over and back

Leaving Manitowoc Wisconsin.

Arriving in Ludington Michigan.

Leaving Ludington Michigan.

Arriving back at Manitowoc Michigan.

Sorry for the photo overload.  

We took the SS Badger across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc Wisconsin to Ludington Michigan to pick up two of our grandsons to bring them back to our farm for a week's vacation.  We absolutely love being on the water, I unfortunately got a bit queasy from the rolling water on the way over, but on the trip back it wasn't too bad.  We stayed the night in Ludington Mi with our son and his family. 

They came the following weekend to pick up the boys.  We had a wonderful week and weekend spending time with family.

in the hills

On our way to breakfast yesterday, the hills were smoking all around us, I love it when they do.

Momma kitty was all tired out from a day of hunting.  It was hot and humid, and she was absolutely tuckered out.

On my walk the other morning I had some eyes on me.  Our neighbor is going to be done raising beef and this one is the last of 4 that are up here at what is called the upper barn.  It'll be sad not to see any more beef cattle here when I take my walk.

Life here in the hills, you just never know what you'll see.

blackcap jam

Hubby went out and foraged for black raspberries that grow wild on our land, or what locals call blackcaps.  We ended up with about 16 cups of berries from two pickings.

We made blackcap jam using no pectin, and it turned out delicious.  This recipe we found here.  We did water bath the jam for 5 minutes.  We also had 8 cups of berries and added 4 cups of sugar and it really was all you needed.  

The jam tasted so good on homemade bread.

in between the rains

It has been raining all day off and on, so in between rains I took a walk with my walking companion.  She always has to be ahead of everyone, no matter who is with her :)

We stopped to see the cows in the back pasture.  Jim is mowing the pastures in between the rains as well.  The cows do not like the tall grass, but it's been raining so much it has been hard to mow.

We made it to the road, and I never tire of this view.

Looking towards our farm everything looks so green compared to last summer.

 

By the time we both got back home we were soaking wet from the tall grass that we went through, Suuvi was pretty wet as well.  

I will not complain about the rains, but it can let up just a bit ;)

the milk cow

 

The heart of our farm.

One evening before a storm rolled in, we got the animals all settled in so that they would remain safe.  I know they are just animals and can probably weather any storm that comes, but we like to make sure they are all hunkered down and out of the elements, with the few shelters that we have they can go in to get out of the rain or even hail.  

Our milk cow gives us milk, with the milk we make cheese, yogurt, butter and enjoy the delicious cream.  With milk that gets too old but still good we feed the other animals with it.  The chickens and pigs love it, and we enjoy the eggs and meat that they provide.  When Jim milks the cow any cats around will get a treat, a bit of milk in a pan there in the milking parlor, and the cats keep the mice population down.  The manure from the cow fertilizes our pastures making them lusher, and the manure gets put on our gardens in the fall to fertilize them as well.  The gardens feed us, and the pastures feed her.

It's a circle on our farm, and it starts with our milk cow.  

She is the heart of our farm, and we love her so.

canning and rain

In between rain drops I did a bit of canning.  We bought some peaches at the local Amish bulk store.  There is nothing like having canned peaches during the winter months.  We also bought some pineapples at a really good price but unfortunately most of the pineapples were bad (the reason for the cheap price). But despite that each jar still managed to be way under a dollar in cost.

While I was doing canning the rains were falling and Jim emptied the rain gauge so that we could get an accurate measure.  The total rainfall was around 6 inches of rain.  On Sunday we went for breakfast and saw how much flooding there was, some roads were closed but not any road we had taken. 

Last summer we were very dry and this summer we are very wet.  The jury is still out on which one I would rather have if I had a choice.  I'm leaning towards being dry as we can water anything that needs to be watered but you can't take away the moisture.

Despite the flooding we have had some warm humid temps and it's so hard to believe that the days are starting to get shorter, winter will be here before you know it.

making hay before the rains come

Oh, my goodness, we definitely have been busy here, and I keep saying that, but we are. We managed to cut hay and get it baled up for a total of 180 square bales for our first cutting of the year.  We have far surpassed last year's total in the first cutting of hay.

Summer has started out so differently than last year.  Someone said that we have almost caught up to where we should be as far as moisture in the ground, this person digs holes for a living so he definitely would know how deep the moisture should be in the ground.

The gardens are doing well and so are the weeds :)  

Tomorrow is summer solstice, the longest day of the year.  Where oh where did the year go, yikes!

smoking hills and double rainbows

One morning at about 6:40 a.m. the hills were smoking.

We have been having rain off and on lately and the other day we had a beautiful sun shower that ended with a beautiful double rainbow.  It looked like the rainbow was coming out of our trees.

We had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, went to an Amish auction, I did find a few things to bid on but nothing way out of line.

I had meant to post this and now almost a week has gone by and I'm finally getting back to this post.  We received another inch of rain over the past couple of days.  I will not complain especially after the drought we had last summer, but we could use a bit of a break so that we can cut hay and have it dry out before we bale it.  

Life continues to be busy here.

life on the homestead

Everything is green here and we still need to get a few more seeds in the ground, but it has been raining here and the ground is pretty wet to till it up.

Our barn cat had a litter of kittens, they are just adorable.

Another storm came the other day and rained for two days; we got a total of 4.5 inches.

We planted spinach last fall and had been able to pick it most of the winter and early spring.  It's starting to bolt now but we are still managing to get a good amount from our picking.  My husband and I love a good spinach salad and with a homemade dressing it's delicious.

 

Jim plowed and area to plant corn.  The corn we have grown is for feed to feed our animals in the winter when we have to supplement their food.  Here the chickens decided to follow Jim when he was plowing the field.

Life here on the homestead has been busy and will continue to be busy all the way till the fall after all the harvesting and canning is done.

playing catch up here on the blog

It's been a busy spring here on the homestead, so I'm trying to catch up here on the blog.  The garden is almost all planted except for the beans which got put off for another day as we were totally exhausted and just couldn't put another thing into the ground, whew!

We finally got our head gate done and was able to spray each of the cows to help with the flies.  I make a natural spray which doesn't kill the flies but does cut down of the amount that land on the cows.

Letting our cows go out to graze, the season is starting really nice with lush green pastures.

We have a broody hen on the homestead, so we decided to let her sit on some eggs.  I put 13 eggs under her and she's doing great.  We actually put her in a cage to keep the other hens from going on her eggs when she would get off to eat and drink, at the moment we have turkeys in the nursery that is in the chicken coop but once they are out on pasture the mama and eggs will be put carefully into the nursery so not only the other hens won't bother her the nursery is much bigger for her when the chicks hatch.

It's raining again and the ground is getting nicely soaked, we had to run to town for a chiropractor appointment and it rained very hard.

We are feeling so blessed for the rain we have been getting, especially after the drought that we had here last summer.