What I learned from little house on the prairie

We have really come to enjoy the Little house on the Prairie (LHOP)show and books. I have even bothered to google the people in the stories as it is loosely based on the life of Laura. I remember when I got to the book "Farmer Boy" it seemed so odd to have it placed in the middle of the other little house books. I mean there was nothing about the Ingalls, but it was wonderful. That book teaches more than any of the others, if you want to be a sustainable homestead/farm.

It was talking to my boss one day that it really clicked. We were talking about all the rains in Oklahoma last year and how it destroyed the beautiful wheat crop just before harvest. I felt like I was inside a scene from LHOP, I could just see it, Charles is looking out at the wheat as it is ripening and he is making plans for all the money that it will bring, the week before or a few days before the harvest the rains come. The entire crop, formerly golden and glistening in the sunlight, now broken and unusable. The farmers here suffered the exact same fate and from talking to a few people it is a continuous struggle every 3 years.

I began to look at the life of the Wilders, they had so much success and why wouldn't they, they had their hand in just about everything. There was no room for failure when you diversify. I went to wikipedia and looked up Almonzo Wilder (Laura's husband) and it turns out that he began their married life doing just as Charles (and most farmers today), with a single crop. After years of failure, debt and illness they had to give it up. I think it is fortunate that his family had moved from New York to the Midwest as was able to spend year with them to recuperate.

After the move he began to farm the Wilder way, he diversified and was able to find success. No one is going to get rich off of farming in a hurry, but diversifying ones farm (no matter the size), is the only way to grow it and make it sustainable. Well, I'm off my soap box now, lol. There are still more changes to come around here, we are growing this little operation as we can get the money :)

Life is good

Quick note on the political situation: there are no free lunches in nature and while this may seem like a wonderful victory for people like me who don't have health insurance, have special need children etc, this most certainly is not. Entitlement programs are oppressive by nature to the very people they are intended to help.

I will not be discussing it further than that.



The cows are doing well, they are enjoying their freedom to roam and have lots to eat. The chicks have not faired as well as we hoped :( There is still such a huge learning curve for us to overcome with this one. The layers on the other hand are LOVING the warm weather and we had 30 eggs the other day, lol. Last night something must have spooked them though, because we had to go find them way past their bedtime . . . very odd.

Buttercup appears to have been bred back to Quinn, and a potential buyer came to look at her yesterday. We are gearing up for resuming milk sales but it is a process. We will be moving Mag from the rest of the herd so that we can keep the calves off of her.

My potatoes and onions went into the ground this week as it snowed last weekend, I pray that they do well. We will also be looking at what other thing we want to plant in the coming weeks.



Oh and did I mention that we are having a new baby in November? Well, most likely at the end of October. We have decided to have a homebirth and will go the self pay route. We will talk to the dr in the coming weeks to weight the cost with her vs the midwife I found.




I am so excited to see Pickle, Dolly and Blackbird's babies this spring/summer :) It will be nice to get an angus bull to breed the girls back. Quinn is currently scheduled for the freezer, as is Missy. We found another freezer at a great deal so now we have room for both :)

Picky eater

Well Mag had once again decided that she is not interested in the feed combo that we have and have all but refused it. We called the previous owner and found out a bit more about what he has, our co-op does a similar mix (sold by the ton however). We decided to just bite the bullet and order a ton. Thank goodness we have the 2 grain bins. :)

UPDATE: SHE LOVED IT!!! She licked her bucket clean, YAY!!!

The chicks are living in a 250 gallon water trough, we had bought 2 for the cows. The seem to like it just fine and there are 2 heat lamps to keep them warm. They are adjusting nicely to their new digs and aren't dropping like flies any more.

We got the Udderly EZ milker to try out with Mag and I must say that it has been a real disappointment :( DH hasn't been able to get a single drop of milk in the thing. Looks like we will just have to go a different route on this.