Saturday, November 30, 2013

Growing Boys with a Camera

The Growing Boys were mulling about in the house wanting to play computer games the other day when I decided to send them out with the camera. I always like to see what they see. What things do they notice through the lens that I might over look. This is one of the pictures that came back. I think it is of the dead bugs trapped in the high tunnel but the colors really grab my attention.
 And...we are still bottle feeding calves.
 

Black Friday Shopping



As one might have guessed I am not a big fan of Black Friday shopping. Don't get me wrong I'm all for getting a great deal and I also would like for the American Economy to be on the up swing. However standing in a cold line for hours to end up fist fighting the lady next to me over a 75% off electronic device does not sound like my idea of fun.
This year we did awake from our turkey induced comma and head out on Black Friday at least the Daddy and the Oldest Growing Boy did. Mostly the drive to go shopping was the need for a water trough. Who knew that the first 3 stores would already be sold out by 8am of water troughs? I guess that was the other hot ticket item this year. Finally at the 4th stop they found something that would work. It's not exactly the galvanized metal one I had imagined but it was a very nice a water trough and a water heater! We were tired of filling endless 5gal buckets of water and packing or pulling them to the barn only to have them frozen and still undrinkable. Since the lower field is still not completely fenced the calves have no access to the creek yet and even when they do we will still need a water source when dividing up the pasture. The other awesome thing about the water trough is that it is fed by the rain barrel that is fed by the gutters on our barn that came from the old roof on our church. I love it when all the parts of a project finally come together even if we did have to shop Black Friday to make it happen.
Photo by Jenneil Harbert www.photographybyjenneil.net

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

New Projects

Every year we try to add something new to the farm. I'm sure at some point we will hit our limit but for now it still seems exciting to try new things. Last year the high tunnel was new and exciting but now that we have a few growing seasons under our belt it was time to look for new projects. Projects, cattle, livestock,  that's what we could call them but the Growing Boys decided to call them Ribeye and Lightning. The two beautiful baby angus bull calves came from family friend's farm. They weren't really ready to take on bottle calves but we knew two little boys who were just itching for the chance.
Ah, Bottle calves. Now that's an experience every tween age child should have. First there was the stall to be built, then fencing to be done. Every morning gallons of water have to be packed and bottles must be made and fed twice a day. Since the boys can't do all this by themselves it made for a little extra work for the grownups here at Growing Boys farm as well. The plan is to raise the calves for beef and hopefully in the end have some extra meat in the freezer and that will make all the work worth it. I don't think I washed and fed this many bottles even when our boys were little.

The other project for this summer was a sort of livestock as well. Although they have become more of  Daddy's babies than any ones. We decided bees would be a natural choice to have around for pollination. A little honey would just be an added bonus. Some friends who tend bees graciously helped us to catch our first swarm and then move them to the Growing Boys Farm. The bees have been busy all summer, yep they were busy bees. We even snuck out a little taste of honey.

  Now as winter is near and the bees and bulls are settled in, I think we will try to spend a few more days cozied up by the fire and a few less days out working on projects.

Pigs

Growing Boys Farm is trying our hand at pigs. Well, actually some friends of ours are growing the pigs for us on their farm since the Growin...