Equipment Review: Barnyard Cat

Socks, Pasture Bad Boy.


One of the best things about living on a dead end dirt road is the lack of traffic. One of the worst things is people drop off their unwanted pets on our road quite often.  That's how this bad boy came to live with us. Of course I let him stay after my kids gave me the pitiful eye all day. He was weeks old and was nothing but skin and bones. My daughters nursed him and his two brothers back to health and I took them to the vet and had the whole bunch neutered. That little act must have really pissed his brothers off because they didn't hang around to see what I had in store for them next. He's missing part of an ear and he's had his hide ripped clean off of his back a couple of times, but he is durable. No matter what happens to him, he always makes it.  Notice I didn't say he's my cat, I don't believe anybody owns Socks. He's his own man and comes and goes like he pleases. He's 14 years old now and I hear that's pretty old for a cat that's never spent a single night in a house.  I will say this, he does a fine job of keeping the rodents and snakes out of my barn and feed containers, and in turn, I feed him. Here's how he stacks up on a scale of  1 to 10:

Rodent Control-10
Snake Control-7
Value vs Feed Cost-9
Hugability-10

On a more serious note, Shadow our new bull calf is doing good. He is getting more active everyday and he's a joy to watch as he runs and hops around the pasture. I'm gonna put him and his mom in with the big cows at the end of the week. His mom has a bad milk bag. The ligaments that hold her udder up are torn or stretched so bad that her bag hangs way too low. It would be very easy for her to scrape it and have it get infected. It breaks my heart but I don't plan on breeding her again, and that was the main reason I bought her. I think I got snookered.  I have read that it's a genetic thing and will be passed on to her offspring.  Next time I buy a cow, I'm gonna have to have some kind of Udder gauruntee. I'm gonna have a real equipment review soon. I just bought a motorized auger for fence post. I plan on using it on Thursday and then I'll tell you all about it. 

Shadow checking Bonnie out. 

He's filling out nicely.

I'm Blogging Again or alternate title " You Cant Handle the Truth!

I love that scene in A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson tells Tom Cruise that he "CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH". That is so very true about so many subjects. We were having lunch after Church today with our friends and were asked what we were going to name our new calf. Our friend stopped there and said, " Oh yall are gonna eat it aren't you? I couldn't eat anything that I took care of and fed." Well yes we are gonna eat it, two years from now. But that little calf that I have named "Shadow" is gonna have an awesome two years before that happens. 

Shadow enjoying some fresh Mama's Milk.

Most people buy their meat from a chain grocery store and therefore are disconnected from the truth about where their meat comes from. It's sitting there in the counter all neatly wrapped and there is no evidence that it was once a living breathing animal. If that is you that's how you live, that's OK with me, but the hard truth that people really don't want to hear is you are supporting factory farming and that package of burger you're buying didn't come from any one cow, it came from the scraps of many cows. Those cows were not treated very well. There is antibiotics in your meat. Those cows had to have loads of antibiotics so they wouldn't die of disease in the conditions they are raised. Those cows never walk leisurely across a green pasture stopping to munch on some grass as they head down to the pond to get a drink. They stand in manure 24/7 with no shade and are fed grain by a conveyor or truck. I could go on and on about feedlot beef but I'll save that for another time.

Typical Feedlot operation. 

Let's get back to Shadow and his life, Shadow will outlive your beef by almost a year. During that time, he will run, play, and watch butterflies land on wild flowers. He'll enjoy many trips to the pond for a cool drink and he'll wade around in there every now and then eating lily pads. He'll always have access to shade and  he'll spend a lot of time laying in the shade of Hickory trees just like he is doing right this very minute as I watch him through my window.  He'll be with other cattle, but he'll never be crowded. He'll be rotated weekly through a series of pastures to make sure he has fresh healthy grass to eat at all times. He'll never eat corn, and he'll never be implanted with growth hormones. He'll never be injected with antibiotics. He'll be happy and healthy. As a cow's life goes, he's gonna have it pretty good. Don't think that we are terrible people because we eat our own beef. The truth is, We're much kinder than the millions of people that get they're beef from the store. 

I'm gonna be bloggin about raising your own food and buying locally raised food. I'll be reviewing some equipment, and telling you about things we do as we raise our own food. There will be some cool photography and some cell phone pics. I think I'm pretty funny so I'll be cracking some jokes. Check out my blog often. I am gonna make a real effort to post at least a couple of times a week.

Moo Cows

We've been raising our own beef for about 12 years. Back before the building boom in the early 2000's we had some land leased and were actually selling cattle to the feed lots. That's when I started learning about feed lots. I regret that any of my cattle were used for that. A feed lot is a place where cows go to become mass produced, unhealthy food. They stand in a small pen with many other cows being feed as much corn as they will eat for about 150 days. They get really fat during this time. Eventually, they are standing belly deep in cow crap. When they are slaughtered, the crap goes right on in to the slaughter house with them on their hair. That's how e-coli gets in your beef that you get from the store. Cows that are not feed corn do not carry the e-coli bacteria. Hmmmmm imagine that. Cows are not designed to be corn eaters. Cows are bovines and have four stomachs. They are grazers. Grass is their natural food.

All natural, grass feed organic beef on the hoof.

Now we just keep a couple of steers for our own personal consumption. When we get one butchered, we get about 650 lbs of healthy, lean, e-coli free, beef. Our hamburger is amazing, and so is our cube steak, but to tell you the truth, our steaks kinda suck. That's because we don't have all that fat in our steaks. The fat that comes from corn is what makes steaks tender and taste good . I'd rather eat the lean hamburger and know what's in my beef. I know farmers that take sick cattle to the sale. I tell you, the more I learn, the less desire I have to eat anything that comes from a grocery store.  Even if you can't raise your own beef, maybe you can find a farmer in your area that will sell you some. You'll never know until you try.

Bonnie Bell sizing up a steer.

Above is a picture of our Border Collie Bonnie. Her mom was a champion herding dog and I believe she was even on ESPN. Bonnie is a champion frisbee catcher....well not really a champion, but she's good at it, and she'll do it until she collapses. I've seen her do it. She's probably the smartest dog that I have ever seen and outsmarts me every once in awhile. She's getting old now and she's slowing down a lot. I know that one day she will leave us and I am not looking forward to that day. Some people think that I am heartless because I eat animals that I raise. God intended it that way. He gave us dominion over all the animals of the Earth and told us to make food of them. Don't believe me, look it up. It's in the Bible. I'm not gonna tell you where you kind find it yourself. Now I do not believe in cruelty. Our cows have a good life, way better than the cows that you get in the store, and never again will I send one to a feed lot.

Dave can do it!

It you have been reading my blog in it's infancy, you can see the direction I am going with this. You can eat healthier, and you can even grow some of your own food no matter where you live. We've already established that processed food is full of chemicals that I can't pronounce and that we have no idea what chemicals and pesticides are on the produce in the grocery store. I want to encourage you to grow some of your own food. It's better for you, and it can be very enjoyable.

Dave stands next to his pole beans. Behind him are Blueberries.

Meet my friend Dave. Dave lives in town on a regular size lot. I was at his house today and you should see all the fruits and vegetables he has growing and all in a kinda small space. I saw green beans, yellow beans, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, blue berries, peaches, oranges, and even pineapples. I probably missed some too.

These blueberries are delicious!

All of his plants look better than mine and he attributes that to his compost pile. He even had tomatoes growing out of the compost pile that looked better than mine. Now he has been at it longer than I have and he soil is in much better condition, but mine will get there.  Dave and his wife Nellie put all of their kitchen scraps in the pile. I took a peek at the bottom. Dark rich compost is waiting to be added to his garden.

Dave's secret, compost!

 Dave can probably disconnect from the grocery store as far as fruits and vegetables are concerned. In a very small space he is raising enough food to feed a family. All of his vegetable beds look very neat and compliment his yard nicely. Every thing is trimmed and well taken care of.

In this small space, Dave has onions, cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes. All that food in a small attractive bed.

You really have no excuse for not taking charge of the food your family is eating, even if it is just growing one tomato plant. It would be a good start and when you taste the difference between a store bought tomato and a home grown one, I think you'll try more vegetables.

This is the first time that I have ever seen pineapples growing. I was stoked!

Fun on the Farm

Today started off just like any other day. Up with the chickens, feed the dogs, feed the chickens, water the chickens, add worms to the compost pile, plant cucumbers, plant carrots, plant lettuce, clean manure out of the chicken coop and add it to the compost pile. Then it got fun.

This hen is not just a source of eggs, she makes the fertilizer for our garden too!

My buddy Tim has been wanting some cow manure to put in his garden. Since I have a never ending supply of fresh cow crap, I told him to come on over. He showed up with some help and a trailer to get it. It didn't take long to fill up a trailer with five of us shoveling the manure, so since I am a 14 year old trapped in a 50 year old's body, I started goofing off. Kyle started pitching cow patties to me and I was hitting them with a shovel. Manure would fly everywhere. Yep doesn't take much to amuse me.

Matt gives this load of manure the "Thumbs Up" while Brian just keeps working.

In all seriousness, cow manure and chicken manure make great fertilizer. My goal is to totally be able to grow my vegetables next year with no chemical fertilizer. I am composting the manure and my wife Melinda is going to be starting a worm farm soon. The castings from the worms and the liquid from the process make the best fertilizer you can get. I am just done with all the chemicals and additives that are in our food these days. Did you know that chemicals that have been banned in this country are still used on crops in the countries that import food to us? Did you also know that less than 2% of these imported vegetables and fruits are inspected upon entry to this country. It's a challenge to find a vegetable or fruit in the grocery store that is from the good ole USA. So we can safely say that most of that produce has no certain criteria that it has to meet before it gets on your table. Who knows what it's been sprayed with. I am not trying to scare you, just make you aware of what you are eating. Now just because something is from the U. S. doesn't mean it's safe and healthy. I know a farmer that has treated human sewage dumped in his pastures. It doesn't smell like it's been treated too much. His cows eat the grass that it's dumped on, thus ingesting the human sewage. After they do this for a few months, they are loaded on a trailer, taken to the sale, and if you buy your beef at a grocery store, ultimately end up on YOUR hamburger bun.

A chemical free Sweet Banana Pepper just about ready for our table.

That's why we are disconnecting from the grocery store. I have big plans for our 5 acre homestead. As I make progress, I'll keep you up to date and hopefully inspire some of you to disconnect too, even if it's only starting a container garden on your patio. I can do it,and you can do it too. I believe Thomas Jefferson once said  " Farming is the backbone of Democracy". I'll post about my feelings on that at a later date. Don't want to scare you off too soon. LOL

You can do this!

Do you know what you are eating? Do you know what's in your food? Take a look at the labels. I can't even pronounce the ingredients in most foods that you buy everyday on the grocery store shelves. Our bodies were not designed to eat chemicals, we were designed to eat food. Did you know that the beef that you buy in the store was kept in a feed lot and feed corn 24/7 for 150 days? Cows are bovines and not supposed to eat corn. Cows are meant to eat grass. If a cow is feed nothing but corn, it will die from fat buildup in the blood. That same fat is going into your blood when you eat feed lot cattle. I can go on and on with examples of large scale corporate farming and how unhealthy it is for you. When you pack animals into small spaces with no room to move, and they stand in their own feces and urine until they are slaughtered, you are going to have disease. No way around it. So to counteract these diseases, your food is pumped full of antibiotics.

I'm gonna pick this one today!

My wife and I used to raise a lot of our own food. We have five acres and have been raising our own beef for years. We kept a small garden and ate wild game that I harvest during the hunting season. But we got busy just like everybody else and slowly starting depending on the grocery store more and more. We were working and chasing our kids around as they played sports all year long. We ate fast food a lot. We had to do that right? There was no time for anything else. Well I packed on the pounds and started having some health issues. Our kids are all grown up now so there are no excuses. We actually started a few months ago becoming "disconnected from the grocery store", that's what I like to call it. We built a compost pile. My wife is really into it. She saves every little kitchen scrap to go into that thing. I will blog more on composting later. We then built a chicken coop and purchased 12 chicks from the feed store. We will start getting fresh eggs in about 10 more weeks. The egg shells go into the compost pile. When the chickens stop laying, they will be replaced and become chicken pie. I can already hear some of you  gasping, " he's gonna kill the chickens?" I used to work for a major poultry producer and trust me on this, my chickens will have a much better and longer life than the ones you buy at the store. We planted a decent size garden which includes, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, sweet onions, watermelons, and we have pumpkins growing that I didn't plant. They came up from a pumpkin we had in the compost pile. I guess my pile didn't get hot enough to kill the seeds.

One of our girls, she'll be laying soon.

You don't have to have 5 acres to grow your own food and eat healthy. You can grow vegetables and fruit in the smallest of yards. You can even grow in containers on your patio. I have a friend that lives in town and he has a small yard. He has oranges, peaches, beans, cabbage, tomatoes, and all kinds of things growing in his back yard. He has them arranged in flower beds and everything looks neat and well kept. He has a compost bin that he made that looks very neat. You can buy your meat from local growers. You don't have to eat meat that is full of chemicals, growth hormones, and antibiotics. Did you know that cows that feed on nothing but grass do not carry e-coli? You can keep a few chickens in a small coop or almost everybody knows somebody that has chickens and you can buy eggs from them. This food you buy will cost a little more than mass produced food, but that's only at the register. It will save you plenty in the long run and may even save your life.

What's more natural than this?

I will be blogging on what we are doing and things we are trying on our small family farm. I will keep you up to date on our road to disconnecting completely from the grocery store.