Bye, Bye Cleatus

Our bull has mooooved on to new pastures… 🙂

Cleatus started to get bored with our dairy girls & began getting a little rough with them. We are assuming that’s because he got everybody bred within the first couple weeks of being with them, since we haven’t noticed any more heats. Walking the herd + him down to the barn every morning was not-so-fun for my 3 boys, so Cleatus came out a few days shy of our eight week goal. OUR PLAN was to put him with the three yearling bulls he had hung out with last winter… HOWEVER, when the boys were re-united, it wasn’t such a cozy reception. 😦

One of the yearlings, Romeo, suffers from “Napoleon Syndrome”, lol… He’s physically the smallest, but THINKS he’s the biggest. Um. Yeah. Not a good mentality to test, especially with Cleatus. Soooo, after witnessing some pretty scary antics & fence damage occuring right before our eyes, the determination was made that these 4 couldn’t remain together. 😦

So away went the 3 yearlings to a back field, far out of sight from Cleatus. Mike proceeded to fortify the section of fence Cleatus was contained in with extra electric, and we prayed for direction. Fortunately, the bull wasn’t having issues with “people”. But still, with the type of grazing we do here, it sure didn’t seem like we were going to have a place for Cleatus if he needed long-term, heavy-duty confinement. OUR NEXT PLAN was to eat him – or rather, fill some of our customers’ orders. 🙂

HOWEVER, we failed to take into consideration that this being “fair season”, no butcher shop near or far had ANY openings until October! So up on Craig’s List, Cleatus went… 🙂

And now we know why the Lord said “no” to eating him. Because Cleatus was meant for a 13-year-old young lady who had been searching for a registered shorthorn bull – WITH roan coloring…to breed to her registered shorthorn heifer, so she can grow her very own registered shorthorn herd!! Wow. Who’d a thunk? 🙂

She and her dad came out to see Cleatus last Monday morning, and we relayed the details of the recent bull antics. They already have beef cattle, so they weren’t really surprised. Her dad just wanted to make sure Cleatus wouldn’t charge him, so he went right in with Cleatus, and met him up close… Cleatus behaved well, and passed the test. 🙂

Mike (a.k.a. “McGuyver”, lol) gathered gates from around the farm & he + the boys created a loading area right out in the field. Then Mike wired up a couple fenceposts & created a “cattle prod”, lol. It was pretty slick, and once they started, Cleatus was loaded on the trailer in less than 30 seconds! 🙂

Lord, we thank You for Cleatus and all the calves he has fathered on our farm. And though he disrespected some of our animals, we are grateful none of them were seriously hurt. Thank You, also, for the “good samaritan” who stopped to help us when he saw we needed it. May his act of kindness & willingness to help inspire all of us to do the same if we ever get the opportunity for someone else.

Kinda cool that by “process of elimination”, You revealed to us Your plan for our bull. May we continue to be ever mindful of “Plan B’s”, as we submit to Your will & not be bitter or stubborn when our ideas hit roadblocks. We pray that Cleatus’s new surroundings will keep him content and that his temperament remain on an even keel. May he be an asset there, and enable his new owner to grow her herd. Amen.

Cousin Sarah’s Wedding

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Congratulations Sarah & Jake! We are so thankful we could celebrate with them on August 3rd… 🙂

Since this blog is as close as I’ll get to “scrapbooking”, and I’m HORRIBLE at printing hard copies of pictures, I thought I’d blog some virtual pics to share with family & commemorate the day. 🙂

There are 6 first cousins on Mike’s mom’s side, and Sarah is the last one of the cousins to get married. It was such a blessing to fellowship with extended family we don’t see very often, and meet some new ones, too! 🙂

Here are the six cousins: 2 youngest are on the outsides, then the 2 oldest are next to them. So the middle two are truly the “middle two”, lol. 🙂

Ben, Carole, Rachel, Jenny, Mike, and Sarah (left to right)

Here are a few of Mike with his sister & brother. 🙂

This one cracks me up! Lots of teasing goes on when these three are together… Aunt Jenny’s pretty good at standing her own ground, though! 🙂

Now Aunt Betsy’s family gathers for their pics. I love watching “the stage” take shape, lol… 🙂

A rare, family pic… 🙂

Paul & Michael… 🙂

And add in THE most adorable nephew, Sawyer… 🙂

And “the handoff” to Grandma… 🙂

A new game – “see if cousin Michael can catch the pacifier”, lol! 🙂

Well, he IS a baseball player, lol… 🙂

And now one with Grandpa… 🙂

And Sawyer’s Mama… 🙂

See how well Aunt Kristin fits in with our family, lol?? 🙂

And now Ben, Kristin, & Sawyer… 🙂

And my favorite of the newlyweds… 🙂

Paul – 13 today!

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Brushing the cobwebs off the blog & getting a quick post up in honor of Paul’s 13th birthday today. Wow – can’t believe our baby is officially a teenager now! 🙂

Our pudgy, big-footed, cuddler has grown into a tall, lanky, huge-footed, independent, & handsome young man! 🙂

I’m still hoping to get a picture of us today, but if I wait on that to happen, there’s a really good likelihood this post will never get published, lol. So here’s a pic from cousin Sarah’s wedding reception on August 3rd… 🙂

Our “beef jerky”

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We met our goal & had 6 pounds of ground beef left from last year! Since we pick up more beef this week, we decided a celebration was in order…beef jerky! A true luxury FOR SURE, since 6 pounds of ground beef yields 3 pounds of finished jerky, lol. 🙂

We use the same spices we put in our “salami“, roll balls of it out onto parchment paper atop the dehydrator shelves, then bake them in our dehydrator for about 6 hours at 145°. About halfway through the baking, the sheets are flipped & the parchment paper is removed. I blot the grease off with a lint-free towel & tear it into pieces. Half of us prefer the thinner crunchy edges, and the other half like the thicker middle pieces… Mmmmm! 🙂

Bull in – 2013

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Finally getting around to getting this posted. Here are the pics from when our bull, Cleatus, joined our dairy girls on June 9th:

Instructions from the “head honcho”, lol…

Cleatus was with the yearling bulls in “The Shire” on the left. Mike & Michael are in the adjacent field, “Prancing Pony” on the right. They are getting the bulls to walk down towards the gate that connects the two fields. Then they sorted Cleatus by himself & kept the younger bulls in “The Shire”. A little bit stressful, but it all turned out well. 🙂

Here you can see Mike leading Cleatus towards me & Paul (in “Mordor”), with Michael behind Cleatus.

Paul’s job was to open the fence to let Cleatus through once he saw him getting close… Didn’t want the curious dairy girls to mess things up!

And here he goes… I think it’s cute how the girls are watching him, lol… 🙂

We’ll keep Cleatus with them for 8 weeks. In the past, we’ve done 12 weeks, but we’d really like to close our calving window a bit. We keep track of the girls’ heats on a big piece of glassboard in the milking barn. When the vet comes this fall to pregnancy check the herd, those dates help us determine their due dates. 🙂

We are prayerful all our girls will get bred. This is another difficult part of farming – praying & waiting. Although, come to think of it, isn’t that the challenge of daily life? 🙂

Father, prepare us for what is to come for our dairy herd this fall. We pray their bodies are healthy & fertile. May our grasses nourish and sustain them so they can continue to do the same for us. We thank You for the calves and milk they’ve blessed us with this season, and we look forward to seeing how You continue to lead us. Amen.

Ghee

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While I was peeling dried strawberries off of dehydrator sheets a couple weeks ago, Mike decided to try making clarified butter – “ghee”.

For years I’ve thought, why make ghee when we are blessed with an abundance of butter? Well, the answer to that question came as we began to run low on our coconut oil. Could there be a way to make our own healthy oil?

We go through a 5 gallon bucket of coconut oil every year. We’ve read alot about its anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral traits, so we try to use and eat it as much as we can. 🙂

This year we went to order our annual bucket of coconut oil, but hadn’t heard back from our source. So as it got lower & lower, Mike started asking me questions about ghee. Begrudgingly, I began to research it, and was pleasantly surprised at what I found. My main concern was about pie crusts – could you use ghee to make a pie crust?? Yep! Once I read that, I knew this would be a worthwhile venture, lol! 🙂

Mike made it look pretty easy… The whole procedure took about 30 minutes. Started with 2 pounds of unsalted butter that he had made that day. Melted it in a tall stock pot on “4” (medium low). Didn’t stir it – just gently moved the foam a bit to peak at the clarity every 10 minutes or so. Eventually the foam cleared away, and you could see how the muddy yellow liquid changed to a beautiful, clear yellow. Dumped it through a muslin lined colander into a glass bowl, and that’s it! Yield was a smidge over 24 oz. or 3 cups of ghee from 2 lbs. of butter. 🙂

That 3 cups only lasted one week, lol! Worked perfect in our baked brown rice, for frying up our homemade salami, in our sourdough tortillas and crackers, in a cake recipe, for greasing my baking stones, and for frying our eggs in, too! Oh yeah. I am a ghee girl now… 🙂

Haven’t had time to try a pie crust yet – so perhaps that’ll be a future post. 🙂

We did finally get our 5 gallon bucket of coconut oil, so now my goal is to see if we can stretch it for two years instead of one… So exciting to find another product we can make ourselves to lessen the amount of money we need to spend off-farm! 🙂

2 days ago, I had my first try at making ghee, and it was a success! I clarified 6 pounds of unsalted butter & got 2.5 quarts of ghee. I put one quart in the fridge, and leave the rest in a kitchen cupboard. When I get around to making that pie – I’ll use the semi solid form from the fridge…

Dried Strawberries 2013

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Paul picked 9 more quarts of strawberries last Wednesday. So that afternoon I spent 4 hours cutting & arranging the slices onto our Excalibur’s shelves. They dried for 12 hours at 135°. I think they taste like pieces of fruit roll-ups, but better because there’s no added sugar! Drying the fruit captures & accentuates the natural sweetness of the berry. And it only takes a pinch of slices to add to a bowl of granola or throw in a smoothie. 🙂

It’s certainly a “labor of love”, though – a yucky, sticky mess, but I’m ok with doing it ONCE-A-YEAR, lol. 🙂

2013 Strawberries

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Paul picked strawberries at a patch not too far from here with Grandma yesterday. It’s an annual event for them… 🙂

He brought home 12 quarts, and today I did a marathon jam day & made 4 batches. Should be plenty to last us one year of kefir shakes plus a few pb&j sandwiches! 🙂

Here’s how we make each batch of jam:

1/3c (44g) pectin from the bulk food store
5c slightly pulsed strawberries
1 dab butter

Mix 3 ingredients above. Heat in tall stainless steel stock pot over high heat, stirring continuously until rolling boil. Quickly dumped in pre measured 7c (1,568g) evaporated cane juice.

[Yeah. That’s ALOT of sweetener. A bit of jam goes a long way, though. A tablespoon of jam a day goes into our kefir shakes each morning. So…1T divided by 4 people = 3/4t of jam each. And 1 quart of jam lasts us a little more than 2 months…]

Brought it back to a rolling boil & set timer for one minute longer. (Still stirring continuously…) Removed from heat. Skimmed off foam & placed it in a bowl to enjoy with butter on toast…mmmmm! 🙂

Poured remainder into glass jars. Let sit for 24 hours – no lids. Tomorrow I’ll put the lids on & freeze them. Yielded: 2+ quarts.

Lord willing, they’ll go picking again so we can dehydrate a bunch next. 🙂

Garden’s planted 2013

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Yesterday, we wrapped up planting the garden. 🙂

Markin’ off the rows. LOVE Grandma’s wheelho! 🙂

Brittle, broken fenceposts make great row markers, lol! 🙂

Coverin’ up the corn…

Boys helping Grandma plant, lime, and water the tomatoes… 🙂

Lord, we give You our garden: the seeds, the plants, and the labor. We trust that You will give us exactly what we need for moisture & sunlight. And when our harvest comes in, we know it will be the perfect amount to feed us and share with others. May it nourish the bodies of all who partake of it – fill us with what we need to help You with Your harvest! Amen.

Lessons from a washing machine

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Our washing machine officially “died” in March. Yep – right before calving, resumed milking, and baseball season began. You know – the height of laundry season?!

Can’t just go out and buy a new one (or even a new “old” one) because we are still in our consequence from when we began farming from our lost perspective – for the “money” in niche farming. When you spend all your “nest egg” + take on unnecessary debt to fan the flames of worldly success, it leaves you with no “pot” to dip into for routine maintenances, let alone any unexpected breakages. And this season has been FULL of those… Even though we’ve repented, received forgiveness, and discontinued irresponsible spending habits, it doesn’t erase the circumstance that was created as a result of it. We understand that. We accept that. And we pray everyday that others will learn from our mistakes, so others can avoid making the same ones. THAT is how the Lord redeems things – as we admit our mistakes, grieve in repentance, shed our tears, and share it in our relationships – He gives us endless avenues to glorify Him IN ALL THINGS! And here’s what we have been learning: we may NEVER be out of our financial consequence while we live here on earth – Scripture speaks of NO GUARANTEE that life for a Christian will be trouble-free. But Scripture DOES say that the Lord never leaves us nor forsakes us. HE’S WITH US IN OUR TRIALS WHETHER THEY ARE FROM THE RESULT OF A CONSEQUENCE OR NOT! And so if we don’t allow Joy to overflow from our redeemed walk with Jesus NOW, then we are missing opportunities to witness for His Kingdom WHILE WE STILL CAN! And then there’s this revelation, that’s REALLY been sinking in lately: if no more of my prayers get answered before I die, isn’t what Jesus did on the cross for me ENOUGH for me to give Him the rest of my life EVEN IF it’s hard? Can’t believe how much that question has given me pause these past weeks… Because when I say that question, I KNOW the answer is UNDOUBTEDLY – YES… Yes, my Savior HAS done something for each one of us that we don’t deserve and will never be able to re-pay Him for – whether we accept the gift or not… And so shouldn’t my suffering be my offering to Him as I walk in obedience & thanksgiving for His sacrifice for me? Thank You, Lord, for all the sermons, programs, & blog posts I’ve had the privilege of hearing & reading during this season.

The Lord has used this time without a washing machine to grow me in ways I would NEVER have chosen. I didn’t WANT to ask Mike’s parents to borrow their washing machine… They already help us so much! I wanted to roll our quarters and go to the laundromat so I wouldn’t have to tell them… But when you have to roll quarters to have money for gas to go to ballgames, there are no quarters left to take to a laundromat. Especially for three months worth. I have felt broken, and humbled, and overwhelmed, as one-by-one the “tools” I need to fulfill my duties as a wife and mother have been chipped slowly away. I know: it’s “just” a washing machine. Yeah. But it’s so much more than that! First the washing machine. Then it was my kitchen scale, and then – horror of horrors – our oven last week…

But what better way for the Lord to grow me in my reliance upon Him, than by allowing “my tools” to crumble? How easy it is for me to encourage others to “consider it pure joy when trials are faced, because the testing of our faith develops perseverance”… (James) Until it’s MYSELF I’m telling that too. Yikes. Makes that Truth a little harder to swallow. BUT IT IS TRUTH!

The Lord has helped me to accept help from others, share my struggles with those in my path, and has given me plenty of opportunities to practice leaning completely on Him for my daily provisions. And He has done exceedingly and abundantly more than anything I could have thought or imagined – the scale fixed, the gift of money to order a new heating coil for the stove, and now, a new washing machine!!!??? Wow.

I can honestly say this is the most beautiful washing machine I have ever seen. And that I NEEDED to experience a “season” without one, to truly embrace its loveliness. 🙂

Oh the parallels with my Christian walk! Because I experienced a 37 year “season” without Christ, the beauty of my salvation in Him for the past 3-1/2 years, completely overshadows that darkness now. And I can’t help but not share His mercies as I walk in the Light.

So we thank God for you, anonymous washing machine donor… May we, too, be able to be the hands and feet of Jesus for those He brings to us. 🙂

[1 Peter 4:11, Joshua 1:5, Romans 15:13, Hebrews 13:15-16, James 1, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 4:7-10, Ephesians 3:20-21, 1 John 1:5-7]

Roberts' Farm Blog

Ramblings of a remade remnant…

Bye, Bye Cleatus

Cousin Sarah’s Wedding

Paul – 13 today!

Our “beef jerky”

Bull in – 2013

Ghee

Dried Strawberries 2013

2013 Strawberries

Garden’s planted 2013

Lessons from a washing machine