Little Red Riding Hood

Herb is holding down the fort at home while I'm visiting family in the Dallas area.  This morning my niece bundled their shivering chihuahua up in my sister's red fleece cape and called her "Little Red Riding Hood."  Since I've been listening to oldies on my rental car's Sirius, that instantly called to mind this oldie.  Neither Justin nor Victoria had ever heard of it, so I indulged them.  And just so no one visiting Zephyr Hill Farm feels left out--and knowing that Misty has things well in hand there in case this should bring the farm to the Big Bad Wolf's attention--here it is for everyone to enjoy:
 
Little Red Riding Hood by Sam and the Pharaohs.

Wetter Than a Mad Hen (or Rooster)

We're WET here!  No, we're soaked . . . sodden . . . wringing wet . . . wetter than a mad hen!  By Saturday morning, Jan. 12, we'd had a total of 1.21" of rain for the month.  The barnyard still hadn't dried out from its soggy state on Jan. 1, and the Saturday rain continued steadily all weekend.

I told Herb that I was worried about the horses and cows standing around pastern-deep in the mud, concerned they would get thrush in their hooves.  By Sunday night, Herb said that although he hates to have the animals on the pasture when it's so wet, it had become a case of having to sacrifice the pasture--or the animals.  This is one of those times when farming isn't about a Plan at all, but a Contingency Plan, dealing with the curve balls as they come.

We discussed putting the animals in the Back Pasture since it's bigger, but I figured they would go crazy when we turned them loose and their wild galloping, slipping and sliding on the hill, would do serious damage to the pasture.  Also, there's nowhere dry to put a hay bale in the Back Pasture, and we had no idea how long we might have to leave the animals out there, eating the grass that should be resting.



So on Monday morning, still in the rain, Herb took a round bale down to the run-in shed in the Lower Pasture.

It was really cold, and it took quite a while to get the hay down there and set up in a hay feeder, a one-man job.  At least I could help move the animals, I said.

As we got to the barnyard, I was so glad we'd made this decision.

No animal deserved to be in these conditions!

The cattle always follow the horses, so Herb took Angel and Julie.  Once the cattle followed them into the Home Pasture, I shut the gate behind them and opted to lead Brandy down by the road and avoid the steep, slippery hill.

It was an easy move from the Home Pasture across a driveway into the Lower Pasture; the animals know the routine.

The horses were dancing with impatience, but we made them wait until the cattle had followed and I had shut the electric gate to keep them in the far end of the pasture.  It was interesting taking these photos in the driving rain with Brandy itching to be free!

And they were OFF!  We cringed a bit thinking of those hooves pounding into the soggy earth!

But everyone was having so much fun, how could we begrudge them?

Julie was definitely the ringleader as they circled around again.

Fortunately after one circuit of the field, Sara and Siobhan remembered their dignity . . .

as sedate pregnant ladies, ignoring Julie's bucking show in the background.

"Where's the food?" they wanted to know.  It didn't take them long to find some green grass and the hay in the shed.

The rain continued all day Monday, the 14th, and by Tuesday morning, we'd had a total of 3.97" (2.76" over the past three days).  The usually dry creek had overflowed its banks and created a new second channel cutting across the Lower Pasture.

At least we knew that even with the run-off from the woods, there was plenty of high ground to keep the animals safe--and no need to check on their water tank!

Back in the barnyard, Shemar was complaining loud and long. If roosters are supposed to crow at sunrise, he was doing his best to make the sun appear!

But the rain kept on.  By this morning, Thursday Jan. 17, we've had an accumulation of 7.12" for the month so far.

That's 5.91" in 5 days!

There was a brief break in the rain this morning and a cold, wild wind set the horses running like crazy.  It's a good thing they got it out of their systems, though, because the rain came pouring back.

Yep, we're wetter than a mad hen!

There's a Method to My Madness

Those who know me well know that I'm different . . . unique . . . a little bit crazy . . . just plain mad!  So if you've noticed that there are now two contributors listed for this blog, both named Susan Lea, you may just say to yourself, "That crazy Susan!  She must have hit something twice."

In this case, you would be wrong!  I did that on purpose (mostly) and there's a method to my madness.  A few weeks ago, Google informed me that I had reached my 1 gigabyte limit for photos on my Blogspot blog and invited me to purchase more storage for $2.49 a month.  I'm sorry, but that struck me as just plain CRAZY!  I've been blogging on Blogspot since October 2009 for FREE and now they suddenly want me to start paying for the privilege?  Or to stop uploading photos (which would be INSANE)?

There's an old joke about a guy whose car breaks down outside an insane asylum, and the punchline is the resident of the asylum saying, "Well, I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid!"  Well, I'm not stupid, either!  I figured that if my Blogspot blog was linked to my Gmail account, I would just create a new Gmail account, invite myself to be a contributor on my own blog, and keep on blogging!

Are you feeling crazy yet?

My original Google identity was "Zephyr Hill" and appeared next to this photo as the only Contributor to this blog.

When I set up my second Gmail account, Google gave me the option of doing it with Google+ which did not exist back when I became Zephyr Hill.  Somehow this time I ignored all internet safety rules and used my real name, so that when Zephyr Hill invited me to contribute to my blog, the second contributor appeared as Susan Lea.

Nevertheless, everything worked fine and Susan Lea is now able to upload pictures and make new posts on my blog--as long as I remember to sign myself out of Gmail and back in again with the second Gmail before I start the post.

Whew!  If I wasn't already crazy, it would MAKE me crazy!  But as I said, it's been working fine, and I bet you didn't even notice anything . . .

Until I got too smart for myself and decided to join Google+ with my Zephyr Hill self.

That was when Google informed me that my Zephyr Hill profile would disappear from my blog and my new Google+ profile would appear--with Zephyr cut out of the photo and me blown up like a blurry blimp!  So I picked a new photo . . .

cutting Charis out of the photo to avoid being unfair to Kol.  Sorry, Angel and Brandy, I know it's not fair to have Julie in the photo instead of you, my old faithful girls, but I had a TERRIBLE time finding a photo of myself that I didn't hate!  And anyway, I don't think Julie was happy about this photo, either, so that makes three of you!

After all this messing around on the computer, merging my Zephyr Hill self with my Susan Lea self and even finding a decent photo to use, my blog now shows two contributors with identical names--and we both look like little red squares with + on them!

If you want to see anything else, you'll have to click on the first Susan Lea (the one who used to be Zephyr Hill).  I don't really care about the other Susan Lea--she's just a way to let me upload more photos on my blog.

So what happens when the second Susan reaches her limit on photos?  Oh, please, I'm not ready to go there yet!  I think if I had to have a THIRD identity on Google+, it might just drive me crazy!

And while we're on the subject of madness, I am REALLY,  TRULY,  FURIOUSLY MAD at spammers!  I used Captcha for awhile to avoid them, then capitulated to another blogger's plea NOT to use Captcha in order to make it easier for people to make comments.  And the spam started up again . . . and got worse.  I've been getting up to 5 spams a day on the same (old) post, except that different spammers use different (old) posts.  Lately, Blogger has failed to detect spam comments and has actually published them so I've had to go to the old posts and delete them.  And just today my latest post got spammed . . .  AND.  I.  HAVE.  HAD.  ENOUGH!

So Captcha is coming back.  I'm truly sorry for those of you who like to leave comments on my blog, and I hope you will pleeeeeze continue because it's really encouraging to me!  I love having a conversation with you!  But I cannot sit by and let my blog be over-run by spammers.  And this is the only way I know to fight back.

I would never click on their links, but I wish I could give them a message!  I'd like to say:

"This is what I think of you!"  In case they didn't get it, let's try again:

"This is what I think of you, and this is how I'd like to treat you!"

In case they still didn't get it, I'd like to say what my grandmother used to say when she was REALLY mad: "Oh, go soak your head!"

But I would hate to insult a nice, friendly pig by comparing it to a spammer--so I won't.  But it made me feel better to think about it!  :)

The Cost of Raising a Steer: How Much Does Our Beef Cost Us?

I just calculated the cost of our beef from the day we brought T-bone home on July 23, 2011 to the day we put the beef in the freezer in early December, 2012.

We bought T-bone from Gabriella Nanci, a Dexter breeder in the Atlanta area.  He was about 8 months old, the same age as Siobhan (in front in the photo above, still wearing her fuzzy calf coat).  Because T-bone was on the small side, we got him for $400.  T-bone was still intact when we got to Gabriella's farm, but she helped Herb use the California bander to "steer" him so we had no vet cost for that.  Gabriella told us he would gain weight better if left intact, but at his age we were worried about him breeding the cows so we opted to castrate him immediately.

That first winter (2011-12) we fed hay to the three cows and two horses.  I'm sure that Angel and Brandy (at 1000+ lbs.) ate more than the cows (with Sara the biggest at about 750 lbs. max).  By June 28, 2012 (almost a year later) T-bone had grown well although his hind end was still on the scrawny side.  Since it's impossible to know exactly how much hay any one animal ate, I calculated the cost as follows:

12 round bales @ $35 = $420 divided by 5 = $84 as T-bone's share of hay.  Because our cattle are strictly grass-fed, we had no other feeding costs.

Six weeks later on Aug. 12, 2012, T-bone was showing the results of eating plenty of good green grass, thanks to a rainy July.  The ideal age to butcher a Dexter steer varies between 24 to 30 months.  While discussing the best time with our butcher, Jeff McBryar, he advised that we should butcher T-bone shortly after the first frost when the grass would stop growing.  We could feed him up on hay for a couple of weeks first, but if we tried to over-winter him, he would lose so much condition on just hay that it would take most of the following summer to regain the lost ground.  For this reason, we decided to butcher him in November at 24 months rather than waiting till he reached 30 months in May 2013.

We took T-bone to Jeff for butchering on Nov. 20, 2012.  Jeff doesn't have a scale, so we weren't able to get a hoof-weight for T-bone, and his assistant Cory didn't get us a hanging weight, so unfortunately we can't calculate a rate of yield this time.  We'll know better next time!  What we did get was a total of 277.17 lbs. of beef.  Here's the final break-down for our first Dexter beef:

Production Cost for Our Steer
Purchase of 1 steer (July 2011)                      $400.00
Hay (winter 2011-12)                                        84.00
Butchering/processing Fee (Nov. 2012)          231.00
Total Production Cost for our steer           $715.00

That's a net price of $2.58 per pound.  We're thrilled with the dark red, tender, delicious beef we got.  Cory told us that these are some of the nicest steaks he's ever seen, and we can testify to them being some of the best-tasting we've ever had!  

The Cost of Raising a Pig: How Much Does Our Pork Cost Us?

I've finally done the calculations on how much it cost us to raise this year's pig from the day we fetched her from Jim Gifford's farm to the day we packed the pork into our freezer.

We brought Spamela Anderson and her sister, Hammy Faye Bakker, home on June 3.  Jim estimated that they weighed 100 lbs, and said they were a bargain at $80 each.  (Since we knew we'd be butchering a steer and didn't have room in our freezers for two pigs, but felt it would be cruel to raise one pig alone, some friends bought Hammy Faye and reimbursed us for her food.  They got a pig at cost without paying for our labor while we got to have a pig.)

By Sept. 14, the pigs were each eating 1 lb. of chicken crumble twice a day.  They ate a total of 950 lbs. of feed between June 3 and Nov. 13, for a cost of $278.03.  They also got copious scraps from house and garden (mostly vegetables).  For the last six weeks or so, they got a pound or more of acorns a day.
 

On Nov. 3 at approximately 35 weeks of age, we checked their string weights.  Spamela weighed about 301 lbs. while Hammy Faye weighed 319 lbs.   To determine how to divide the feed costs, we calculated the pigs' weights as percentages.  Spamela was 48.55% and Hammy Faye, 51.45%.  So our share of the feed cost was $134.98 (48.55% of $278.03).

The pigs were butchered on Nov. 13.  The butcher guessed their weights as:
Spamela - 378.81 lbs.
Hammy Faye - 391.18 lbs.
(Clearly, our string weights under-estimated their actual weight.)

Their hanging weights were 190 lbs and 198 lbs., respectively.

Our pig's butchering and processing fee, based on her weight, was $158.50.  This included the cost of curing and smoking the bacon (over 20 lbs.) and hams (over 40 lbs.).  We came home with 151.02 lbs of pork, including about 3 lbs. of fat, but excluding the weight of bones.

Here's the final break-down:

Production Cost for Our Pig

Purchase of 1 pig                                                      $  80.

48.55% of feed cost                                                  $134.98

Butchering Fee for our pig                                       $158.50

Total Production Cost for our pig                    $373.48

That's a Net Price of $2.47 per pound.  

We're thrilled with that price for delicious pasture-raised, acorn-finished pork.  And that doesn't begin to calculate the enjoyment we got from raising Spamela and Hammy Faye! 

Seek and Ye Shall Find . . . But What?

I'm sure you've had the experience of searching for something on the internet.  A page comes up with various sites and you click on the most interesting ones.  If you're like me, you were just glad to get whatever you were looking for and you didn't stop to think about the mechanics of how your search results appeared on your computer screen.

A short time ago I discovered that Blogger keeps stats on each blog.  I can see which are my most popular posts, which servers people use to get on my blog, what countries they are from, and probably most interesting of all, the keywords people were searching for that led them to my blog.

I can see a list of search keywords for Right Now, Today, The Past Week, The Past Month, and All Time.  So what brings people to Zephyr Hill Farm?  Here goes:

zephyr hill farm-28

zephyrhillfarm.blogspot.com-25

medial patellar ligament
splitting-24 (That's the surgery about to be performed on Brandy in the photo at left.)

cellulitis in horses-20  (That's the complication Brandy had after the surgery.  I'll spare you a repeat of the gross photos!)

medial patellar ligament in animal-5  (More of the same.)

patella tractors-4  (Hmm, what's that?)

cattle headgates-15

cattle headgate plans-13

head gate-11

homemade cattle head gate-4

cattle head locking gate-2

t bone the steer-2

california bander-14  (That's the rubber band thing-y that Herb used to turn T-bone into a steer.)

potato condo-12

abi spreader-16

used abi manure spreader-1

And then there were the less popular topics, but still searched for often enough to appear on my blog stats:

molting chickens in winter-2

dexter cattle in snow-2

house with pasture filled with cows-2  (I hope they found the pastoral scene above.)

pasture poultry tractor-2

pig crate pickup truck-2

temple ladies-2  (Whaaat?)

"pickled tink" translation  (Whaaat, again?  How on earth did that search bring someone to Zephyr Hill Farm?  I don't have a clue, but if they found what they're looking for, I'm tickled pink!)

One recent search that has now disappeared from my stats was "shemar moore and wife."  I know how that person got sent to my blog, but I have to laugh at their disappointment upon discovering that my Shemar Moore is a black rooster, albeit one with a Criminal Mind!  Yes, sad to say, my Shemar is the bad guy, and he's been sentenced to capital punishment for attacking the hand that feeds him!

So if you found us by accident, welcome, and I hope you find what you're looking for!  And if you're a regular visitor to Zephyr Hill Farm, we're glad you came back!  You never know what you might find here.  After all, there's a reason I didn't call this blog "Dull Days on Zephyr Hill Farm."

To Each His (or Her) Own

There's a job for every dog on this farm.

There's the Household Guardian.  That's Hero.  There's the Livestock Guardian.  That's Misty.  There's Daddy's Faithful Shadow.  We have two dogs for that job--Hero AND Misty.

Then there's Just Plain Adorable!

 It looks like Zephyr's got that job covered!

Soup and Salad

Soup:

and Salad:

Herb took pity on the horses and cows today and let them out of the soupy barnyard into the Home Pasture to enjoy a bit of fresh "salad."  Well, he let some of them into the Home Pasture.

Someone was a naughty girl and escaped.

Of course, she wasn't happy being separated from her horsey friends, so she galloped all over the back yard, leaving hoofprints and divots everywhere!

Being eager to rejoin her friends, you might think that Julie would let Herb put her into the pasture--but you would be wrong!  Julie is an equine which is a big word for "completely illogical animal."

So after I woke up (shamefully late!), Herb asked me to help him catch Julie.  He armed himself with apple pieces, and I took a lead rope.  Gotcha, Julie!

Equine also means "animal that thinks with its stomach!"

As easy as that, Julie went into the Home Pasture.

The first thing Julie did was take off chasing Sara and Siobhan.  Why?

Because she knew that the first thing Brandy would do was to chase her!   She was just getting even first!

What goes around, comes around, so everyone ran around in circles for awhile until everyone was even with everyone else and the barnyard pecking order had sorted itself out with Brandy on top and Sara on the bottom.  Poor Sara!

By that time, Hero and Misty saw that there was nothing more for them to do from the other side of the fence and they wandered off, leaving everyone else happily enjoying their freshly-washed salad.

Ping was the happiest one of all, "ping-ping-pinging" contentedly at having so much company come to visit!





























Merriam-Webster.com gives the following definition of "high jinks" (emphasis added by me):

high jinks

 noun plural \ˈhī-ˌjiŋks\

Definition of HIGH JINKS

: boisterous or rambunctious carryings-on : carefree antics or horseplay

Our animals want us to know that 2013 might be a New Year, but as far as their mischievous ways are concerned, it's the "same song, second verse!"  And we're quite happy with their high jinks because we know it "could be better, could be worse"--LOTS worse!

We here at Zephyr Hill Farm wish a very Happy New Year to all of you, for better instead of worse, and just as soupy as you wish your year to be!