when he hears crickets or birds or whatever.  I have often wondered if he could ever have made it in public school with all the noise of fellow students.  We will never have to find out, but college may prove to be a challenge for him.  We were just discussing last night that one of the boys' friends said if he were in public school he would have to be on Ritalin.  My boys didn't know what that was, but we explained and told Nathan that if he had been in public school he would have been on it, too. Thankfully, he never had to experience that!

Today, I am determined to do something for my husband.  I don't know what just yet, but he has worked so hard since returning from California.  He has tilled gardens and planted, dug composted hay/dirt, and helped with goat birthing and sick momma goats.  We priced how much it would be to rent a small tractor to be able to dig out the barn and put T-posts in the ground. They want $175 per day.  I don't think he is willing to pay that.  We don't have any neighbors with small tractors to borrow, either.  A full-sized or even medium tractor will be too big to get into the barn to clean it out.  Before we have done it by hand, but it doesn't get as much dirt out as we would like, because after a while we are just too tired to do anymore.  He wants to make a bigger pen farther away from the girls (the doe goats) to put our buck and the wethers.  If we can get a tractor to help us, we can get it done so much faster.  In addition, the boys and used-to-be boys can have a space to roam and fresh browse to eat.  Then we have to decide what to do with Patty, our heifer calf.  She turned one year old on Monday.  She is still too little to butcher and even when she has been kept away from her momma for months at a time, she stills wants to nurse when they get put back together.  Shirley won't let her for the first day or so, then she just gives in.  It makes me so mad!!

I have bottle babies to feed now. I hope you enjoy this first edition of themeareshomestead blog.

With many goaty blessings,

Julie