Daylight Savings

Monday, November 6, 2023
Hello friends,
              I’ve never been a fan of Daylight Savings.  It’s just too light, too long in the summer evenings and you end up working too late.  When the daylight hours are shorter, I would rather have them in the morning for the early milking times.  Anyway, we are back to normal time and the cows are a little confused, but they follow our lead. 
              The cows are really growing their fur for winter now.  Unfortunately, we have a couple of warm days.  I don’t think they are particularly unhappy.  Not like the heat of summer when they don’t want to leave the shade and some of them are even panting.  Most of the day they our out there looking for that fall, after-the-rain regrowth.  Get it while it lasts.  Soon they will be eating mostly hay……

Full Moon

Monday, October 30, 2023
Hello friends,
              The full moon was Saturday, but because of the cloud cover we couldn’t see it.  Tonight is very clear, and the big harvest (almost full) moon made a dramatic statement in the eastern sky.  Wow!  No blanket of insulation to keep the daytime warmth from escaping into the atmosphere.  It should be chilly tonight.  We removed any usable produce from the garden on Saturday and my dining room is loaded with green peppers and green tomatoes.  Parsley is drying on cookie sheets, and beans are in the fridge.  One season ends and another season begins.
              We ended up with about 4.75 inches of rain for the week.  Very beneficial for the thirsty ground.  Amazingly, the sump pump didn’t run at all.  It has been so dry for so long that the moisture soaked in but has not filled the water table yet.  Wow.  We have two ponds for water for the cows, one has a huge watershed and fills easily, the other one in the lower 20 is still very low.  We need both to provide water for the cows in the winter so amazingly, we could still use a pond-filler rain!  I’m not a fan of the mud behind the creamery, but I can’t complain too much.  Mud comes with rain…..

Weston A. Price Farm Tour

Monday, October 23, 2023
Hello friends,
              What a warm and windy day!  I thought we could put the fans away from the milking parlor, but I think I was wrong.  The cows are growing their winter coats already since it is supposed to be time for that.  The cool nights are probably very comfortable, but these warm days they are hanging out in the shade.  Looks like a fall change is coming though!  Maybe we’ll get some significant rain.
              Two gigantic check marks!  The grant was turned in last Wednesday and we feel very satisfied that we did a good job.  Don’t know how we will stack up to the other grant applicants, but we gave it our best shot.  The other check mark is that the big two-bus load Westin A. Price Conference farm tour was today.  We prepared and prepared and then they arrived, and we were ON!  All hands on deck, 110 people ushered around the creamery, barn yard, sample table, and store in about an hour and a half.  They had a great time and our preparations paid off.  A big sigh of relief this evening….

Grant Writing

Monday,  October 16, 2023
Hello friends,
              Just a thin sliver of a moon out there, but oh the stars!  The main reason we call this place Skyview Farm is that when we bought the property and we were still living in the city, we drove out with the car and turned off the headlights.  We looked up at the sky and saw stars we had never seen before.  Amazing.  We see impressive sunrises and sunsets.  We see flocks of migrating birds.  All because we have a little piece of Kansas land with a view to the sky.
              The grant writing continues.  It is really crunch time now.  We have to have everything written, proofread, and all the supporting documentation attached.  Then we hit “send” by Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.  I don’t want to be right at the deadline, but it’s kind of like preparing for a big event at your house.  You think you have everything just so, and you look around and tweak here and there, thinking of one more thing you can add or correct.  We hope they like what we’ve done.  An awful lot of thought and figuring has gone into this, so we hope they like it.  If there are just too many good applicants and we don’t make the cut, we will regroup and pick the highest priority purchases first, implementing as we have fund……

Fall Pastures = Delicious Milk

Monday, October 9, 2023
Hello friends,
              Finally, it feels like fall.  We even had a little frost here and there this weekend.  I picked all the beans that I could find, most of the peppers, and some parsley for drying.  We went from air conditioner to heat so quickly.  In between we suffered through a couple of cold nights in the house as we refused to admit that it was going to be that chilly.  It was.  Bring out the sweatshirts, put away the shorts. 
              Despite the cooler weather, the grass is growing in the pastures and the cows are loving it.  They are spending a lot of time grazing and then laying around chewing their cud.  That equals lots of delicious milk production.  Willow is producing for the general milk supply after about  5 days of colostrum that has now passed.  She has a beautiful udder and is adjusting nicely to the new routine.  After considering lots of wonderful suggestions, we decided to name her little heifer Aspen.  Hopefully Willow will have many more heifer calves to name in the future!…..

Another Calf Was Born

Monday, October 2, 2023
Hello friends,
              Surprise, surprise!  Another calf was born this morning.  Our heifer Willow was due on the 9th of October, but she decided today was the day.  Or was it the calf that decided?  Anyway, we are excited that this one is a girl!  Kelcey’s calf was so happy to have company, that he was jumping for joy.  Now the challenging part is that we had only begun heifer training 3 days ago, and although we were making progress, she is by no means trained.  We have a training halter on her, we have been coaxing her to come into the milking parlor by following a bucket of grain, and after pulling and encouraging, she finally puts her head into the stanchion.  We got her milked this morning, but it was not without some unnecessary kicking on her part.  This evening was another opportunity for training.  We are thinking about tree names for Willow’s calf.  Maple?  Magnolia?  Ginko?  Juniper? Suggestions?….

Storms This Past Week

Monday, September 25, 2023
Hello friends,
              After all the storms this past week, we ended up with a little over 3 inches of rain!  Whoo hoo!  The pastures are growing in this week’s warm sunshine and the cows are searching out the tender new growth.  We did have some branches come down, but no damage.  Don’t talk to me about my new pullets.  It’s very sad, but I’m down to 9, I think.
              I’m writing this newsletter a little later than usual because we had to watch a calf being born.  Kelcey had her calf at about 8:15 p.m.  Stephen, Celia, and the boys were down for the day since they had a day off of school.  They were going to leave earlier but Kelcey was in labor, and it was quite a spectacle.  We watched and waited.  The boys were tired but very patient.  It began to get dark, and the coyotes were howling, the sound of train whistles echoing in the night air.  We watched by the light of Stephen’s cell phone as a little male calf was born.  The boys were tired, but still got to see the miracle of birt…

Making More Cheese

Monday, September 18, 2023
Hello friends,
              I sure am enjoying the cool nights and warm days.  It feels like, well, fall!  There are leaves that are turning and dropping, but I think they are conserving moisture and not just responding to lack of daylight.  We had a dramatic front pass through on Saturday, dumping a quarter inch of rain in about 10 minutes, and then it went on its way.  We were just finishing chores and breeding a cow, but we had to take it inside!  I am thankful for a little rain, but we need more!
              We are making more cheese now that we have more milk.  After several months, and maybe even years, of selling a little more cheese than we were making, it has been getting a little sparse in the cheese cave aging rooms.  Finally, we are able to make more cheeses and put them down to age for at least 2 months.  Stephen has been coming down the first couple of days of the week to help out and today was a cheesemaking day.  We also made yogurt and cleaned out the brine tank and readied it to refill it with fresh salt brine.  Then chores.  I will sleep well tonight!…..

New Cows Are Here!

Monday, September 11, 2023
Hello friends,
              A little rain!  I am thankful for every drop, but we need quite a bit more to wake up the pastures.  I think the clovers will perk up and that will help.  The cows are eating hay because the pastures are dormant for the moment.   More rain please! 
              The new cows are here!  Their names are Casey, Chanel, Fresca, Iggy, Rain, and Skinny Dip.  We are adjusting their common names a bit because, well, we like our names better.  Skinny Dip is now Candy, and Iggy is  now Victorious which are derived from their father’s names “Candyman” and “Victrius”.  Anyway, they are coming and going back and forth with our 10 milkers, increasing our milk production from about 30 gallons to our farm’s record high of 52 gallons for one day.  Wow!  We have plenty of milk for everyone, and for cheesemaking as well.  It’s a little daunting, but it will settle down as we have three cows going on their pregnancy vacations by the end of the month and before Kelsey has her calf about the same time.  Not expecting you to keep track of all that, but when you see different names, you will know they are now in the Skyview herd.

Happy Labor Day!

Monday, September 4, 2023
Hello friends,
              Happy Labor Day!  The unofficial beginning of the fall season.  Could have fooled me.  This weather is just as hot and dry as it gets.  To add insult, there was a hot dry wind to boot.  Bill is watering the strawberries in the garden, trying to keep them alive.  He waters other plants too, like maybe peppers.  I’ve given up on some of the beans, and the tomatoes are really ugly.  The pastures are dormant and brown.  The only grazing left is in lane 1 and in the lower 20 acres.  We may have to start feeding that hay that we just put up.  Lord, send rain!…..

A Breath of Cooler Air

Monday, August 28, 2023
Hello friends,
              We survived the heat of last week!  Whew!  How miserable!  The cows were not happy about it at all.  There are a few paddocks that have more shade than others and we took advantage of it.  Even with our best efforts, our newly fresh heifer was sooo hot and starting to move pretty slowly.  Because she is low on the pecking order, I think the bigger cows were hogging the water tub and she wasn’t getting enough.  Also, I think she was low on salt.  Then Thursday evening we were taking the cows back and she passed the water tub, stopped to get a drink, and was there for a long time.  Then she started on the salt, back to the water, then back.  I just waited until she was done.  The next day she was so much better, and of course they are loving the cooler temps today.
              That hot weather was great for getting our hay put up!  It’s always a relief to get the hay safely lined up behind the electric fence where the cows can’t rough them up.  It wasn’t enough for our herd for the whole winter, but we purchased some extra hay and now it is also safely stored.  Now we just need some rain to help the grass grow back for a fall green up.  The cows will love that!….

Hot and Humid

Monday, August 21, 2023
Hello friends,
              What a difference a week makes!  Last week I started morning chores with a long sleeved overshirt, this week that sounds just awful!  I don’t know how accurate our house thermometer is, but I think it’s pretty good.  We had 104 degrees and 26% humidity yesterday, and then today it was only 98 degrees, but the humidity was thick!  Argh!  We are back to watering to try to keep the flowers and garden alive.  We’ll see if we are successful.  Meanwhile, I got poison ivy, and it is miserable!
              I had so many stories to tell last week that I didn’t even tell you that we got our baby chicks.  We had ordered 35 but only ended up receiving 27.  Of course, they rightly tell us that you can’t count your chicks before they hatch, but the 10 that I really wanted were the ones that didn’t come.  It’s not like they can send them the next week.  Only one week difference in age can make a big difference in how the chicks treat each other.  There is literally a pecking order, and it can be vicious.  No, they all have to be the exact same age.  We went from a heat lamp on them last week, to a simple incandescent bulb for light only this week.  They are very cute……

Always an Adventure

Monday, August 14, 2023
Hello friends,
              What a beautiful day!  After a week of total muggy mugs!  It is literally like two different seasons.  The heat and humidity make you feel like staying inside as much as possible, and today’s weather encourages you to go outside and get things done.  We knew it just had to rain yesterday.  It was so thick that an ice cube could have caused a cloud to form.  True to form, we had a good rain last night and it scrubbed the air of most of that humidity.  Yay!
              Saturday morning was another farm adventure.  Every time something challenging happens, the silver lining is that I have something to tell in the newsletter.  We went to the “lower 20” pasture to get the cows for morning milking and we always count them.  There should be 16.  We milk 10, one dry cow, one heifer, and 4 steers.  We were short one so Bill and Gayla went looking and found Patty in the pond, up to her chin in mud.  She had waded out far enough to get a clean drink of water and the mud was too sucky.  Also, cows will only struggle so long and then they seem to give up.  Great.  They went back to the barn for the tractor and a strap of some sort.  I went to check on Patty and maybe look for some rocks from the creek to give some firm footing.  It decided to rain so of course we were getting drenched.  Gayla took off her good leather boots and waded in with only her socks.  I had my muck boots, but I was having a hard time not leaving them in the mud.  Finally, we worked together to fish around under Patty’s belly to get the rope under and behind her front legs.  We were literally totally covered with mud! It began to rain even harder.  Got it!  Now the other end was wrapped around the tractor. 
              We needed Patty’s effort too.  She had to be convinced that she could do it!  We coaxed and encouraged.  Bill backed the tractor up and she moved forward.  Then rest.  Do it again, until finally she got far enough out that she could sit up properly, and we knew she could stand.  But she had to be convinced.  Bill put the tractor away and we waited in the rain.  Finally, she stood up shakily, completely covered in mud, but except for a little rope burn behind her front legs, not worse for the event.  Gayla and I were a mess!  Sure, we hosed Patty off before we milked her, but who was going to hose us off?  What an adventure!  And then we milked, and things seemed rather normal.  Oh brother!….

Sally Had a Boy

Monday, August 7, 2023
Hello friends,
              …….We also had another birth because Sally had her calf on Wednesday.  Unfortunately, it was ANOTHER bull calf.  I think I am going to invest in some sexed semen and see if we can get some heifers to add to our herd.  I know it’s not my girls’ fault because the males determine the sex of the calf.  Sally is already online and producing a lot of milk.  Now we need to get the cheesemaking geared up.  It sounds like the equipment to replace the broken boiler is arriving and soon it will be installed.  So many moving parts in the business and they all have to be working!   
              The garden is entering the ugly but productive stage.  My butternut squash has succumbed to the squash bugs, and I salvaged the fruit that I could.  I harvested some of the best carrots that I have ever grown, and another red cabbage.  That was encouraging.  The tomatoes have been amazing, the beans are on round two, and the peppers are a delicious green stage.  I found a cooler day and did battle against some monster weeds and won!  We have had enough rain to postpone the hay cutters, but not enough to avoid watering here and there.  Hay must be made soon!…..

Vivian Had a Boy

Monday, July 31, 2023
Hello friends,
              Another unexpected rain last night.  The forecast has been predicting extreme heat and no rain, and then suddenly it clouds up and the forecast predicts the storm that is literally bearing down on us.  Very strange.  I was debating whether I should water the garden last night and then I didn’t have to.  The strong winds keep the yard littered with twigs and leaves, but I am thankful for the moisture.
              Vivian’s due date was Saturday, and she had her calf on Sunday!  It’s a boy so of course we are disappointed about that.  Momma and baby are both healthy.  We still have a heifer due to calve on Wednesday and I honestly don’t know how she can hold out much longer.  She is so fat, her udder is so full, and she just waddles.  The law of averages says it should be a girl calf, but like any flip of a coin, the odds go back to 50/50.  We are ready to get her milked out and relieve the pressure on her udder.  Come on Sally!….

Officially on Calf Watch

Monday, July 24, 2023
Hello friends,
              Another nice rain this morning to help us through the coming heat.  The lawn was getting long because the mower needed some repairs.  Bill came home from his rehab/errands, put the new tires on the mower, and got right to it while Hailey and I did chores.  It looks so much better!  Normally July is not a rainy season, but we’ll take it.  Every rain we get is a day that we don’t have to water. 
              We are officially on calf watch.  Vivian is due Saturday and Sally next Wednesday.  If I was just looking at physical signs, I would say that Sally would go first.  She looks very plump and ripe.  Any day now.  We sold the little bull calf so it’s just Sweetheart and Darcy in the calf area.  Stephen worked on remodeling the fencing back there to make it easier to maintain when the weeds grow, and more pleasant to look at if you are visiting.  We’re not done but it looks so much better already….

Generator Preparations Paid Off

Monday, July 17, 2023
Hello friends,
             

The recent storms have been widely scattered, and they have had some impressive cloud formations, but did you get any rain?  Last Wednesday we got a storm, and our new generator was tested.  We were in the middle of milking and the power just went out.  The milkers dropped off and the cows began dripping milk on the floor.  We knew what to do.  Bill immediately flipped off the air conditioner, and I turned off the bulk tank so that when the generator kicked on, the milk machine with its significant start up power draw,  would have enough power to let us finish milking.  We waited a little longer and realized that there was a switch on the generator that needed to be on “auto”.  Then we were back in business and the cows got a little extra grain while they waited.  When the power came back on, we turned on the air and the bulk tank.  The power went off two more times, but each time we had a system and our generator preparations paid off!
             

The pasteurizer is working just as it was designed to work now.  The part came, was installed, and we immediately began to make yogurt.  We are still catching up, but that will be our focus.  Meanwhile, the boiler went out on our big cheese vat.  I kid you not!  When we built the creamery, we got a good deal on a tankless hot water heater type boiler that came out of a carwash in the 1980’s so it has had a long productive life and finally gave out.  As we consider its replacement, we are thinking of the future and the possibility of a bigger cheese vat down the line.  Meanwhile, we will focus on catching up with the fresh cheeses in the small vat…..

Pasteurizer is Fixed!

Monday,  July 10, 2023
Hello friends,
              We are back to watering the garden again.  It’s not too serious, but it looks like heat is coming and that tends to dry things out quickly.  No hay has been cut yet, but that might be a good thing.  There was a little extra growth in the pastures after last Saturday’s rain.  The cows have noticed it and are producing well. 
              The new part for the pasteurizer did the trick and we are back in yogurt production!  I am so thankful.  I guess I didn’t realize how much yogurt we sell or how many people are craving it.  As soon as we ran out, I discovered.  It takes a little bit to catch up but we’re working on it!  Keifer will come soon……

Happy Independence Day!

Monday, July 3, 2023
Hello friends,
              Happy Independence Day!  Whoo hoo!  Fireworks have been going off all weekend, to the extent that I wonder if there will be any left to fire off tomorrow, the actual 4th of July!  Good thing we got a nice rain on Saturday to protect flammable objects from a floating ember. 
Seriously, we got a 2” rainstorm that developed right over the top of us.  The driving wind and rain was severe, and there was even hail.  More branches down from the maple trees, and my blackberry canes that are growing for next year’s berries were leaning on the ground.  I tied them back up, but they don’t look so happy.  The surprise rainstorm came after we got the cows for milking and then it stopped when we took them back to pasture, only to start back up again.  A very timely rain.  We can stand with the hose watering for a very long time, but a soaking rain is way better!….

Bull Calf For Sale

Monday, June 26, 2023
Hello friends,
             

It has only been a little over a week, and already we really need some rain.  Saturday threatened to rain.  The sky was dark and encouraging, the radar was hopeful, but ultimately, we only got a handful of sprinkles.  I’m confused by the wild forecast on my phone which predicts three one hundred + degree days with 100% chance of rain.  When has it ever rained when it was 100 degrees?  When has it ever been 100 degrees while it was raining? Something is amiss.  We are getting close to getting our hay cut but the pastures are drying up and looking stressed so I don’t know that we will have much hay to show for it.  Bill is already asking around for sources of more hay for our cows.
             

Remember I was waiting for Vivian to have her calf?  Remember that I said it was any day?  Well, I was wrong.  After the week went by and she doesn’t look much more ready to calve than last week, we began to question my record keeping.  Sure enough, I put down the wrong date and she is not due until July 29.  That’s a bummer because we dried her up for her vacation a month early.  Nothing we can do about that now.  Just wait.  Meanwhile,  Patty is contributing to the milk supply and for that we are thankful.  We are naming her little heifer, Darcy.  That makes us bottle feeding two heifers and a little bull calf.  We don’t really need the bull calf so if you need one, let me know because he is for sale.  I will post him on Craig’s List this week….