Creamery & Farm Tour on Saturday, October 17th - 10am to 5pm

Monday, October 12, 2020
Hello friends,
              The leaves are really falling now.  We have maples in our yard, but not the beautiful sugar maples that turn a vibrant red.  Just yellow.  The porch is becoming a collection spot for the leaves, but the next windy day should take care of that.  Honestly, we never bother raking leaves unless Carl wants to play in them.  The lawn mower mulches most of them, and the rest usually blow into the pasture where they decompose and fertilize the soil. 
              This Saturday is the Creamery and Farm Tour!  Yeah!  We’ll be finished with chores and ready by our usual opening time of 10:00.  Please don’t come before that or you’ll have to wait for us to be done.  I know it would be cool to watch us milk, but we can’t get our work done and give tours at the same time.  There is no set time to come, but hopefully there will be a steady stream of tour takers.  We’ll gather a group and start in the creamery, then progress outside to look at the animals, ending back in the store front if you want to try some samples and take some delicious home.  Bring a cooler if you want to take home some milk.  The last tour needs to be done by 5:00 p.m. so we can catch our breath and get ready for evening chores.  Directions are pretty straightforward:  Take 69 Hwy. south to the Mound City exit (just past the Pleasanton Casey’s exit), turn left over the overpass, follow the blacktop as it makes a sweeping turn to the right and over Mine Creek, then left on 800 Rd. for ¾ mile and we are on the left.  Or you can just Google directions! LOL!…

Janie Had a Bull Calf

Monday, October 5, 2020
Hello friends,
              Just as we suspected, Janie had her calf early.  In fact, it was the very next morning after I wrote the newsletter that Tarzan was born.  He is a sturdy half Angus, half Jersey chocolate colored calf with big, beautiful dark eyes and eyelashes to melt your heart.  A force to be reckoned with, he is a vigorous eater, and a strong demander of his bottle!  Meanwhile, Janie is producing lots of milk and is already online, her colostrum cleared.  Now we look for Trixie to be next on October 14, but she doesn’t look like she will be early.
              My daughters came down this weekend for a visit and we had a fun project to work on.  Cider making.  If you get my Instagram, you saw the story of apple picking, cleaning and sorting, crushing, and pressing the apples.  It’s a great way to use all those imperfect apples without peeling and processing.  Two full dish tubs of apples go into making about a gallon of cider, so you can guess how precious it is when we get it.  We take care of every drop.  Now the press has been cleaned up, and put away, the stickiness mopped up from the floor, and I can hear Bill warming a cup of cider right now!  The fruit of our labor!…..

Fall is in the Air

Monday, September 28, 2020
Hello friends,
              Not much rain fell here yesterday.  I think Bill said there was less than a tenth of an inch in the rain gauge.   Well, what are we going to do about it?   Nothing.  Wait for the next rain and keep watering those lovely flowers down by the sign.  Fall is certainly in the air now.  We are beginning to see maple trees starting to show some color, and for me, that is the first indication of the season changing. 
              The pullet chicks are starting to get a little rambunctious in their stock tank.  In the evening we give them fresh food and water and clean up a bit where they scatter wood chip in their feeder, and other stuff. (ahem)  Today I introduced them to greens.  I went outside the barn and picked a small handful of clover and shredded it a bit.  Then I carefully dropped the pieces in their plain sight.  First, they just looked at it and made that trilling sound like when they discover a bug just a little too big to eat.  Then one brave chick picked it up, dropped it, then picked it up again and began to run around with it.  Of course, another chick stole it from her, dropped it because she didn’t know what it was either, then watched as the next one picked it up.  And so it went.  I didn’t stay to watch until it was all consumed, but it will be……

Apple Harvest & Our Creamery Tour Date Set

Monday, September 21, 2020
Hello friends,
              Wow!  What a beautiful stretch of nice weather!  This is the time to go outside and enjoy!  Sure, there are still bugs, but the sunshine is waning and you should go out and catch some rays before it turns to winter.  You KNOW how it goes.  Bill and I went down to Ft. Scott on Sunday to walk around the park.  Yes, we can walk around the driveway, but it’s nice to get away for the day.  When we got home, we took that famous Sunday afternoon nap, then went out and picked about 5 boxes full of apples before chores.  I suppose we need to learn how relax, but it was an enjoyable day.
              The baby chicks are over a week old now and starting to get feathers on their wings.  They are not too sure about us, and they all crowd to the end of the stock tank where we can’t reach them.  Well, we can reach them, but I need a little scoop to nudge them out.  I can’t help but grab one and pick it up and pet it.  Not sure they are responding to my affection or just a reflex to close their eyes.  Doesn’t matter.  Soon I will begin picking a little clover for them to peck at.
              We are thinking ahead for the Creamery my Tour day on October 17th.  It just so happens that it’s the same weekend as the Miami County farm tours.  That’s not necessarily a conflict.  I recommend starting down here, and work your way back north.  We will have samples of cheeses and milk, and plenty on hand to take with you so bring your cooler.  If you want to see the cheese cave, you’ll need to take your shoes off and wear protective covers, but it is interesting.  The cows will be nearby, and so will whatever calves have been born by then.  We have three cows due in October, so we’ll see how it works out.  Gather your questions and come on down!….

The Baby Chicks Have Arrived

Skyview Farm News

Monday, September 14, 2020
Hello friends,
              The baby chicks have arrived!  Yeah!  I got an email notifying me that they were shipped on Wednesday, so I was hoping for a Thursday arrival.  When they didn’t come, I began to worry.  The post office has been known to take a while sometimes, and I didn’t want my precious packages stuck in some back room for very long.  The hatchery said Thursday through Saturday and they guaranteed 100% live arrival, but they are sold out of a lot of varieties this time of year and I think a refund would be more likely than a replacement.  Not to worry for long, they came on Friday.  I got a call from the post office that the boxes just walked in the door.  Bill hurried over to pick them up and we carefully unloaded them into the waiting brooder (converted stock tank).  I go out to see them a couple of times a day and even pick some of them up.  If you pet them, sometimes they go to sleep!  There is one rooster so he is woefully outnumbered, but he will learn to love that!……

Billie Jean Had a Bull Calf

Monday, September 7, 2020
Hello friends,
              I am so ready for some cooler weather.  That hot dry wind really stressed the flowers.  If we can get some rain this week, it will really help.  The heat tends to unmotivated us.  We see projects we want to work on, but there are only so many hours of evening before it goes right to dark.  For example, this evening after chores, we needed to pick beans, lima beans, tomatoes, and peppers, water the garden, the blueberries, and the flowers down by the sign.  Then we had quite a few windfalls under the apple tree which we had to pick up, sorting into compost or salvage.  By that time, it was getting pretty dark.  It was just too warm to do those things during the day today.
              Billie Jean had her calf on Friday evening.  She made me go looking for him.  When she wasn’t with the rest of the cows waiting at the gate to be milked, we knew what was up.  I took the hike to the tree line at the back of lane 2 where the cows were lounging during that day.  There Billie Jean was munching grass,  acting all innocent.  When I started looking for her calf, she made that distinctive lowing sound.  She knew where he was and was not concerned, but she wasn’t going to let on.  The fence line is at almost the bottom of a pretty step hill, so I went to the bottom and worked my way up.  I found him curled up beside a tree, and he didn’t want to get up.  He was acting like he couldn’t walk yet, but I knew better since he was all dried off.  I wanted to make sure he had his first meal of colostrum since his tummy didn’t feel full, so I brought him over to Billie Jean and stood him up.  He was interested, but mom just wouldn’t hold still.  Then he would fall over and give up.  Not to worry, we brought her back to the milking parlor and milked out some of that precious rich first milk, put it in a bottle, and he went right for it!….

Rainy Last Day of August

Monday, August 31, 2020
Hello friends,
              The last day of August.  A rainy day for sure.  Saturday farmer’s market was pretty wet as well, but all the farmers were thankful for rain on their farms.  Those pastures that Bill just finished mowing were starting to go dormant,  but now they are quickly greening back up.  One less thing to do when you don’t have to water the garden.  The flowers down by the sign are looking good.  It looks like it’s not done yet either.
              I got a new apple picker in the mail today.  It has a telescopic pole that allows me to reach 13 feet!  Then if I get on a ladder… I should be able to reach a lot more than just Bill on a ladder.  Remember when he got the tractor and I sat in the bucket?  That was not what I call ideal.  And I didn’t like driving the tractor in the orchard either.  Not as many apples as I was hoping for this year.  Too many of them are disappearing.  Yes, we have gone out after dark looking for coons and possums, but we suspect something larger, that doesn’t leave a mess behind.  And trims the ends of the branches.  Yep, we suspect deer.  Plans are in the works for an electric fence next year.  We bought a nice cider press two years ago and only used it that one season.  I have apples to share with the wildlife if they would take the windfalls and less than perfect ones, but they go for the nice ones!…

Makenzie Had Her Calf

Monday, August 24, 2020
Hello friends,
              The days are getting shorter.  Yes, it’s still summer as evidenced by the warm weather, but there are cooler nights.  We finish evening chores about 7:30 and there is not as much daylight now to play in the yard before dark.  When we get up in the morning, it’s not light yet like it was just a month ago.  The kids are going back to school in some fashion and everyone is getting ready for fall.
              Makenzie had her calf on Saturday morning!  A cute little heifer we have been calling Kelce.  We were already on calf watch since her due date was Sunday, so when we went to get the cows out of lane 7, Madison and I were looking for any cow not with the group.  There was Makenzie laying down resting, or passing her placenta, not sure which, and Billie Jean is standing by a wet clump of calf with perky little ears.  Billie Jean is due in about a month and her maternal instincts kicked into high gear.  We could not convince her that it was not her calf and she should follow the herd back to the creamery.  It took three of us chasing back and forth as she kept doubling back and trying the end-around to get past us.  Then she mooed and mooed most of the day.  She had it bad.  Things have settled down now, but even the real mother was not that attached to that baby.  Makenzie is still giving transitional colostrum and I have some of that first rich stuff in the fridge if you want some.  If things go as planned, she should be milking on-line by Thursday!…….

Drier Air and Cooler Temperatures

Monday, August 17, 2020
Hello friends,
              We sure are enjoying this drier air and cooler temperatures.  I know we had to water the garden and the flower beds this evening, but it sure is pleasant.  Time to mow the lawn again.  Didn’t he just do that?  The late summer bugs are starting their noisy songs.  Cicadas, crickets, and katydids can be so obnoxious, but comforting that the season is changing.   
              Madison has started college, so our part time help is a little more part time.  Bill and I are taking up the slack for now, but with 5 cows on pregnancy vacation, milking is a little faster than usual.  It sure is nice that she can milk the cows all by herself every once in a while, and it gives us a break.  We spent the day up in Atchison yesterday, visiting our family and celebrating Christin’s birthday.  Meanwhile, Madison milked the cows and we just came home when we were ready.  Freedom to travel is the number one complaint of most dairy farmers and it sure is nice to take the evening off.  Thanks, Madison!…..

Crabgrass and Clover

Monday, August 10, 2020
Hello friends,
              Crabgrass and clover in your lawn is less than desirable.  Especially if you live in a nice neighborhood.  In our pastures, it is awesome.  The crabgrass is high in carbohydrates and the clover is high in protein and the cows produce a lot of milk on the combination.  This warm wet weather is causing them both to go crazy and the cows are chowing down.  That’s mostly good, except we are trying to dry up a couple of cows to give them their pregnancy vacations, and they just keep producing!  We give them almost no grain, we milk them less and less often, and they still have milk.  Mind you, I’m not complaining.  It sure beats dried up dormant grass with deep cracks in the ground!…..

Coming and Going in the Milking Line Up

Monday, August 3, 2020

Hello Friends,
             ….. August is a month of coming and going in the milking line up.  Vivian is online now, but we are going to start drying up Janie next.  Then Trixie will be around the middle of the month, and Reba at the end.  Somewhere near the end of the month Makenzie should have her calf.  There will be minus three and plus one.  Not to worry, we still will have plenty of milk for everyone, we’ll just make less cheese.  That’s also not a problem since we made a LOT of cheese this spring when all 12 cows were milking and eating all that lush grass.  There is a seasonal fluctuation for everything.
              This is my skip week for the market, so I’ll be catching up on cheese making.  Perhaps some cottage cheese would be nice.  Not that I’ll have that much free time with the tomatoes coming in.  I put up 6 quarts of tomatoes today and there are still 3 trays of them on the table.   I put 7 quarts in the canner, but sadly, one of the jars cracked and  that was a fail.  It was an old jar, but it appeared to be in good shape.  One never knows for sure.  I also made some dehydrated tomatoes.  Heat producing preservation methods are always better when it’s a little cooler so you don’t have to fight against the air conditioner.  I can always freeze, but then it takes up freezer space….

Still Very Humid

Monday, July 27, 2020
Hello friends,
              Ahh!  Refreshing rains, but still very humid.  Maybe there will be more.  Every evening that we don’t have to water the garden is plus.  It is a chore that must be done if it’s dry.  Because we are using pond water pumped through the water system, there will inevitably be algae etc. coming through the pipes.  That’s a good thing because it makes the water also a fertilizer.  We have tried using different sprinklers so we don’t have to stand there and hold the hose, but they always get clogged with pond debris.  We end up just doing the old “thumb at the end of the hose” routine…..

Rain! Woo hoo!

Monday, July 20, 2020
Hello friends,
              It’s still very warm and muggy, but much more bearable since we got 1.6 inches of unexpected rain yesterday.  At least I wasn’t expecting it.  I was at the kitchen sink cleaning peaches (a common place for me to be lately) and I heard thunder.  It kept getting darker and darker, and when I looked at the radar on my phone, a storm cloud had developed right over the top of us.  And it kept getting bigger.  Wow and woo hoo!  Now I know that not everyone got rain, so I am praying for everyone to get their fair share in the next day or two.  It was nice to not have to carry a full watering can down to the flowers by the sign.
              The ground beef is now gone.  I knew it wouldn’t last very long.  We still have soupbones but it will be probably January before we have any more ground beef.  I hope you got what you needed.  The butchers have been very busy taking care of business while some of the big meat processors have been down because of the virus.  I think they are back up and operating, but not at full capacity because of social distancing in the plants, and they have a huge back log.  Just like the toilet paper shortage, they will eventually catch up.

Billie Jean is on Her Pregnancy Vacation

Monday, July 13, 2020

Hello friends,
              Not a cloud in the sky today.  Big beautiful blue sky, but not a rain cloud in sight.  Saturday, we had impressive dark clouds threatening, but then they went to the north, the south, east, and west, taking every drop of moisture with them.  That’s the way it goes sometimes.  Then you look at the forecast and it is hot, hot, hot.  But wait!  A pop-up shower changes the whole thing.  I’m glad we have our hay put up, but the cows would prefer more moderate temperatures!
              Billie Jean is now on her pregnancy vacation, so we are down to  milking 9 cows.  Vivian is due at the end of the month, and then we dry up three more cows in August.  Meanwhile, the early spring calves are in the process of being weaned.   They got their color-coded ear tags so we can tell them apart, and out to the front pasture they go…
             

Scattered Rain Showers

Monday, July 6, 2020
Hello friends,
              Last week was a week of widely scattered pop-up showers.  Everyone reports different amounts of downpour rains, and sprinkles.  The sprinkles are not all that beneficial other than it’s usually cloudy, but we got a couple of quarter inch rains which allowed us to skip garden watering a days.  On the other hand, the hot sun sure dries things out quickly. 
              Peach season has begun.  Since we don’t spray for bugs, there will be bugs, but we have the luxury of picking peaches totally ripe from the tree.  Bill and I go out to the orchard before breakfast with a couple of ice cream buckets, and gently press the peaches we think are close to ripe.   All around the tree we are checking the firmness.  The ripe ones go in the bucket, and the ones that have too many issues, we pitch into the woods.  Then the clean up begins while the oatmeal is cooking.  We load up our bowls and pour on the delicious whole milk.  It’s kind of like peach cobbler.  Yum….
             

The Beef is Finally Here

Monday, June 29, 2020
Hello friends,
              The beef is finally here!  Our two small chest freezers are full of 2- pound packages of ground beef, soupbones, and a few other organ meats.  I thought for sure it would be ready last week, but I underestimated the incredible amount of business the small meat processors are getting.  They even asked if we knew anyone looking for a job.   Bill literally just got home with the beef about an hour ago.  So, here we go!  $6.20/lb. in 2# packages, limit 5 packages per week.  I can bring it to the farmer’s market on Saturday or you can pick it up here.
              That leads me into July 4th.  Bill will be here at the farm for you to pick up your delicious ingredients for the holiday get togethers.  Hamburgers, cheese, and ice cream for dessert sounds like a plan.  I will be at the Overland Park Farmer’s market on Saturday the 4th, but instead of being at the convention center, we will be in the parking lot of the Matt Ross Community Center which is about a block south of the market pavilion.  You can park in the pavilion parking lots, so that’s nice.  Rain or shine, we’ll be there.  Hopefully shine, well maybe cloudy would be nice.  Still 7:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and you can pre-order if you want to make sure I don’t run out of something…..
             

Big Round Hay Bales Ready to be Moved for Storage

….The hay is baled and dotting the pastures.  Now we could use some rain so the grass can regrow.  It doesn’t take long for hot weather to dry up the pasture.  Lots of the grass has gone dormant already, but a good rain would bring it right back.  Now Bill’s job will be to go around and pick them up with the stinger of his tractor and put them in an area end to end.  Right after he finishes cutting up the tree in the front yard.  He has made tremendous progress and the pile of firewood behind the garage is impressive…..

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Monday, June 15, 2020
Hello friends,
              This is hay making season!  All across the county the sound of tractors mowing, raking, and baling hay.  We’ve had a fair amount of rain this spring and the grass is still lush.   It will be drying out fast with no rain in the last week, and none in the forecast.  Perfect for drying and baling hay.  At one time we had our own mower, rake, and square baler, but of course they were second hand and somewhat fragile.  You can hear this coming… yes, the baler broke down and we had to have a neighbor finish putting up the hay.  Now we just pay someone to do it and they have fancy equipment that they need to keep busy to pay for.  They pulled up to mow at about 6:30 this evening and finished at about 9.  Tomorrow they will rake and bale, and off to the next hayfield.
              Every evening we are having to water either the garden or the flower beds.  Now I’m really glad I have been laying down old hay for mulch.  Not only does it keep the weeds down, but now it keeps the moisture in the soil.  The lettuce is mostly picked, the snap peas are in full swing, and I see a couple of little zucchinis forming.  I also had to kill a few squash bugs!  Those pesky insects spoil all the fun.  Of course, I’m not going to put insecticide on my organic garden, so I have to  pick them off and kill them as I find them….

Dead Ash Tree

Monday, June 8, 2020

Hello friends,
              Surviving the heat?  It has been very warm and muggy.  The cows don’t like it, I don’t like it either.  It’s all part of the package though.  Seasons change and we can look back on the winter and long for it, and it will surely return.  There are benefits for the summer, like not having to suit up before going outside.  Lots of sunshine means lots of free vitamin D,  and the fresh fruits and vegetables are growing in abundance.  The days are longer so more time outside in the evening after chores are done. 
              If you come to the farm right now you will see the big mess in the middle of the yard.  Yep, we had the dead ash tree topped out last week and now the job of cutting up the firewood and removing the millions of twigs and branches that came crashing down.  This one tree will provide several months of warmth this winter.  Any time you have to take down a tree, there will be the initial shock of how different the yard looks.  But there are other trees to spread out…

Vivian on Her Pregnancy Vacation

…The cows’ milk production is leveling out now with the grass going to seed and the warmer weather.  Also, Vivian is now on her pregnancy vacation, so we are milking 11.  This is a saner volume of milk to deal with.  Our creamery is not set up for huge volumes of milk processing because our cheese vat will only hold 75 gallons at a time and the pasteurizer 15 gallons.  Soon Makenzie will take her pregnancy vacation and so it will go all summer and fall.  Some off-line, some calving and coming back on line.  We have to keep good records to stay organized.

              This is my week to do farmer’s market on Saturday.  It should be pretty warm so come prepared with a cooler in your car.  We’ll have lots of cheese and yogurt available.  The Pure Silk strained plain yogurt has been selling out fast, so to help me plan how much to make, feel free to give me a pre-order.  I have time to make enough if I know by Thursday.  Watch your OP Market Facebook posts or our repost for our location at the walk-up market.  Remember, we’ll be in the parking lot at the Convention Center through the end of June….