Daily Farm Life – Page 3

It was n”ICE” to have a good day!

Around two inches of ice covered the landscape today. While it was pretty gross to do chores in, it made for some pretty pictures. Enjoy!

Apparently, Rocket is adverse to going in his shelter.

Our little fighter, made it through the night. We have been tending to her throughout the day, giving her bits of milk. While we were amazed that she made it this far, we are not out of the woods yet. The next few days will be crucial. She does not like to suckle on the bottle, but we are working with her. Time will tell, but until then, she is a little miracle that I like to snuggle with on the couch.

February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 by ruralris Categories: Daily Farm Life, family and funTags: farm, frozen, goats, ice, photography, pigs, sheep Leave a comment

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Farm Day

The other night, the family and I watched Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and today, I felt like I was in that movie just a bit.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised today happened the way it did. I mean it is Monday. In the midst of the string of events, I found myself laughing, though. I think I laughed because it felt better than to cry. I hope you too, may laugh at the events that follow during the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Farm Day.

Turn on the heat…

Currently all my reasons for living in the South in terms of weather have been shot to pieces. It is below freezing, and all water troughs have 2 inches of ice. That means that we are chopping ice with an ax and supplying heat lamps and knee high bedding for everyone. Farm chores can be rough in warm temperatures. They become a bit more difficult when Jack Frost is biting you. However, I will say that cleaning frozen pig poop, is a bit less messy than normal.

Surprise!

North Carolina is in one of the coldest weeks of the year, and of course, Lulu decides she wants to have babies during this unusual cold snap. As we went to feed the older group of goats, we were greeted by the sound of bleats from two kids. Lu had kidded sometime during the early morning hours, birthing a girl and a boy.

While she had done a good job drying them off, they were still understandably cold. We quickly set up a heat lamp andpiled thick bedding in an individual shelter for the new mom and babies. This was easier said than done though. Finagling drop cords and cleaning hulk sized cob webs were in order. We also had to weigh the babies and put iodine on their umbilical cords. We use iodine to prevent any infection or the potential navel ill disease. They weighed 9.5 pounds each, which is a good size for baby goats.

However, even with a good body weight, the little girl was weak and was not terribly interested in nursing. Throughout the day, we kept checking on her… in the midst of other “exciting” events.

Niagara Falls

After lunch, I went back outside to check on the little ones. When I stepped out of the door, I heard water… a lot of it. I started looking around, thinking that one of the sheep was having one heck of a pee break. Sadly, we were not that fortunate. There at the barn, was a regular Niagara Falls.

The pipeline had burst with the cold temperatures, despite being insulated. I ran out there in my slippers, but quickly traded those in for muck boots when I saw how deep the water was. I called Daddy to ask him which valve I should turn to cut the water off. The valve was under water, though, and I couldn’t see it. I got a bucket and began to bail the water out, but it refilled faster than I was emptying. Dad told me to run to the front yard and cut off the whole property’s water. This finally stopped the water. I called Mom to tell her that she had no water at the house, but I had things under control. I ran back to the barn to start bailing water again. Finally, I found the valve. My hands were blue and frozen from being in the water, and now the valve was stuck. I found pliers and used those. After breaking the tab on the valve, I finally got it turned off just as Alec and Papa drove up to help.

I left them to investigate the split pipe, while I went to hang another heat lamp for the goats. Where one crisis ends, another begins…

The Mailbox Murder

As I was walking back to the barn, I heard a BOOM! I heard Papa yell that a guy had just taken out our mailbox. Two farmers who were hauling large pieces of equipment had just passed our house and clipped our mailbox. I asked Alec to go and talk to them. When he approached them, he asked if their equipment was OK. They said it was. Alec then told them that they did a number on our mailbox. They looked past him and looked wide-eyed at the damage. They didn’t even know it had happened. One of the farmers went on his way, while the other came back to investigate the damage. He believed that the other guy had done it, but paid us for the damage anyway. He jokingly told Alec that if he heard of a commotion in Harnett County, he knew it was about him trying to get his money back from the other guy. Oh lanta!

Seeing Stars

Sometime during trying to tend to the new babies, Mom and Grandma were breaking ice in another pasture. Somehow the sheep got out and Grandma went to chasing them. Mom is asking Grandma to stop chasing the sheep, telling the dog to get the sheep, and trying to keep the rogue little buck inside the pasture as he rams the gate. After much chasing, the sheep finally were returned to where they belonged. As Mom was fastening the gate, the buck rams the gate one last hard time. The gate hits Mom in the head, and she literally saw stars. It was just one more aspect of the day.

On the Brink

After a nice dinner of taco soup, I went to check on the kids another time. Lulu and the little boy looked fine, but the little girl was not doing good. In fact, I thought she was dead when I got there. Even though, she was in the shelter and in the rays of the heat lamp, she was so cold. I decided to carry her in the house. Honestly, I didn’t expect her to even make it from outside to the house, but she did. I started warming her up with a hair dryer and towels. Her internal temperature would not rise, though. Daddy and I decided to tube feed her, in hopes of A) getting some nourishment in her and B) get some warmth to her insides.

After accomplishing that feat, we ran a warm bath in the sink for her. This did the most good in warming her up, and she actually started to kick a bit. All of a sudden though, she seemed to stop breathing and became non-responsive. We thought we had lost her. Taking her out of the sink, we wrapped her in a towel, only to have her take another deep breath. She was still alive. Currently, she is sitting in my bathroom with a heater on her, sleeping. I have low expectations of her living through the night, but so far she keeps proving me wrong.

Ice, Ice Baby

Now, as I sit at the kitchen table, looking at the end of this Monday, the ice is coming down outside. All the animals are tucked neatly in their bedding and heat lamps, and I am exhausted. Despite it being a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Farm Day, I am thankful for moments of laughter, the teamwork exhibited by my family, and a warm home. In the end, some days on the farm are hard, and others are fun, but they are all worth it. I’m sure we will all look back and laugh at this crazy day.

February 17, 2015November 30, 2018 by ruralris Categories: blog, Daily Farm LifeTags: bad day, cold, farm life, goats, ice, kids, Monday 2 Comments

Farmers Take Field Trips Too

Sometimes I think I have a fairly good grasp of agriculture…sometimes. Most of the time, though, I am keenly aware that there is A LOT I don’t know. I may have competed in national competitions that look at how much you know about livestock, and won, but I will still tell you there is a lot I don’t know. Even the things I feel I have a good grasp on, there is always more to be learned from others. That is why farmers take field trips, and I got to go on two this past weekend.

The first one was to the Southern Farm Show in Raleigh, NC. The whole family went to tour the many buildings filled with farming equipment. There were tractors of every color and size, cattle chutes, irrigation systems, trailers, trucks–you name it, they probably had it.

Despite being around farms all my life and living on one, there was some stuff, I had no clue what it was. My poor dad was bombarded with questions from my brothers and I. If you knew how much stuff was there, you’d feel for the amount of questions he had to field.

After the boys had climbed on almost every tractor, combine, and Bobcat, and questions had subsided, we made our way to the horse pull and coon jump. We watched draft mules and horses pull max weights of 6,500 pounds and 10,000+ pounds respectively. It was amazing to see their grit and gumption to move the sled with weights. We also got to see the coon jump which is where mules jump from a stand still over a pole. The winner of that contest, jumped 54 inches flat-footed. The coon jump contest originated with raccoon hunting. Mule owners would brag about how high their mules jumped chasing the coons. To prove themselves, they started coon jumping. Neat, huh?

The second field trip was to Rocky Mount, NC to attend a 4-H show pig clinic. Mom, the boys and I went. We had a great instructor who talked about everything from picking out your pig, to feeding it, to showmanship. While a lot of it was review for me, there was some things that were brand new too. The boys learned a lot too. They created a skit with the other youth about the right and wrong way to show a pig. Both Isaac and Gideon got on all fours to pretend to be the pigs. They were also able to reverse roles and practice showing with actual pigs too. It is a great warm up for the up coming show in April.

They asked great questions too.

This morning they started to put their new knowledge to use when they worked their own pigs. I quizzed them a bit too. “What did Mrs. Cally say you should do after walking the pigs?” They remembered after a little searching in their memories.

Even though we live on a farm everyday, we don’t know everything. There will always be someone who has a piece of knowledge that we don’t and it is important to seek out the opportunities that teach us new things. Not only is it fun, but we better ourselves in the process. Field trip for the win!

February 9, 2015 by ruralris Categories: Daily Farm Life, family and funTags: 4-H, agriculture, coon jump, draft horse, farm, field trip, learning, mule, pigs Leave a comment

Bringing Home the Bacon

The highly anticipated show pigs are officially here!! I get extra excited about getting pigs, because, well they may be my favorite. Shhhh… don’t tell the others. I hate to play favorites, so I’ll just say I like them A LOT! They are, however, my favorite animal to photograph. They have such personality and are always doing something goofy. Check out this girl:

I told you they are hams (pun intended), but before I show you more of the photo shoot I had with the little porkers, I wanted to share with you the behind the scenes of bringing home the bacon.

A house that won’t blow down

When we first started showing pigs, we kept them in a dirt lot with a shelter. While this may sound like the perfect habitat for pigs, it really wasn’t. They rooted up the entire pen, creating craters that were begging for a twisted ankle. The pigs would get sunburnt from laying around, and it was a huge mess. So now, our pigs are kept on a concrete floor under a shelter. They have a bedding box, heat lamps for the cold, and a fan for the heat. Unfortunately, concrete floors mean we have to clean the poop everyday, but it is loads better than what we had before.

Before we could bring the pigs home, we had to clean and scrub the pen (sheep had been occupying it for a few months). We laid down fresh bedding and even built a new “wall”. By wall, I mean we put up a fabulous tarp to break the wind during the winter.

I’m pretty sure our toes and hands were frozen by the end of it, but it looked great. We had a house that wouldn’t blow down or be blown into.

What makes the bacon?

Of course, pigs don’t grow off of air. They have to have pig food. We get ours from a local mill that blends a special mixture of corn, vitamins, minerals, soybean meal, and more together to make a delicious meal. Alec ran to the feed store to pick up the sustenance for the pigs.

This little piggy went wee, wee all the way home…

Today was the day to pick up the pigs. Ahhhh!! I had already picked out the two pigs we were getting at a previous farm visit (if I don’t pick them out ahead of time, I have been known to take over an hour to pick one out). See Farms is about an hour from our house, and we have been getting pigs from them for about two years. We have typically had great success with them including two champion titles and a first place at NC State Fair. It helps that they are nice folks and live close by. All three of my brothers and I piled in the truck with trailer in tow to head to Raleigh, NC.

Once there, the Sees showed us the pigs as well as the new litter of pigs they had. They were gracious enough to let me snap a bunch of photos of all the pigs. I was able to capture some good ones like these:

Loading the pigs up into the trailer went pretty smoothly. One of the pigs was super loud, grunting the whole time, but she didn’t give any problems.

After loading them, I told Isaac that the money to pay for them was in the front seat of the truck. He ran to go get it and returned, handing the money to me. I told him, “Oh no. That isn’t for me. Give it to the Sees.” You know, teaching them young about business transactions (really, I think it just teaches them the sting of dropping a chunk of money).

The boys decided to name their two gilts (girl pig) Halo and Miss Bacon. When we arrived home, we unloaded them and ran them through the scales to determine their weight. In case you are curious they were 145 and 110 pounds.

We then let them into the pen, to which they explored contentedly. I commenced partaking in another photo shoot.

Bringing home the bacon is a little more than just picking up pigs. It includes tarps, frozen fingers, feed runs, photo shoots, and some money. It is all most definitely worth it! A big thanks to See Farms for these beautiful girls!

January 19, 2015January 19, 2015 by ruralris Categories: Daily Farm Life, Livestock ShowsTags: #farm365, #realpigfarming, livestock shows, photogrpahy, pigs, show pigs, stock show kids, swine Leave a comment

Meet the New Additions

After 6 hours on the road, my brother, Alec and I finally made it home with two new show goats.

The little does were born in September and October. They have some growing to do, but I think they have some great potential. Without further adieu welcome this year’s goats for the spring show and sale in April to the farm.

I would like to introduce Hershey, shown by Gideon…

And Reeses, shown by Isaac.

The boys were super excited to see their new goats, weigh them, and introduce them to their new home.

Within 5 minutes, they were already wanting to practice showing them with collars and leashes. I told them they might want the newbies to get used to everything first. They agreed that rubbing them would suffice for now.

Of course, I had to snap a picture of the new additions for you guys. Can you say #blogger’slife?

Even Sassy, the barn cat, had to come check things out.

Stay tuned for two more little girls that will be added to the farm within the coming days. These ones will be much more pink and will say oink!

January 2, 2015January 2, 2015 by ruralris Categories: Daily Farm Life, Livestock ShowsTags: agriculture, Boers, brothers, family, farm, goats, livestock, new additions, roadtrip, show goats, stock show kids Leave a comment

Quick, Add Muck Boots and Raincoats to the Christmas List

I didn’t know I was getting waterfront property for Christmas this year. With over two and a half inches in 24 hours and no signs of letting up, Christmas Eve has turned into a monsoon. I hope Santa has some sort of boat sleigh, because he is going to need it.

As I went to feed this morning, I realized that my muck boots have holes in them. Those puddles that resemble lakes quickly spilled into my boots. Is it too late to add muck boots to the Christmas list?

I wasn’t the only one having issues with the rain. The sheep were not pleased and hunkered in their grain bin shelter.

They were bribed to come up to the bigger shelter with feed, but stopped abruptly when a big, scary puddle stood in their way. They danced for a while before the thought of feed overcame their fear. Soon, six lambs had made their way to both dry land and food. I wonder if the sheep are asking for raincoats and muck boots from Santa too?

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! If you recently got waterfront property like I did, stay dry out there.

PS Santa, if it isn’t too late, I’d really like waterproof muck boots. Thanks!

December 24, 2014 by ruralris Categories: Daily Farm LifeTags: boots, Christmas Eve, drowning, lambs, mud, puddles, rain, raincoat, Santa, sheep, waterfront Leave a comment