Thursday, February 28, 2013

Quick corn bread

No comments:
I’ve made a lot of chili this winter. (I have a pumpkin chili recipe coming up for you next week!) Where I come from, we have corn bread with our chili. So, I’ve also made a lot of corn bread! You know what? It’s super easy!

corn bread

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Planting our hay fields

4 comments:
This is the year that we need to re-seed our hay fields. We grow a combination of red clover and fescue grass for our cows to munch on. The red clover will only grow for two years before it dies, so every two years we need to re-seed the fields. This year we stepped into a little more high-tech than normal!

We were able to put our John Deere Gator to good use to get this job done. We pooled resources with some farmer friends to get this whole contraption built. We co-own the seeder (the black can on the back of the gator) with some family, and we borrowed the GPS guidance system (the thing that looks like a flood light on the top of the Gator, and the small black box in the windshield) from some very good friends. (We let them use the Gator and the planter to re-seed their fields, too.)

planting with the Gator

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Crockpot chili

2 comments:
It was 20 degrees out this morning. That means it’s still winter. That means we can still have chili!!

crockpot chili
This recipe is another from my new favorite cookbook, “Slow Cooking All Year ‘Round” by Gooseberry Patch. I have yet to find a recipe in that cookbook that I haven’t loved!

Slow Cooking All Year Round

Monday, February 18, 2013

Hungry beasts

No comments:
There’s not much that’s cuter than the first calf of the year! We’ve got our first four babies “on the ground,” with five more on the way at our house (and about 15 at our other farm). It’s not all fun and babies around here, though. While the babies primarily eat their momma’s milk, the mommas are big eaters – especially when they’re also feeding a 60-pound newborn!

calf 1

Friday, February 15, 2013

Random Friday

No comments:
What's rambling through my head this week…
  1. I have a slightly addictive personality. I have been known to crash on the couch and watch a full season of Downton Abbey in two days. Or to burrow down and plow through the entire Twilight series in 5 days. Seriously. Twice. Over this past weekend, I sat still with a book, a blanket, a cat, and a cup of coffee for 6 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday. And I was thrilled! Smile
  2. I lost my activity tracker in (literally) knee-deep mud out in the cow pasture. Believe it or not, I found it the next morning! (Thanks to the ladies for not trampling it under the manure/mud!)
  3. Speaking of cows. I love healthy baby calves. It’s so much fun to watch them play! calf on the mountain

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Crockpot ground beef

2 comments:
I will never go back to browning ground beef on the stove again. Ever. This is so easy! (And foolproof!)

crockpot ground beef

Monday, February 11, 2013

One month in

5 comments:
I’ve been working on my Year 2 Change for a little over a month now. (Okay, 36 days, to be exact.)

Year2Change badge

My progress

My goal has been to get up at 6:00am, only hitting the snooze button twice. Out of those 36 days, I hit my goal on 19 of them. I had another 6 days where I hit snooze three times before I got up. Frankly, I count those days as successes, too! So I’m 25/36.

For me, that’s pretty darn good! Most of the time I’m getting up to times like this…

clock 02-11-13

Friday, February 8, 2013

Till the cows come home

No comments:
Our cows came home two weeks ago! I never would have thought that I missed having cows at my house. But I sure did!

single cow

Friday, February 1, 2013

Feeding corn silage

4 comments:
Normally we can grow and bale plenty of hay in the spring, summer, and fall to feed our cows through the winter. The summer of 2012 was a little different. Southwestern Indiana (and most of the midwest) was hit by a bad drought. Our cows are usually on pasture all summer, but this year we had to feed them hay because the grass in the pasture didn’t grow. Which also meant that the grass in the hay fields didn’t grow. We were afraid that we were going to be short on hay this winter, so we needed to come up with other options to keep our girls fed and happy in the cold weather.

eating silage
Real Time Web Analytics