Random Thoughts And Pictures

I haven't posted much on here for a while.  I guess I feel that I've nothing new to say.  I feed the animals in the morning, fix me breakfast, and start in on the constant chores of cleaning the house and doing laundry.  I let the dogs out, I let the dogs in.  It's a constant cycle.

I'm trying not to write too much about things that I'm thinking about doing.  That way when something doesn't pan out, it doesn't look like I'm just blowing smoke.  I've been known to say things that I'm "gonna" do.  LOL!!  

This little girl visits my humming bird feeder a million times a day.

See that beautiful feeder?  Well, my dogs ate it.  Yep, they could barely reach it, and they chewed the bottom off of it.  I went to get another one, but the hummingbird feeders have been put away for the winter at the stores.  I feel so bad for all of the little birds that depended on my feeder.  I hope they can find another place to eat. I'm still looking for another one for them.  Maybe I'll get lucky.

While I was out taking pictures of the birds, I kept hearing this noise that sounded like it was coming from a small engine.  I just figures that a neighbor had something running.  Little did I know this would come over the horizon.

This is the field where we cut hay.  It's across the road from our house. 

Looks like our neighbor has a new toy!  Now THAT'S the kind of toy that I want!!!  How fun would that be!!! 

Just put that on the list of things I want to do. lol

The Ends

So until next time,

Small Farm Girl,  I'm still here.

Dreams And "Gonna's"

There comes a time in a persons life when they have to step back and look at reality.  I have found that my reality is warped. LOL!  I am a dreamer and a "gonna-er". I dream big dreams and I always tell myself, and other people, things that I'm "gonna do".  I looked back on some of my blog posts and read about all the things I'm "gonna" do.  Whether it's "gonna" post pictures of something, or start teaching homesteading classes here on the farm.  I have written about many different things that I'm "gonna" do.

By now, if you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you know I don't always do what I say I'm "gonna" do.  I didn't actually realize how many times I do this!!!!  It's not that I tell you something that I'm going to do and sit back and laugh and say to myself," No way am I going to do that."  No!  I honestly think I'm "gonna" do it! I either get involved in something else and figure you have all forgot about what I was "gonna" do, I forget, or I simply get overwhelmed with all the things that I say I'm "gonna" do, and give up all together.

What adds to my "gonna do"s, is my ability to dream big.  I mean BIG.  My mind is constantly thinking of the next big thing.  The problem with that is I usually haven't finished the thing I was "gonna" do before. I'm in a constant state of dreaming and "gonna doing".  Because of this, there are so many projects of mine that do not get done.  Chicken coop built, cleaning the house, butchering the rabbits on time, paint that painting, spin that wool, write that article

and the list goes on and on.  Finally, this past week, I told myself that enough is enough.  My brain is overloaded.  It's time to erase, start over, and down size my dreams and "gonna" list.

First on this list is the garden.  One year I was "gonna do" container gardening. Then I realized that if I had containers, Jack (our St. Bernard) will pee on every container that we have. He does this to any flower pot I have on the ground. lol.  We also have decent garden soil so why would I want to waste that.  Just about every Spring, we think we're going to have this huge garden and we are "gonna" have the whole pantry full of canned goods.  It starts out that way, the garden looks soooo nice when it's freshly tilled and the small plants are sticking up out of the ground.  Then the heat hits, or like this year, the rains hits.  Hubby, nor I, can (or wants to) get out into the garden and keep up with the, at that time, small weeds.  The weeds then take over the garden and we are overwhelmed once again by the enormous job it would be to go weed the "jungle."

This past week, we both had a good, honest talk about our garden.  We need to stop listening to people, that are trying to help, and start thinking about what we can REALLY do with the time we have to put into it.  So BOTH of us have decided to downsize our garden.  We don't really need 125 tomato plants.  With that many we get overwhelmed real easy.  We don't take care of them and they don't produce anything or worse,they rot or go to waste.  With a smaller amount of tomatoes (like 6-10 plants) we will have the "want to" to actually do something with them.  There won't be so many to overwhelm us.  By doing this, we will probably get a better yield of tomatoes anyway.  We are doing this with the whole garden.  Next year we aren't going to feel like there is just too much to do with it. I really think we will enjoy it so much better.

Now that Hubby and I had this talk, we are looking at things differently for our whole farm.  We need to eat this elephant one small bite at a time instead of all at once.  Believe it or not, a big farm isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Especially when you don't have anyone to help take care of it with you. I have actually envied people that have just a few acres. To keep us sane, instead of thinking big, we are thinking small.  Just doing one small project at a time.  Both of us will be happier and more willing to get projects done.  Instead of redoing the whole 55 acres of fence line, do a small amount at a time.  Sooner or later, all of the fence will be fixed and hopefully we won't have to mess with it for a while.

I think this talk has helped us tremendously. I didn't realize how stressed we were thinking of all the stuff we were "gonna" do.  As we do the small things, we will gradually add more.  It's always easier to start small and get bigger. I'm sure there are some of you out there in Blog Land that could take over and have a nice BIG producing farm, but for us, starting over and going small (at first) will be a blessing.

So until next time,

Small Farm Girl, ex-gonna-er

The Promised Calf Pictures

I've been promising calf pictures now for the last two weeks.  The little red one on the right is out of the skinny cow.  This little girl has made it this long so I went and gave her a name.  Her name is Penny.  She is the exact color of a penny. You can't tell it in this picture because 1) It was getting dark when I took this picture, and 2) I took it with my cell phone.  I have other pictures of the little black calf.  Which, by the way, is also a heifer. ( A young cow.) The bigger one in the middle is a bull.  He will probably be in the freezer come next spring.

Here is a better picture of our newest little girl.  She is a nice chocolate brown.  We haven't named her yet.  I usually wait for the names to hit me.   This momma here, hasn't had very many babies.  She will be going to the sale barn soon. If you can't pull your own weight around here, ya gotta go.  Well, we have given her YEARS now and this is her first calf.  I believe she is almost 7 or 8 years old.  She's outta here!  Plus this is the main wild cow.  The other cows have tamed down a bit over the last year.  Not this one.  She's almost to the point of hurting someone and we won't put up with that.

Around the farm we have just about given up on the garden.  I will be getting a little bit here and there, but nothing to do much of anything with.  A VERY bad year for it.  We have decided that we are going to scale down our garden for next year.  When spring comes around we always go over board with the size of the garden.  We always think bigger is better. I'm not giving up on gardening.  I'm just making a garden the size of which I KNOW I can take care of. If the garden was all that we had to do, that would be fine.  But, we have just been overwhelmed with the weather and the farm this year.  We are really doing a lot more than we usually do.  We also want to do things right and not with a "That will do." attitude.  With my back and knees and Hubby working 10 hrs shifts, it's hard to run a 55 acre farm.  We are doing it slowly, but we are getting there. 

Hubby and Country Girl have been cutting hay this last week.  We have 3 more fields to cut yet.  We're hoping for some good rains to help the fields grow some more for a later cutting.  We shall see if that'll happen.  Hay's going to be hard to find around these parts.  Most farmers didn't get to get in the fields early spring because of the rain.  Therefore, they didn't get to cut their fields as many times as usual.  Gonna be an interesting winter.

So until next time,

Small Farm Girl, farmer.