This post is for people who like machines.

A tractor is essential for farming.  It exponentially multiplies our labor.  Here I am moving a livestock hutch.

Ours has tracks which makes it slow (tops out at 3mph).  But those tracks allow you to do so much more.  I seriously doubt any 4x4 tractor could rescue a hay bale on a significant incline (plus the soil was damp).

Here is a pic just in case the Struck Corp. (the manufacturer) stumbles across this blog and wants to use me in one of their ads.

This is the most interesting thing I've done so far.  The farm foreman (on the right) suggested I help free this road tractor.

My tractor has a 31hp motor and only weighs two tons and that road tractor probably weighs seven tons!  Turns out he was right (that's why he's the foreman).  I never thought I could pull a dual axle with an overnight cab.  It wasn't easy but eventually I pulled it out (while the truck's tires were turning).  There is no way a similarly sized 4x4 tractor could have done this.  Amazing.

And here is a pick of the hog farmer.

It's Paul again, sneaking in another entry (Tonya is threatening to kick me off her blog, please send her an email letting her know how intelectually stimulating my posts are).

I took Tonya out on a back-woods country date.  I forgot to bring beer though.  I wonder if Deb and Glenn would be impressed with my dating skills.

Here is a close-up of my girlfriend (you go girl!).  Yes that is purple and yes that is Hello Kitty in 9 m m.

This is the road I took (if the van broke down out here I was going to save money on the repair and use if for target practice).

We picked up a five week old boar out of this litter (we bought him from a farmer who does confinement raising which we don't like [the herd we are starting will graze].  Notice how the pigs are filthy, the brown ones are actually white).  That's also about five days of growth for me, I'm shaving even less now (but I am still bathing regularly).

Pigs can get really big 5-600 lbs. (and sows with litters can be dangerous if you get close).  One of these sows is the grandmother of the boar we bought.

Taking a break watching chickens, Trins is working on her hog farmer girl pose.  The netting is electric and produces a nice jolt.  These are the same chickens from two months ago.

It's Paul, just more items from the cutting room floor.

This pic was taken during a tense moment. Someone called Sammy a girl, and then I'm pretty sure through his pacifier I heard "Weally? Watch dis girl open a can o' whoopash on you" after which I had to intervene.

TJ is trying to decide between being a farmer or a hat model. If he's lucky the closest he'll get is getting picked for the local WalMart catalog if one of us gets a job there.  "TJ, son of Paul who works in the stock room."

Here is an interesting public school bus.

Just so there are no surprises when people visit, here is one room you might sleep in. This is what I call the estrogen room, it has pink walls and a thick pink shag carpet (it also has girl toys in it).

And here is Boss Hog (Trinity's new nickname).  When she calls them they come running, it's fun to watch.

Fence Post

Our recent days have been filled with fencing, or lack of it.  Combine our inexperience of electric with some stubborn, determined and sneaky goats and pigs, and you get frustration!  It is the hard way, but the boys and Paul are learning a lot.  TJ is becoming a master electric fencing guy and gets to learn something new every time the pigs squeeze out, root the posts up with their noses, or discover that electricity is not flowing.  The kids (goats) love to be around us, so they look for every opportunity to find a weakness (and even get into the house).    

   

We have learned there can’t be too much brush near the line, and how not to set it up over a depression in the ground.  Unfortunately the semi-permanent electric fence that was already here was not installed well (too much slack between posts and weak connections).  I guess they were fine for cattle, a more compliant animal.  We will be working on this for a while. 

Keena: "Yeah, those posts are striaght & even!"

Patience and self-control are the other things we are learning.  Every time I hear, “Uuuugh,” outside or from a window, I know something got out.  They are learning how to heard pigs.  It is most difficult to get them away from the oak tree.  Remember, Piglet loves his “haycorns” and I think it is our pigs' favorite too. 

Some quick updates (from Paul, the unsophisticated blogger):

We picked up two new kids (they are the furry non-bipedal ones).

One of the old kids with one of our bipedal kids without fur.

TJ learning how to rip old fence posts out.

TJ and I with some big help from Caleb have been putting up fencing for many days, animals keep getting out and fencing has jumped to the top of the todo list (Trinity has spent her time chasing pigs).

My new work environment.  I was assembling a feeding trough in the corner of a shed and was visited by the new kids on the block.  They don’t talk about sports or waste other people’s money or a bunch of other stupid things I could talk about but won’t.

This goat is either admiring the blue color of Caleb's jeans or thinking about placing its horns into what probably look like two giant pin cushions.

Check out Blaise’s farm attire on a cold day – shorts and crocks (maybe we could invent steel- toed crocks for the farm).

And here is the T72.  Check out Calvin’s perfect rabbit ears.  This is what we use to clear fields (it's a modern farm).  The tank has farm tags on it and when we see a tree we don't like we eliminate it.  Ok, before my mom gets worried we don't have one of these (I wish we did).  The farm yard isn't littered with old Russian hardware, pics with tanks were taken back in VA.

It's Tonya's husband again, so here is the disclaimer: The following is not from Tonya, the following information is provided for entertainment purpose only.

We picked up some pigs the other day.  They are very docile unless you move them from their comfortable surroundings, they fight and scream so loud that if you closed your eyes you'd think you were in a steel mill.  As they were making me look foolish because I couldn't grab one I thought "no wonder they grease them and allow kids to try and catch them."  I'm not even sure you need to grease them.  They sure are cute though, except for their poop.  Just ask Keena.

Pigs are just like rototillers.  They are amazing, now I know why you are supposed to give them room to roam and rotate them into different fields.  Pig meat is also actually red, not white.  The "other white meat" thing is just a marketing ploy.  Keeping pigs cooped up in massive F DA approved facilities changes the meat so it does not have the same nutritional value as pigs that graze.  I can also better appreciate the cliche "you eat like a pig" after watching these guys.  We supplement with a little corn and pig feed but most of their food comes from vegetation until later in winter.

This is just before checking out animals at the auction (Calvin is working on his cowboy pose and TJ is becoming master of the electric fence).

Things are bigger in MO, especially marshmallows ("no Keena, I'm not going to buy those") and tennis balls.

Here I made a rear gate for the truck bed out of trampoline parts, 

Our little girl's hair sure is soft and pretty.  Why did we give her a boy's name?  I've got to ask Tonya about that.

Local raw milk & honey, on the honey it says "...all the essential minerals necessary for life, 7B-complex vitamins, amino acids, and other vital ingredients.... processed honey has been heated and filtered which destroys its nutritional value."  Also, the milk is actually $5 a gallon.  Milk at Walmart is $4+ so we just go to a farm and buy it, and no, you don't have to boil it and kill it's nutritional value like the gubmit says.  As you learn more about producing food and speaking with other farmers, you realize that the "raw milk is illegal" claim from the gubmit has nothing to do with protecting your health. Big milk producers absolutely don't want farms to sell milk because it cuts into their profits.  So that's where the health dept comes in.  It's really ole fashioned fascism, it's not capitalism that's going on.  The big producers call favors in from their friends in the health departments around the country.  For example, in MO, I can sell milk from a farm, but if I step off of the property and sell the same milk where the big producers do it's illegal.  How does the milk change when it leaves the farm?  It doesn't.  The real reason I can't is because I can sell a better gallon of milk that's already in high demand and spend only a fraction producing it compared to the big milk companies and their health dept. "approved" facilities.  Plus by doing so it demonstrates how the health dept. is absolutely useless when it comes to protecting our health and only wastes our money.

    

Animal shopping.  It's like used car shopping except... we'll I guess it's just like used car shopping because you can check out a few things but you can never know everything.

We ate at the only restaurant in Highlandville. The meal was truly excellent, and they have something called fried pies. It was so quiet and felt so remote compared to what we're used to that it didn't matter what was going on in the rest of the world.  I also met one of Highlandville's two cops and the Mayor.

For my next post I'm going to try and get a pic of our postal lady.  When I was dropping off mail a customer heard me say that we just moved from NoVA.  He said “Northern VA?  That’s a big change, what brings you here?”  I said that I needed to get away from politically correct stupidity.  The postal lady then said “We don’t follow any of those rules around here.”  She sounded like a female version of Clint Eastwood (but she didn't call me "pilgrim").

Musings on Our Dog and His Freedom

     While on one acre nestled in moderately dense suburbia, our dog, Otto, had very little freedom.    It was limited to the house; even if he was allowed to roam the backyard, he would clear the four-foot fence when one of our many squirrels caught his eye.  He was only doing his job, since he is a Schnauzer that is bred to take care of little rodents.  The hunting game was always cut short by the distractions of the freedom in sight, as was true when the front door was left open and he would run.    

     He would run so fast that his back legs appeared to reach the tip of his nose as he sped down the road in a ball of dust.  The kids had to ride their bikes to fetch him.  He ran, oblivious to the dangers around him:  vehicles speeding, do-gooders calling the pound, larger dogs protecting their territory and owners of little dogs threatening to call the police because Otto liked to exert his dominance.  We would eventually find him.  Strangers would even help us at times.  He seemed to always get distracted by something else in the neighborhood and we could grab him.

     When we arrived at the new homestead, the temptations to run came.  He ran, explored, but came back.  He even crossed the 65 mph highway once.  Soon the bolting out the front door stopped, and now his explorations are rarely out of site of the house.   He knows his territory and protects it, and now enjoys lounging on the front porch in the sun.   Now when Otto wants to play, it is not a game of hide-and-seek with the anxiety of not knowing where he will decide to run, but a pleasurable game of tag as he runs huge circles around the tagger.  He prefers to be at my feet, walk with me to the mailbox, and lay down near TJ as he studies.  He responds to his name now, not perfect, but we are getting there.  Cats and ducklings are a distraction, but he pays no heed to the chickens and there is one that likes to follow him from time to time.   A radical change in our puppy; he is like a new dog. 

     As I noticed this radical change, I pondered a little on child rearing and what can happen if the leash is too tight, but I predominately thought about our relationship with our creator, our Master.  Before knowing our redeemer we are in bondage to our sin--it enslaves us.  It controls us.  We are always running to our pleasures: entertainment, the next event, comforts of life, etc.  We run to success, striving to achieve and get lost in the busyness of life.  We run to power and control, wanting it all to go our way.   But we are still trapped within the walls of the house, never getting out though we run.

      In Christ we are free.  Since Christ has set us free, we shall be free indeed.  Because of his death in our stead and his resurrection we have been freed from the bondage of sin and death.  When one becomes a Christian, he loses that desire to run, though the temptation is always there and he fails at times.  But he is no longer on the leash with sin holding on the other end.  Christ broke the leash because of his own mere pleasure and grabbed us.  With that freedom a peace and contentment comes and a desire to sit at the Master’s side.  No longer a running to hide from Him in worldly pleasures but to be with Him, respond to His voice and please Him.

     There are times when the Christian gets distracted by the things of the world and ventures to far, as Martha, who got consumed with the cares of the world.  But his desire is that of Mary’s, to sit at his Master’s feet, to listen and to please.  With Otto’s freedom came that same desire, and so it is with our freedom in Christ, a desire to be with Him and no longer run.

Warning: It’s me again.  Tonya wants it known that the following is from her husband so here is another disclaimer.  This entry has not yet been rated by the Motion Picture Association nor is it valid in Alaska or Hawaii.  This entry also probably causes cancer in California.

The land in IN is pretty darn flat (I know, that's a great pic of my rear view mirror).

Trying to fit in with the guys, it didn't work.

At around the 700 mile mark the drive becomes very difficult.  This is when you wish your vehicle had features like a built in bun (Tonya won't like that).. er, um a seat massager.  I know, I see it too, I'll stop for fuel at the next exit.

Finally made it, unloading the base of the 2nd goat shed.  And this is essentially the view.

If Heaven needed a Sheriff's dept, they might use these cruisers (look closely at the county).

Our version of an HOA pool (no fees, no one to tell you what to do and no running unless you're bigfoot - the small rocks really hurt your feet).

What the heck?  How did this get in here?  Keena: "Oh sure, do you really think mom wants to see this pic in her blog?"

TJ: "Keena, I know mom doesn't want these pics, this will be the the last one" (a T55... if anyone wants to see a T72 I'll try to slip it in).

Ok, I've got to get back on track, here is a bread thief (I'm glad that loaf was free).