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Some days I blog w/o checking for errors - you'll know it when you read it

Oct 31, 2009 
- more fencing

It was a chilly day today, but not cold enough to keep me from doing more fencing.  The basic task of the day was to work on the H-post assemblies.  I had most of them done already, but the last of them needed the horizontal post in place and the diagonal, support wire installed.  After doing that, I decided to start attaching the pin-lock insulators on some of the wood posts at the eastern fence-line of the eastern pasture.  I wanted to get the further most area readied for wire fence... just incase we were to get snow.  I'd rather run fence in the snow only... than do everything leading to the point [in the snow]... and then run my wire.  I guess I have a few more posts to pound into the ground.  After that, I will have several days of doing nothing more than run wire. 

I'll do more fencing tomorrow before the Vikings game at 3:15PM.  Happy Halloween!

Oct 30, 2009 
- it's nearly as bad as socialism - this is scary!

Recently, the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) succumbed to pressure from the largest beef ranch in the West and changed a planned lecture by food activist Michael Pollan.

Mr. Pollan is an accomplished author (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and professor at UC Berkeley. Yet, his lecture at Cal Poly was opposed by David Wood, CEO of Harris Ranch -- a 100,000 head cattle ranch and financial contributor to Cal Poly.

So Cal Poly's President Warren Baker changed the lecture. Today I'm asking you to send President Baker your own message. Ask him to apologize for this act and to issue a policy of academic freedom that clearly states private donors will have no say over academic content:

Mr. Wood told President Baker he'd have to rethink his "continued financial support of the university" if the lecture were allowed to happen -- a not thinly veiled threat.

What message are we sending when our public universities' content and curriculum are decided by financial contributors? Imagine a world where ExxonMobil dictates global warming programs, Sunkist Tuna dictates ocean research programs, and Boise Cascade dictates forest preservation programs.

That's EXACTLY what happened at CalPoly this month -- a public university. So please, send CalPoly's president the message that they need to apologize, and adopt a policy of academic freedom:

http://www.environmental-action.org/apologize?id4=ES

Please email this message along to your friends and family -- particularly any CalPoly alums you may know. And thanks for your work.

Sincerely,

Dan Stafford
Environmental Action Organizer
DanS@environmental-action.org
http://www.environmental-action.org

P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free to share this with your family and friends.

Oct 29, 2009 
- spending more on fencing

Our fencing & pasturing grant project was suppose last about a month or two, but with all the rain (the wettest Oct in MN since the 1800's) we have made only slow (very slow) progress installing the fences.  It was another rain day today, so we made another trip to St. Cloud for posts and supplies.  We can tell that we are getting closer to the end of the project, as our purchase amounts are getting smaller each timer.  This trip we spent less than $1,000 and according to my calculations, we should have everything we need to complete this year's project.  We brought home 120 6"x8' untreated cedar posts (60 for us - 60 for Farmer Mike) and approx. 700 T-post pin-insulators (see photo), 300+ wood post pin-insulators and some misc. do-dads.  Locally, I would guess these same supplies would have cost $350-500 more.  I'm hoping I can get the fencing completed in the next week or so.  Once completed, I can have it inspected and GPS'd by the area's Natural Resources & Conservation Service officials.  Only after this happens do we get reimbursed for our slog.

this is a T-post pin-lock insulator

I like these particular pin-lock electric fence insulators because 1) they are easy to install onto the post & 2) because of the pin-lock.  Should ever I need to lower the wires of the fence from the post(s) (for whatever reason) I can do so by simply pulling the pin and dropping the wires.  I don't have to remove the insulator, nor do I need to loosen the wire tension or disconnect the wires from anywhere.  And, of course, to restore the fence, I would simply place the wire back in the slot, then reinsert the pin.

The last couple of days, I've been helping the neighbors with milking chores.  I'm glad that's over.  Getting up so early in the morning is one thing, but doing these kinds of chores with an injured hand is another.  Very little of the work was done without experiencing some sort of pain.  To look at it positively, I'm happy I could help-out.  Had I gotten the call last week, I would have declined, due to my injury, leaving my hand nearly useless.

Did I mention the rain?

Oct 28, 2009 
- putting it to use

What another depressing day... weather wise, that is.  But for farm improvements, it was good... costly maybe, but good.  Bright and early, Carol's sister (the electrician) came over.  Today was the day we scheduled for updating the electrical panel at the pole.  Since last winter, we had lots of problems with the power... and Carol's sister had came out a temporary fix our problem on one of the coldest days of the winter... and it stayed fixed.  It turns out the complete farm was running off of a faulty 70 amp system.  I am proud to state, as of today, our farm has a fresh out-of-the-box 200 amp main breaker box at the pole.  Each building now has it's own breaker, plus one separate service panel at each building.  The part at the pole (yes I said 'part') and inspection came to a grand total of $541.  I can't imagine what the bill would be if we were being charged for labor.  She has no idea how much we appreciate the work she's done so far.  I also think it's worth mentioning how nice the guys from our area electrical co-op were.  Heck, they even helped Carol's sister, after they disconnected the main power supply.  The guys also offered to drop off some used poles if/when they have some when in the area.

Later on in the day, Austin helped me distribute T-posts along our new fence lines.  If he hadn't locked his keys in his car last night, I wouldn't have them on hand.  He drove the pickup while I pulled steel posts out the back.  The next nice day, I'll be busy pounding posts.  Speaking of posts, I got a call from the big farm store in St Cloud, MN.  It sounds like my 120 special-order 6"x8' untreated cedar posts [finally] came in.  I've been getting posts and fencing supplies from them all summer and when a friend of mine heard the price I was paying for posts, he wanted a skid/pallet of posts for himself... so I ordered 2 skids.  One for him and one for me.  This style of post is a must-have for anyone interested in becoming certified organic.  These posts WILL NOT pollute the earth with toxic chemicals.  To us, that's important.

Oct 27, 2009 
- dare I mention?

Guess what... I worked on our fencing project again.  I know, I know... this blog is starting to sound like a broken record.  But we've had so many crappy days, that when it's [half way] decent out I gotta do what needs to get done.  And right now, that means work on the new fence.

Then we had a good news/bad news sorts thing happen.  Austin called from Willmar, telling us he locked his keys in the car (the bad news)... the good news was that I could now kill 2 birds with on stone.  I could get Austin and pick-up my special order items at our local Menards home improvement store.  Some time ago, I had the guys there give me a contractor's price on 2,000 ft of 1", 160 PSI poly water line.  I need this stuff for our remote watering station, in the pastures.  They gave me a price of $.33/ft which is a great price.  They also gave me a price of $4.28/each for 6' T-posts.  Our local farm store is selling the same posts for $5.29.  I bought 100... hopefully, that will be enough to finish this year's fencing.

Oct 26, 2009 
- keeping you posted

Yesterday was filled with drizzle and a less-than-great Vikings' game (we lost... or should I say we beat ourselves) and today was great working weather.  Right after chores this morning, I headed east of the place for more fencing.  It's fun to see the progress.  I think it's safe to say that I am ⅔ complete with this year's fencing.  Of what I was working on this last week, I have all the corner & support posts in place, the wooden line posts, all the T-posts and most of the insulators installed.  The next step is to run the remaining 5 strands of high-tensile wire and then put the fencer to it.  Running the wire should only take a few hours... that's the easy part.  I did start on the last phase of this season's fencing - the SE pasture.  I put the corner posts into position and started running the guide wire.  I'll finish placing the guide wire tomorrow and since I'm out of 6" posts (what I use for support posts as well), I'll have to move back to what was working on today.  If I can get all the wires set, I'll be done with phase 2.

As I was walking to the house, Madison shouted to me to tell Carol that we have a couple of our new dairy goats in heat.  We mark the calendar approx. 5 months from when we see the does flagging.  It may not be perfectly estimated, but at least we can be on the look out for the signs of birth in the does.  The girls in heat today were 2 of the Oberhasli dairy goats.  We do not have an Ober buck, but we do have a LaMancha buck with a herd index of 92.  He's not a proven buck, so we're hoping he's not shooting blanks.  I guess we'll see in March.

On another note, I got an email from a fellow homesteader, from Northern MN... asking for a little information about us building a website for her farm.  She asked if I thought I had time to build one for her as she has had a productive 1st year of bee keeping.  Hopefully, this is something we can do for her.  I love building websites for others.

Oct 24, 2009 
- gett'er done

After lunch, I headed out to the pastures again.  The fencing needs to get done before the end of the year and with the weather being so fickle, there's no telling when old man Winter is going to move in.  After wasting a few minutes trying to locate my auger bit, I was ready to head out.  Unlike the fence I installed along the creek last month, I planned on using a power drill this time.  A hand drill works fine, but since rain was on the way, time is something I didn't want to waste today.  How'd I get power out in the fields?  I used a power inverter.  I cordless drill would have worked better than a corded 3/8" drill, but one makes due with what they have.  The little 400 watt power inverter worked great.  I was able to drill the holes for the posts in seconds instead of minutes.  All the 6" posts that I had in the ground, now have the 4" horizontal 'H' support posts in place.  I can now start pounding line-posts in those pastures.

Around 3:30PM, Carol's sister come out to evaluate our electrical lines.  She's a licensed electrician and has agreed to do some major electrical upgrades for near cost.  The wiring is very old and under sized... she has designed the upgrades to be simple with room to expand, should we need to do so in the future.  She is also going to "size" the wires that go from the meter pole and the house.  She wants to make sure they are large enough to meet code.  Better to do it now than later, if/when we move a house in.  Code states we will need a minimum of 100 amps to a new house.  The old house had a 60 amp panel and the trailer we are in now is carrying 50 amps.  The box that is outside the trailer has a 100 tag, but that only means that the box can handle 100 amps, not that is has 100 amps... so we're hoping for good news.

After Carol's sister did what she needed to do out here, I headed back to do a little more work on the fence.  Around dusk it started to rain and that was that.  If it isn't raining tomorrow, I hope to pound the rest of the 6" corner posts into place... maybe I can get that much done.

Oct 19, 2009 
- keep me posted

Do I need to mention that I did more fencing?  With the weather being so wet lately... and the fact that winter now seems to be knocking at the door on a weekly basis, I know that when I have a free hour or two, I need to be out, installing fence.  Today, I banged in a few more posts and ran another guide wire.  I, pretty much, have most of the corner & support posts in place... with the exception of the eastern-most pasture.  I probably would have those in place as well if I hadn't run out of 6" posts.  I have more ordered, but thy have not come in yet.  Hopefully, I'll have them available before it's too cold to pound them.

In the afternoon, Carol and I drove a few miles north (up in the Sunburg area) to look at a house.  We're in desperate need of new housing.  The old Skyline Deluxe mobile home just ain't cutt'in it.  I hate trailer houses so I call it our camper... that's the only was I can stand to live here... LOL.  Anyway, the house we looked at we quit nice.  It was an old farm house in very good condition.  Everything was what we needed, except the living area.  It was tiny, smaller than what we have here in the trailer.  With 5 people in our family (one of them having a special needs and may potentially need a wheelchair) there was no way we could make it work for us, with our present situation... or state of mind.  We also have an appointment to meet with a salesman for a local house mover.  After we met him, he showed us the houses that we thought were at the lower end of our price range.  Most of them were 2-bedroom house, which will not work for us.  the others seemed to need more work than what we thought we could handle with our handicap daughter living with us... then we also have the cold weather factor.  With the freezing temps, we don't have time to move our trailer, set it up in a temporary locale,  move the 'new' house in, and work on it.

We then decided to local at a house that was towards the top of our financial comfort-level.  We called it 'The Granny House'.  It house is dated... really outdated.  When we first stepped into the house, Carol and I both looked at each other and commented on the closed-up smell of the house.  It smelled like an old person's house.  The kitchen had 12" commercial tile flooring, blonde colored, flat plywood cabinets (if you are from the west-central MN area, you know what I'm talking about... most old kitchens around here have similar furnishings), and the appliances - I think the were the same ones that were new when the house was built, back in the 1950's.  It even has a dishwasher - the color is harvest gold.

hopefully, this will be our new kitchen

we think this kitchen screams Granny's kitchen

The bathroom is in excellent condition, but, again, outdated.  At least it isn't pink.  It may be pinkish, but it is not full-blown pink. 

this bathroom IS NOT pink, it's beige

This house has 3 bedrooms, hardwood floors through-out (which is a big selling point for us, as our challenged daughter has a hard time walking, and easily trips on uneven surfaces.  The house does have it's shortcomings, like the outside wall in the living room is missing.  It seems it had a 4ft. bump-out that needed to be cut-off the house in order to get in moved and then there's the price.  It's a lot more than we wanted to spend.  With all things said, we believe we could fix the wall easily (with help) then move-in immediately without making any any significant changes.  We're thinking if we can get the moving company to reduce the price a little, the house will only cost us $5,000-7,000 more than a less expensive houses, needing the major repairs.

After viewing the houses, we made another stop at a dairy goat farm (north of the house mover's location).  Carol and Madison had purchased a bred Oberhasli doe from them before and had been in contact with them since, about their other goats.  These folks were simply reducing their herd, winter being their motivation.  The secondary reason being that they wanted to concentrate on their Alpine & Saanen dairy breeds.  They sold us a dozen of their goats.  We had them loaded and ready to go, just to realize we had a single stowaway.  Carol was told, "Keep her." And that she did.  We got a baker's dozen of good looking, good quality purebred Oberhasli and mixed breed dairy does - the price was excellent.

It was a busy day.  It's nice to have it end.

Oct 18, 2009 
- give me my hand back

After chores (and before the Vikings game) I headed out for more fencing.  My hand has been getting stronger with each passing day.  There is still some pretty good pain associated when I use it, but at least I don't have to worry about the little bumps and taps.  Since my hand is feeling better, I was able to get more fence work done.  For the most part, it was a day was filled with some post pounding, followed by stringing some wire.  The wire I laid-out was primarily a guide wire, to give me a straight line in which to pound more posts.  It sure would be nice to be able to have full use of my hand.  It's just a matter of time.

When I drove back to the place, I was met by a friend who came over to do more trench work for us.  We need the trench(s) dug for our running underground water-line for a remote winter watering station, east of the farm... it's part of the government grant contract we were awarded earlier this year.  He is trenching whenever he has some spare time.  I'm hoping he'll charge less than normal.  He started the project last week, but then we had some unseasonably cold & rainy days, so things have been progressing slowly... but they are moving forward.

Oct 08, 2009 
- OH CRAP!  That hurt!

We had a break from the crappy weather, so I thought I'd hook-up the Shaver hydraulic post pounder to the farm's IH 560.  As I was lifting it into a vertical position so that I could attach it to the tractor.  I grabbed the top of the post driver and as I lifted it to a standing position, the top of the pounder crashed down, smashing my hand between the top of the equipment and the weighted I-beam below. As it hit, I heard 3 loud cracks.  There I was, hurting like hell, hand pinned between 2 pieces of heavy steel and my cell phone in the wrong pocket.  I was able to reach down and grab the ¾" steel plate that makes contact with the post when in operation.  With about as much strength as I could muster, I pulled it upwards enough to release my hand.  By the time I got to the house, I was feeling pretty queasy and light headed.  Carol wanted me to got to the hospital for x-rays, but being one of the nation's under-insured/uninsured, I declined.  After my stomach calmed down, I was able to get the pounder mounted to the tractor and even pounded a few posts in... until the pain set in.  I can only guess that this will greatly slow down my fencing progress.  This sucks

Oct 04, 2009 
- how good is this going to be?

On the farm, our days can be quite busy.  We have goats to milk, critters to feed, cattle to check-up on and fences to inspect.  One of the best ways to easy the demands of time, when trying to prepare a nice Sunday dinner, is to use the slow cooker.  Carol did exactly that this morning.  This is going to be so good. 

The center piece of the meal is lamb that we had butchered earlier this year and that will be supported by garden fresh veggies and herbs, which was freshly picked (this morning) from Carol's fall garden.  Only the butter, salt & pepper was purchased from the store.  I can hardly wait for it to be done this evening.

this is a totally farm raised slow cooker meal.  lamb, onions, potatoes, baby carrots, & garden herbs

Oct 02, 2009 
- jumping cows

It was time to bring the cows home.

Pulled out temporary surface water line

Was contacted by a Halal meat buyer, looking for goat and sheep meat to help supply the needs of 100,000+ customers in the metro area of MN.

The area goat farm network that we belong to, just got a little bigger.  A small, local goat producer had heard of us through our website.  Knowing we had goats, this guy referred some folks our way.  They ended up buying and butchering 2 bucklings.  The butchered the little guys right on the spot.  They mentioned that they would have done it at their home, except they lived in town and didn't think the neighbors would appreciate what they were doing.

- uni-taskers?  not here

Carol started freezing some of the sweet corn.  When I walked into the kitchen, I saw her cutting the corn off the cob using her bundt cake pan.  OK, now that is clever.  If you ever watch Alton Brown (of the Food Network) you will know that there is now room for uni-taskers in the kitchen.  Using Carol's bundt pan for a task it was otherwise intended would make Alton proud.

The small end of the cob fits nicely into the hole of the pan, holding is securely, while cutting off the kernels.  As you can see, the pan is perfect for catching the corn so there is now mess.  It took only a couple of hours to process 24 quarts of sweet corn for the freezer.  Carol packed the corn with  some butter and sugar before putting the bags into the deep freeze.  It should be delicious.

Carol cutting corn off the cob using a bundt pan to catch the kernels.  the right tool for the job.

Oct 01, 2009 
- wind damage

Early this morning, more rain came.  It seems now that summer is nearly over we are finally getting some consistent rain showers.  Isn't harvest season suppose to be the dryer part of the year?  Carol got up around 5 AM to do a barn check.  Our 16 yr old Toggenburg dairy goat (affectionately nick-named 'Granny') had twin bucklings over-night.  One was a live birth, the other not-so-much.  At that time, she said it was raining pretty good.  After that, the winds came.  Around 6:45 AM, Madison went to the barn to make sure the buckling was still doing well.  When she came back in, she told Carol that another branch had fallen (we had a large limb go down about a week or so ago).  The branch that came down this morning, hit the pickup.  The top half of the tree broke-off in the high winds this morning and part of it landed across the hood.  I don't think the pickup is horribly damaged.  I'll check it out if/when the rain stops.  The rain gauge shows 2.5 inches of precipitation... but that also includes rain from last week.

Carol and I ran errands in Willmar after chores.  Today was the county deadline date for getting in the paperwork necessary for receiving the State's Special Agricultural Homestead tax classification.  We first headed to our local FSA Office to get a copy of the farm's 156 EZ form.  It's proof we farm.  With that form and the Homestead application, we dropped by the county assessor's office and after a few moments we were done.  The form saves the farm approx. $1500 in real estate taxes.