Jackie Ritz

8:08am

It’s a little early to be journaling but it’s a little early for so much to be on my mind. Summer has been challenging, to say the least. It’s a constant balance of work, being a mother, being a wife, being a farmer. I feel pulled in many directions and for those who say this is the “simple life”, you better come visit me for a week. 

Lately I’ve found my family giving into the conveniences of technology. A little bit is ok, but to be on the iPad, phone or computer for hours a day is just too much. We moved to this rural town to start a farm and to give our children the opportunity to be kids…to run around without me having to keep a constant eye on them…to be free range children. 

The iPad babysitter needs to go. 

It’s not my children’s fault. It’s mine. I’m watching the beautiful day pass by without them in it. I’m watching the beautiful day pass by without me in it. 

Because of the work I do, I cannot completely give up social media and technology, and I don’t think that is the right answer. I just want to be able to put it down better.

I’ve slacked on cooking healthy meals, spending quality time with my kids, and enjoying the summer outside because we have given into technology too much this summer.

I’m praying for discipline as I give myself some new ground rules. 

1. Don’t pick up the phone or computer until after I have gotten ready, done the morning chores, made breakfast, and sat out on the porch and had my quiet time. I did this this morning and what a difference! The morning chores were done by 7:00 am, which is unusual on my farm. We usually wander out there about 8:30 am. 
2. I’m deleting Facebook Messenger App from my phone. My working hours online will be between 9 am-3 pm. After that, I don’t need to be on it until the kids go to bed. This is going to be very hard for me but I’m going to do it. 
3. I’m going to get better about using a scheduling tool to schedule all my posts on social media. That way, I get all the posts done in 10 minutes! 

Other than that which has been heavy on my heart, the animals were all doing good this morning. Sweet Pea (our turkey hen) roosted in the feed room last night for some reason and pooped all over the feed bags. 

I’ve given up on the ducks hatching out ducklings. They started with about 10 eggs that they were sitting on and are down to 4. I was hopeful these four were going to hatch, and I do know they are fertilized by the drake. We had some underdeveloped eggs with ducklings in it so I’m not sure why these last 4 aren’t hatching. I’m about to give up on them and throw the rotting eggs away. I’ve candled them and it looks like there is something in there. We shall see. 

Thursday we are thinning our goose herd. We have 6 right now and need to process (the nice word for butcher) 3-4 of them. The youngest are about 15 weeks now and they were only intended to be raised for Christmas Goose. Plus having 6 geese is GROSS. Their poop is enormous and they can become big bullies. So, once we do that, I’m hoping we can put the geese back into the duck house at night with the ducks. It’s an extra step to separate them…plus the chickens aren’t too happy they are sleeping in their chicken coop. 

Our oldest steer is not quite big enough yet to take to slaughter. He is around 2 years old but after seeing another steer that is headed to slaughter, I think the summer months and early fall is much needed. He isn’t skinny…but he has some weight to put on. Thankfully the rain has helped the grass to grow again and the cows are very happy! 

Snowflake was very happy to see me this morning. I went out there early because I knew she would be very full. Yesterday was her first day going 24 hours between milking. She gave me over a half gallon of milk this morning! I’m really hoping we find the right people to purchase our dairy goats. I want to see them go to a great home…and I don’t want to be milking a goat and cow every day. 

Speaking of milk cow…we are off to see a potential family milk cow this afternoon!!! I’m so excited and she sound like a perfect fit. They are letting me come milk her to see if she is what we want. I’m so happy we found someone local to us selling a Jersey milk cow! 

I’ll check back in after we meet her and tell you all about her!

8:26 pm …. 

Meet Holly, our new Jersey Milk Cow! 

We are buying her!!!!! We visited her today during milking time this evening, and she is a dream! She is, seriously, everything I could ask for in a milk cow. The current owners use a milk machine on her but let me milk her tonight. She didn’t kick me one time. She stood perfectly still, ate her grain, and allowed a stranger to milk her out. 

She has a beautiful udder and large teats (which is a bonus for my man hands). She milks out 2 gallons in the morning and 2 gallons in the evening…4 gallons a day! She has been very well taken care of and is disease free. I loved referencing this post as we were talking with the seller so I knew the questions to ask about Holly. 

The owners deliver her to our farm this Saturday and we have a few things to do to get ready. 

1. I need to make this homemade fly spray to spray on Holly before I milk her so she isn’t bothered by flies. It uses essential oils! 
2. I already ordered this teat spray. It’s non-toxic but effective against mastitis and I might have thrown this Little House Cookbook into my order. I couldn’t resist!
3. My husband is building me a milking area. I’ll be posting pictures as soon as he is done! It’s not gonna be too fancy.
4. I need to sell our goats…anyone want a herd of dairy goats?

The owners are very helpful and local, which is ideal when you are purchasing a milk cow…especially if you have never owned a milk cow. 

They had this great idea of keeping a 25-foot rope attached to her halter for the first few days. This way I’ll be able to catch her before she runs away from me. I’m fully expecting her to be a little skittish of me. 

Ok so more about Holly…she is 2.5 years old. She calved 2 months ago, and they are keeping the calf. She is going into heat this week, and they plan on breeding (AI) her with a Red Angus bull. The calf will be used for meat, which is perfect for us because we have a 2-year-old steer and a 1-year-old steer and would need a steer to follow the rotation. We want to have a meat steer each year to provide grassfed beef for our family. 

So that was the excitement for today! I visited with the hogs this afternoon to see how they were doing. Dang those things are vicious at meal time…we need to build a larger trough for them cause they were fighting over the food (I think that’s normal for pigs though). 

The one on the far left is pregnant and the other 3 are freeloaders at the moment. One of them is our bacon (not sure which one). My husband is in charge of the hogs. We have our duties on the farm, and I told him that if he got pigs, then he gets to take care of them. I take care of the poultry and goats, and he does the rabbits, cattle, and hogs. 

The geese decided to go into the duck house and disturb the broody duck hens. They ended up cracking an egg they were sitting on, and inside was a fully developed duckling. Those stupid geese killed it…I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose, but I’m still upset about it. Good news—I shouldn’t have given up on the broody ducks because those eggs are growing little ducklings! Now if I could get the 6 other ducks to start laying eggs again! Not sure why they are on egg strike. 

The 2 broody chickens in the chicken coop are still sitting on their eggs. They are in the nesting box doing it, so I’m going to keep a close watch around hatching day and make sure I move the mama hens and chicks down from the box and into a safe area. 

The new Australorp pullets are scared spitless! Those poor chickens…thrown into a world of organized chaos that they haven’t made sense of. Don’t tell my husband, but last night I thought I would count the chickens for S&Gs and we have SIXTY! Seriously why would any farm family need 60 chickens? However, tomorrow is Farmer’s Market day, and I am positive we will be able to sell all 15 dozen farm fresh eggs to our loyal customers! 

And how can I forget our picnic today! The kids and I were watching Little House on the Prairie, and they went outside to have a picnic.

Barefoot Boy asks, “Why don’t we ever have a picnic, Mommy?” 

And Mommy finished work at around noon and packed up lunch and told the kids we were going outside for a picnic. I made their day! Simple things create such joy in them and remind me to find joy in those simple things again. 

I’m spent, as always, and ready to go to bed! Night world!

 

I’ve decided to to keep a diary of my day-to-day happenings on the farm this summer. I’ll try to post an entry every day, but we all know how farm life can be!

The pictures in these posts will be from my iPhone…just things I snap and mostly use to put on Instagram or in my own personal keepsake folders.

 Homesteading can be magical, tough, rewarding, and challenging. I hope you enjoy this journal of mine this summer! Make sure you are subscribed to my emails. I’ll be sending out reminders once a week to check the blog and catch up on the barnyard happenins! 

Monday, July 25, 2016, 2pm 

A few days ago I set hatching eggs under 2 broody hens. I tried doing this a few weeks ago, and I didn’t have success. When I tried to move the broody hen to a safer spot, she stopped sitting on the eggs and left them. I didn’t have any other broody hens at the time, so the eggs were thrown in the trash. You can’t eat half-developed eggs, and I’m adamant about mama hen raising them and not mama Jackie. 

So, this time I let the broody hens stay up in the nesting boxes and so far, they are still there! I selected 8 eggs to put under each of them and wrote the date on the eggs with pencil, “July 20.” Once I caught broody hen #1 (Wilma) in another nesting box and another hen on her eggs. This happens when the broody jumps down to get some food and water and loses her spot. 

So, I took the thief off the eggs (there were 9 now!) and moved the broody hen back into her spot. The 16 eggs should hatch in 21 days…so August 10. They will be barnyard mutts mostly since we have a mixed breed chicken yard! It’s ok…barnyard mutts still lay just as many eggs. 

I added in 7 Black Australorp pullets to the flock yesterday. I’ve been wanting to add this breed to the barnyard but didn’t want to raise more chicks. However, in my search for a Jersey milk cow, I saw a lady on Craigslist selling 3-month-old Black Australorp pullets (that means young hens). 

I quickly contacted her and picked them up yesterday, and now I’m on the search of a Black Australorp rooster. I am interested in this breed because they lay 4 eggs a week, but also grow out big! So, if you have a few roosters in your flock, at 16 weeks old, you can butcher than for meat. 

I’m taking it easy today…this weekend was full of gardening and preserving. I had way too many yellow squash and zucchini and made 8 quarts of lacto-fermented squash pickles. I used onions that I had been curing in the garage, yellow squash, zucchini, some garlic, and a sprinkle of black tea. Tea keeps it crunchy…or so we shall see. 

My tomatoes are doing great! I had so many I needed to do something with them, and I decided to make 17 pints of salsa. I had to pick up some bell peppers at the store, since mine didn’t really grow too well, but I was able to use jalapeños, cilantro, onions, and tomatoes from the garden. 

Boy—did that take forever! Thankfully, the hubby helped me cut the tomatoes and I gave them all a dunk in the canner for 15 minutes. 

Tomorrow is the day I’ve waited for for a long time. I get to meet a potential new member of the farm…a Jersey Milk Cow! We have decided to sell our small dairy goat herd and purchase a milk cow instead. I’m going to miss my goats, and this has been a very hard decision for me. 

We started with goats because we only had 2 acres, but now that we have 10 acres, we want a cow, because there is more you can do with the milk. With goat milk, I can’t make butter, and I have to buy my cream. Goat milk is amazing for your body because it’s naturally homogenized. The only downside of that is you don’t have much cream to make butter and other things with like cream fraiche! 

It seems with this life, you are always re-evaluating what you need, what you use most, what you don’t really like, and what annoys the junk out of you. 

We sold our 2 Dexter cows this weekend too. They couldn’t get pregnant, and the seller purchased them back from us. We still have our 2 Dexter steers we are raising for meat. 

And then we got a new bred sow this weekend! Hahah, you all must be thinking we are crazy with all this buying and selling. It’s just how it is! This new sow is an American Guinea pig, which we love. We already have 3: 1 boar, 1 sow, and 1 we are raising for meat. We want 2 sows so we can have a continual supply of bacon! 

Well, that’s it for now. I need to go make sure my new 3-month-old hens aren’t getting pecked at by the older hens. We separated them last night so there wouldn’t be any fights, and I’m comfortable with them all being together today because we free range them. They can run away if the older hens are being bullies. 

Also, the kids are begging me to watch another episode of Little House on the Prairie. I love that they love that show as much as I do. I was just chatting with a friend on how that show is, most likely, responsible for planting those seeds of homesteading in my heart. And if you haven’t gone back and watched (or read) it as an adult…then you need to. You will fully appreciate the hard work homesteaders used to do back then. I also LOVE seeing the foods they ate and all the butter they used! 

7:50pm 

There’s always something to do, someone to feed. Today, we were exhausted…we always are. No rest in the evening till the evening chores are done. Tonight we started earlier and since I’m moving the milk goat to once-a-day milking, the chores were on the lighter side. Poor Snowflake couldn’t figure out why we weren’t going to spend our 5 minutes together during milking. I hope she is ok this first night of not being milked. In the morning, I’m sure she will be about to explode! She usually gives me just under a half gallon at each milking and we always have extra to feed the pigs.

 I collapsed on the couch tonight. Exhausted but so fulfilled. The farm is coming along just the way we want it to and after 3 years of doing this homestead thing, I feel confident in what we are doing. We’ve learned what animals fit best and how to manage them in a way where they manage our farm and do most the work. 

Chickens should free range and forage most their own food. Ducks should be able to swim in the creek. Turkeys roost wherever. Cows spend all day and night on the pasture. We should just be conductors of the beautiful music the farm makes. 

Ciao for now!