Dirt + water + manure = MUD

So, I started the weekend off right with some good clean, 'er dirty work. 

Like I said, dirt, plus water, plus manure = mud.  It's an eventuality when you have animals... unless you have a sacrifice area.  We need to create a sacrifice area, no, not an area to slaughter the cows, an area where you don't grow grass, you just spread ground cover so the livestock can be there without creating mud.  So, the only solution I could think of to try is "hog fuel".  I had a unit of it delivered this morning and spread it out as much as I could stand.  That's a good work out on the abs!  So, this is after... 

I should have taken a close up picture, maybe later.  I will say, the cows thought the new pile was a little "mattress" just for them.  It was cute.  

One of our cows looked like he was turning into the Grinch with all of the alfalfa stuck to his head.  They sure love that stuff!   

Road runner?  or Lakenvelder chicken?  Nope, just a Lakenvelder.  :)  

Hope you had a bountiful productive weekend too!

Lime Time

I borrowed our wonderful neighbors' quad today and spread lime of two of our pastures.  We're not even close to being done though.  The soil sample recommendation was 3 tons  per pasture, but I started out small.  It was nice to get something done around the place though.   :)

Harvest Party

Part of the Young family.  Missing the two oldest girls. :) 

Sara, Anniston & Alexa  

Our wonderful friends Travis and Sarah (craft master and brew master extraordinaire!)

Derek and Madalyn

My sweetie Christian. 

We had a great Harvest Party again this year! Filled with good times, family, great food and fun!  Our wonderful neighbors brought over their horse and give the kids rides, we had a ton of great food.  I ordered a cake from Bittersweet Bakery again,Travis made home crafted beer and cream soda,  mom brought her wonderful German chocolate cake, Matt and Elaine brought their beef brisket and pork shoulder and Mike was the grill master and everyone brought wonderful side dishes and desserts to share.  We all had a great time and I'm so glad we had the party again. :)

The Ugly Part of Farm Life

Sometimes life on the farm is not pretty, or quaint or simple.  Sometimes it's downright disturbing, dirty and stressful.  One of our poor steers has what I thought was a very severe case of warts.  The vet said it's not the worst case he's seen.  He didn't even flinch when he saw them.

We were able to borrow some fence panels from a good friend and pen him p to treat him.  Dr. Holechek gave him the wart vaccine and I was able to spray Betadine and Red Cote on it.  He said within 30 to 60 days the warts should shrink.  We'll have to give him two more injections before this is all over.  It's just a huge relief to at least feel like we've done everything we can at this point.  

Hope you had a better Thursday.  :)  

Corn off the cob

I got a great recipe and tips for how to freeze corn from Jason's aunt Kay.  I only had 20 ears, but it yielded 12 bags.  It tastes great and I didn't have to add sugar.  I love knowing exactly what's in my food!

When I got home from a recent visit to Salt Lake City I discovered I actually had a harvest!  Check it out!  Onions, tomatoes, basil and even carrots! 

 I hope you're enjoying the final days of summer!

Sweet Reward

Actually, I don't know that I can call this a reward, because I think you have to earn a reward.

 I can't really say I earned this potato harvest, although I did work hard planting them and weeding them at the beginning of the summer.  They've pretty much been on their own (with the help of Rachael watering) since July.  There's just been so much going on. But whatever you want to call it, I was very happy to find this tonight when we harvested the potatoes.

The weeds are also doing fabulous by the way... in case you wanted to know. :)  

Aside from that, I also canned tuna this weekend.  Actually I should say we, because Jason helped me a little bit.  I bought 137 lbs., thinking that it would yield 65 lbs.  I don't know why I thought that because tuna are almost all muscle, but I just remembered wrong.  So, instead of canning the 6 cases I thought I would have, I have 12 cases!  And after canning for 24 hours, I've had my fill for awhile! :)  

Off the Farm

Don't worry, the blog is still called Farm dAzE, but this week we spent quite a bit of time off the farm.  Monday night we went boating with Mike, who showed us around the Willamette and then we had dinner at Newport Seafood Grille downtown on the water.  He grew up boating with his family on the Willamette so he knows it like the back of his hand!

Tuesday night we went boating w/ our friends Brandon and Emily and Herb and Lauren came along with us.

 It was great to see them after so long.  Jason is turning out to be quite the boat captain.  I didn't know how it would go with his limited (if any) experience.  He really did great though, even Brandon thinks so, and he's been boating since he was a kid.

Then Thursday evening was the Street of Dreams black tie event for work.

It's always interesting to see how the other half live, but I'm perfectly happy with my home and acreage. :)