What's in a name?

I have put it off long enough. 'Suffy' really needs a name. But we have a tradition of naming our rams somewhat in line with their ancestral origins. So, a Suffolk ram needs a proper British name.

Here are my current choices. If you have other suggestions or want to vote, please leave a comment! I'm considering: Heath, Burke, or Dalton (after all he is tall, dark, and handsome...)

In other news, we got word today of the carcass weights for our pigs. The two white pigs dressed out at 205 and 201 and the Red Wattles were 195 and 166. I did not expect the dark red gilt to be quite that much smaller. She was obviously lighter, but I am surprised the difference was nearly 30 pounds between the two Red Wattles. We will try to get four more similar pigs next time, as having that much difference in growth rates is hard to manage when you only have one group.

I am in the process of converting all of the chicken carcasses in my freezer into canned chicken stock. This will clear out enough space in the freezer for the pork. If I hadn't put this off for so long it would be a much quicker task, but at least the house smells wonderful!

Give Thanks

The lyrics of one of my favorite Thanksgiving hymns, Give Thanks.

Give thanks

With a grateful heart

Give thanks

To the holy one

Give thanks

Because he's given

Jesus Christ, his son

And now let the weak say

I am strong

Let the poor say

I am rich

Because of what

The lord has done

For us

Give thanks...

Sunsets like these could be taken for granted, but I am trying to consciously cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving to overcome (or at least reign in!) my natural tendency to be a complainer. So I stopped and enjoyed these few fleeting moments of beauty.

To market to market to buy a fat pig

Actually, we went to market to sell some fat pigs, but either way, Wednesday was market day.

Sending animals to the butcher shop is my least favorite part of being a farmer. While on one hand it is satisfying to see animals reach their desired condition, it is also sad to know that these critters that you have cared for every day will soon be dead. However, I firmly believe that the purpose of food animals is to provide food, and they only way that can happen is if they go to the butcher. This is the primary reason why I do not name market animals.

Bring on the sausage!

Here are a couple of pictures of the pigs in their pen at the butcher shop.

She said it

At the end of October, Brian was away for 14 days with an 8-hour break between days 10 and 11 where he was here long enough to unpack, sleep, and repack. It was a very long two weeks where just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I wrote and rewrote a blog post in my head several times, but I couldn't get the tone right. Part of Brian's trip was to Montana to visit our friends Steve and Lisa and hunt on their ranch. Lisa wrote the following essay, and it very accurately captures my experiences when Brian goes away. I may even be the friend Lisa refers to in the story about the breeding groups of sheep. It is good to know I'm not alone!

But I like the last line best. It is very true and a reminder to my independent soul that Brian and I were brought together because we need each other and we work best as a team.

Prairie Ponderings 

By Lisa Schmidt

I’m pretty sure our cows can count.

If my husband, Steve, and I drive through the gate with the truck and horse-trailer together, the cows stay where they are supposed to be, calmly grazing and chewing their cud. Even if we are gone overnight, the animals manage to take care of themselves.

But, if Steve leaves by himself in the truck and horse-trailer, chaos reigns. The cows raise their heads to watch the truck pass, and then beeline for trouble. They find the hole in the fence that I should have fixed a week ago. Or they find a way into the spring that provides our drinking water.

The sheep know when Steve leaves, too. That’s when grizzly bears find them. Or an old ewe gets stuck in the mud at the edge of the reservoir. Or they somehow bait the coyotes in.

The horses manage to find trouble on a regular basis, but when Steve leaves, they all either start limping or disappear completely.

No doubt, the dog will find a porcupine.

Sans Steve mayhem does not limit itself to living beings at the Graham Ranch. A pipe that has survived numerous winters freezes. Or the tractor gets buried in a mud hole that I’ve driven through at least 100 times.

I might become paranoid and begin to take this phenomenon personally, but I’m not alone. My married friends experience parallel incidents.

One friend encouraged her husband to go hunting for a week, only to discover three days into his trip that her breeding groups of sheep had mixed. Believe me, sorting sheep alone is close to impossible. And her bucks didn’t stop what they were doing while she found some helpful labor.

Another friend’s husband had been gone for about a week when she found her horse cut up after tangling itself in wire. No doubt, the horse would have tangled itself whether my friend’s husband had been home or not, but the timing certainly seemed more than coincidental.

Of course, when I leave for a few days, Steve assures me that everything goes along just fine. The kids are still standing when I return, and the horses, cattle, sheep and milk cow are all accounted for so I see no evidence of strife. Little hints might appear: Steve tells me that the dishwasher does not work very well so he washed the dishes by hand -- the dishwasher works just fine for me -- but most aspects of our life are in order.

However, my 12-year-old spy has yet to learn all the lessons of manhood. He still fills me in on the details.

“Mom, the weekend was utter chaos.”

Those six words tell me all I need to know. Steve and I need each other and the ranch needs both of us.

Learn more about Steve and Lisa and A Land of Grass Ranch.

More reasons to give thanks

It has been quite some time since my last post. The theme for the last month could be travel. Brian spent 10 days hunting in Montana with some friends of ours that have a ranch out there. He was home a few hours, and then off to Raleigh for work. The following week I went to Pennsylvania for the annual Penn State Dairy Cattle Nutrition Workshop that I manage. This past weekend I travelled to Tupelo, Mississippi for the Southern Regional Dairy Challenge. We were blessed with safe travels through all of that.

Then, last night I was doing the most mundane of tasks, feeding sheep. I drove over to New Hope, fed, watered, checked for new marks, and then headed to Wal-Mart for some supplies to make chicken broth.

That was the point where mundane ended. As I was driving along, a deer jumped/ran out in front of me. There was no where to go and no time to stop, so I slammed into it, hitting the doe broadside with the front of the truck. I didn't see her until the split second before we collided; I braked, but there was no way to avoid hitting her. About a second after the deer hit, the hood flew up and I couldn't see a thing. Somehow I managed to stop without stalling out the truck (confession: having to stop suddenly and forgetting to hit the clutch, then being rear-ended is one of my 'worst-case' fears when driving a stick-shift) but it did die shortly after we stopped and would not start again. Something I didn't know until last night, once the engine cut out the hazard lights came on automatically (which was a good thing, because I was fumbling around trying to find them). I was stopped in the middle of the road, partially into the lane of oncoming traffic.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking, okay I'll get out of the truck, move the deer, put down the hood and go on. Wrong! When I got out I realized the deer had really done a number on the truck (the Colorado, for those of you who know "the truck" could mean any one of four that sit around here). The hood flew up because the whole front end was smashed. Radiator crushed and leaking, belt gone, entire grill area smashed to smithereens, driver's side headlights and passenger's side antenna dangling. The bumper didn't seem to have any damage, and the airbag didn't deploy. While I was trying to take all of this in, a nice lady behind me stopped, put on her flashers and directed traffic until the fire truck and police arrived. As I repeated to Brian several times, I was fine. I was going somewhere around 50 mph at the time of the incident and started braking before we actually hit, so basically it just felt like I came to a quick stop, and I was wearing my seat belt.

I am very thankful to have escaped injury. And I am thankful for the people who stopped to help.