Chick Update

A mixture of fun and frustrating is how I could sum up the chick raising process for us this summer.  I decided I would give an update now that we are probably at the mid-point.

Yesterday I took some pictures of our latest chicks to hatch.  This White Rock hen hatched 14 chicks on June 21st, so they were 5 days old yesterday afternoon in these pictures, and doing great.  It was fun to see so many chicks hatch! 

13 chicks were dark and 1 was white.  I use the past tense terms because tragedy struck her brood last night.  Lisa saw a hawk attack at dusk while she was in the garden, but the mama and chicks went into their box so we couldn't see how many of the 14 made it.  I don't know how many chicks a hawk could take at one time.  Maybe something else besides that one attack had happened also?  But this morning there are only 7 chicks with this mama, 6 dark and that 1 white one.  There was another dark chick left in the nest dead with an apparent broken neck.  How did that happen?  It is very frustrating to go from 14 to 7 in one evening.

Meanwhile, Buffy still has kept all 12 of her brood, not loosing a single one (yet).  All 12 are dark, but are showing some pretty markings.  They hatched June 12th so they are 14 days old in these pictures.  They have been very fun to watch.

The first chicks to hatch this year are now 25 days old and so much bigger!  Of the 11 original chicks, this White Rock hen is down to just 5; 3 dark and 2 white.  You can see in the above pictures what a pretty pattern two of the dark ones now have.  I think they are both cockerals.  The other dark one is staying pretty much black.  I wrote about the 5 that got taken by the coon and then the very next day, Matthew saw a hawk flying off with another of the chicks!  It was frustrating that while we had the coon captured in the cage, we see a hawk swoop right down above the coon and take another chick!

On another frustrating note yesterday.  One of the White Rock hens that had been setting on a nest since June 16th walked off the job yesterday.  I had been noticing that she seemed to be neglecting her nest more and more the past few days, but now she seems to be done with it altogether.  So those 15 eggs are now no good to eat or to hatch.  (At least they will still be a benefit for the pigs!)

We also found the black hen that I knew had a clutch of eggs somewhere in the wild.  For the past three weeks or so I would see her for a few minutes as she got food and water, but she would always disappear before I could see where she goes.  And then yesterday afternoon, Simon heard chicken sounds under our house right next to the back porch!  We were able to peak under the house and saw the hen, some eggs, and at least one, wet chick!  How fun!

But... it seems that our mama cat was also interested in the strange sounds coming from under the house.  After dark, we heard some wild chick peeping sounds like something was getting them!  We didn't exactly see Fritsie or the kittens with any chicks when we looked all around, but the kitten Puff was not very hungry for the can food when we decided to give it to them.  Not fun!  I hope we gave them enough food that they were full all night and left the mama hen and nest alone!  The nest is in a location that would be very difficult for us to get at and move, and since the eggs were just hatching we thought it would be a bad idea to move them anyway.  At first I thought she was a smart hen for picking that place because it is too tight an area for the dogs to get in, and I know that Luna eats eggs if she can find them!   I guess later today we will be able to see if any of those chicks survived their first day of life, or if our cats continued to feast!  If they can get hatched and established, I think the mama hen will be able to keep the cats away like the other mama hens do.

In addition to the hen under the house, we still have 3 other hens setting on nests as of this morning.  A black hen is setting on 10 eggs in a nest we made in an old hamper and they should hatch this Saturday, the 29th.  A White Rock hen has 7 eggs in the dog house that should hatch the following weekend, and another White Rock hen has a clutch of 14 eggs in a cage set to hatch on July 12th.  I'm sure they will each give us a mixture of fun and frustrating experiences during the upcoming weeks, but I hope they will be mostly fun!

If you are keeping up with our chick count, we now have 24 living chicks between the 3 mama hens as of this writing.  Maybe there are more with the hen under the house.  I'm sure we will have some additional frustrating losses as the summer moves on, but hopefully we will also get to enjoy some more fun hatches as well. 

You know, after thinking about it, those words "fun" and "frustrating" are two words that pretty much describe every aspect of our entire homesteading adventure!  Life sure is complicated, isn't it?

We Lost 5 Chicks Overnight

Argh!  I'm so mad! 

I've always tried to share on this blog both the good and the bad of our life here at Pure Water Hollow Homestead, even though I naturally tend to lean more toward the positive aspects.  But more often, things do not go as perfectly as planned around here.  I'm sure this is due to the fact that we are not perfect.  We just go day by day and try to do the best we can with the limited skills and knowledge we possess, making plenty of mistakes.

Yesterday evening I moved the nest box/cage where our first hen hatched out those 11 chicks.  She is still using it as the place to take her chicks in for night, and then she waits patiently for me to open it up each morning to allow her to free range with her chicks.  I guess I had not cleaned out enough of the hatching mess from 17 days ago, because I noticed that it was starting to smell pretty bad.  I decided that it would be wise to move it over a couple of feet into some fresh ground and make up a nice, clean, new nest of hay for them.  The mama seemed to be happy with the new arrangement and took all 11 of her chicks into the newly remodeled, clean nest.  I closed them up, like usual, to keep them "safe".

This morning I opened it up just like all the other mornings to let the mama and the chicks out.  To my horror, there were only 6 chicks instead of 11!  I saw all 11 go in last night, but only 6 are there this morning!  After examining the box closer I saw the problem.  These box/cages I am using for most the setting hens are old boxes that we built in 2006 and the wood is getting rotten around the bottoms in places.  They are really over-due to be replaced, but it never seems like we have the time around here to get so many other things done that I deem more important.  So, I've been making do with what we've got.  I place bricks, cement blocks, or logs around the bases of the cages in places that seem weak.  This particular cage was pretty firm and well settled into the ground before I moved it yesterday evening.  But after moving it, I guess the bottom of the box was up a bit off the ground in places.  I didn't notice a problem last night, and it doesn't look like there is more than an inch gap anywhere, but I guess it was enough, along with the weakening, thin plywood back, to invite calamity.  I believe something like a raccoon was able to reach under that back wall and pull the chicks out from under the mama, one at a time, and have a feast.  (I have a very disturbing mental image that I can't seem to shake.)  The only evidence that was left was two single, small orange legs that were lying outside the box, right next to the back wall, un-attached to any meat.

Of course the mama hen does not seem bothered by the tragedy at all, and she was going on with her morning routine like she only had 6 chicks from the start.  I guess that is one of the ways God made us humans to be different from the beasts of the field and fowl of the air. 

But it still infuriates me that this mama hen could have done her job so well, and keep her 11 chicks alive and healthy for 17 days, safe from the hawks and crows and foxes and dogs and cats and whatever else likes to eat baby chicks, only to be let down by her trust in me, that I could provide a safe place for her family to sleep.  And it worries me that this creature of the night will return, and I don't know if any of my box/cages will be able to keep a determined coon from getting a meal.  Buffy is in a similar old box at night.  Her chicks are now 6 days old and she, too, has been able to keep all 12 chicks safe so far.  (I still need to take a picture of them.)  And I have the white hen in another old box/cage that is due to hatch a clutch out in about 4 more days, and a black hen on a nest that should hatch the end of June.  (We're using an old hamper for the black hen since all the box/cages are taken.)  Coons and other critters like to eat eggs, too, if they get the chance.  I don't know if I can really keep any of the chicks, mamas, or eggs safe enough if the dogs fail in their nightly patrols.  (It was raining last night, so I don't think the dogs were paying as good of attention as they often do.)

By the way, we just pulled two more setting hens from the coop into private nests last night.  Since I don't have any more of those old box/cages, I made up the nests in old, cracked 5 gallon buckets.  We put one bucket with the hen and 15 new eggs in a small cage.  The other hen had been setting longer, so we put 7 partially incubated eggs that she had been setting on in the bucket and put the newly conformed bucket-nest into a little-used dog house.  The dog house is in no way secure from predators, but I hope it will be safe being closer to the house where the dogs most often stay.  We'll see, I guess.

I am pleased that we are having so many hens go broody this year.  We don't want chickens that have had the mothering instinct bred out of them, even if they do lay more eggs.  I want to be able to continually raise our own flocks through the years, without having to depend on ordering chicks through the hatcheries.  And since we tend to go through periods with high chicken mortality rates around here, I don't think we can hatch too many chicks.  Plus the more chickens that survive to maturity, the more meat that will be available for the family.

But for there to be future meat and eggs, I must keep the chickens protected!  That is always a challenge in this sin-cursed world that we live in, (along with the thorns and thistles).  I'm sure that God allows chickens to hatch so many offspring at one time because many of them would not survive in the wild, but my chickens are not in the wild!  I do not want to lose any of them!  Even though some losses seem inevitable, I know that I can do things better in our chicken raising operation.  Today is a rainy day, but I still plan to locate and set up our old live traps around the nest boxes, as well as see what I can do to make the box/cages more secure.

Sitting here on this gloomy morning, thinking about smelly nest boxes and dismembered legs from precious little chicks whose lives were snuffed out in the night, reminds me that homestead life is not always the picturesque scene of beauty and tranquility that is often portrayed.

Homestead Happenings: Random Pics From First Half of May

Things have been rather busy around here, lately, and I've not had time to record much of it.  I did take the camera out a few times and got some pictures, however.

The meat rabbits are still doing well. 

Simon and Timothy enjoy taking care of them!

Our Angora rabbits are also doing fine.  Christina tends to them everyday.

Matthew, Christina, and Simon went on a fishing expedition down the river the day before Mother's Day.  Lisa was hoping for some catfish for her Mother's Day dinner.  They had a nice time on the river, and saw several geese and a couple of mama ducks with their ducklings, but the fish weren't biting.  Maybe next time.

Chief is rather old, for a Great Pyreneese, but he is still with us.  I think he has the sweetest face!

Christina did not want to wear the helmet, but since they were going to be on the road, we insisted.

Augusta (long u in the middle) is a good dog and loves her family.  Wherever we go, she is sure to follow!  Luna is still with us, also, but she didn't make it in a picture this time.

Timothy, 'Gusta, and Sandy looking around up the mountain.

Tigger is one cool cat!

I didn't take pictures of the other cats, but they are all cool cats as well. 

Since I'm thinking about it, I'll report that Fritsie has had her kittens!  The children found them in a box in the wood shed.  I think there are 6 of them, but Fritsie hasn't brought them out to play yet.  When they start appearing in the open and playing, I hope to take several pictures of them.  It's been many years since we've had the kitten experience!

The chickens enjoy their free-range time! I like to let them out early in the afternoon, as long as they don't go to the highway in front of the house.  When they get into that bad habit, they find themselves staying in their lot much later into the day!

One of the White Rock hens is setting right now.  If all goes well, we should have baby chicks around the first of June.  But I'll not count my chickens before they hatch!

We still have 2 hogs at the moment.  We will be butchering them if we don't see piglets pretty soon.

So, I've reported about our dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, and pigs, but I've not said anything about the cattle or bees. 

Well, one of the hives swarmed earlier this month before we could divide it.  We lost them because they swarmed to the highest point in a tree in an impossible location for us to capture.  We need to try to divide the other hives before they swarm, too.

I haven'tt gotten a picture of the cows in their lots for a while.  Right now we have Violet, Dandelion, and Rosebud  here, close to our house.  They have both barns and the hill lot that we originally fenced off for goats.  It's not a very good pasture, but at least they have room to move around and they like to eat some of the leaves and branches from various trees and they find some grass and weeds that they eat. 

We plan to start trying to milk Dandelion soon, but are concerned about her cooperating with us.  Rosebud was her first calf so she has never been milked.  Violet should calve sometime in June, we think.  She is starting to show some signs already.  But after our experience with Dandelion, we're not going to expect any calf too soon!

Meanwhile, Gracie and the two bull calves are at Pure Water Pastures.  There has not been much change over there in a while.  I plan on doing some more fencing work over there.  I already have all the materials laid out there for a second lot, but I need to find the time to invest the sweat equity required.

So, that's a bit of what has been happening around our homestead.  We've also spent several evenings getting our garden out.  I hope the garden will do well, even though we've had some cold temperatures in May.  Last week we even had a few nights in the 30s!  But I'll save the garden news for a future post, because we still have some room out there to plant.

Thank you, Lord, for your many blessings!

Enter: Rosebud!

On Friday, March 15th Dandelion finally calved!  We think the little heifer must have been born around noon.  Here was the scene shortly after Matthew discovered the calf, around 3:30 in the afternnon:

We named the little calf "Rosebud" and she seems to be very healthy.  It has been fun watching her prance around playfully as her leg strength improved during these past couple days.  She has had plenty of energy!

Dandelion, the proud mama, has some trouble, though.  Her back two teats are not working and we are afraid she has mastitus in them.  Her front ones have been overly full and have been too large for Rosebud to nurse off them.  That's not related to the mastitus, but since Rosebud was not nursing, we have been taking the milk from Dandelion's front teats and bottle feeding Rosebud, and we are afraid Rosebud might not nurse even after Dandelion gets straightened out.  Dandelion has been cooperating wonderfully, but we would much rather Rosebud nurse naturally.

We got some mastitis medicine for Dandelion yesterday from Tractor Supply, but was unsuccessful getting the syringe into the back teats.  We are very concerned that this will mess her up as a family milk cow for the future.  Today the vet is supposed to come and look at her and see what he thinks.  As soon as he gets finished at the office he is going to call and meet us at the barn.

I'll post again with an update after we know more of what is going on with Dandelion.

Update After The Vet's Visit:

I am very happy that Mark Ratliff is such a fantastic veterenarian and doesn't mind making house calls!  He knows his stuff, charges what I consider a very fair rate, and is rather personable as well.  I guess we visited for about an hour in the barn after he had examined Dandelion and looked at Rosebud!  He's a good Christian fellow and it seems that we have a lot in common.  If he had more time I think we could have found many more things to talk about, but he had another call to make at a farm in Blaine.

Concerning Dandelion, Mark had some good news and some bad news for us.  The good news is that she does not have mastitis!  She is perfectly healthy as far as any bacterial infection or anything!  The bad news, however,  is that she has what he called a couple of "blind teats", which means that she was born without any milk canals in those two back teats.  That is why we could not get any milk out back there even though her udder was so swollen!   

Dandelion's two front teats are producing plenty of milk for Rosebud and we saw more good news today:  we got Rosebud to actually nurse off Dandelion on her own!  I had to guide Rosebud's face to the teat, but when she found the teat, she latched right on and drank!  We did this several times on both teats until Rosebud got full and laid down for a nap!

Hopefully we got enough colostrum milk into Rosebud within her first 12 hours of life.  Mark said if she did not get the colostrum needed, then she will be sick by the time she is a week old and would likely then die.  She is very playful and energetic right now, but we really won't know if she will make it until she passes that one week mark, which won't be until this Friday.  But she did drink over a half gallon of her mama's milk from the bottle that first evening, so I think she should be fine.

The two front teats will be enough to raise just one calf, and we will still be able to get a large quantity of milk for the family over the next year.  Mark recommends that we do not breed her back, however, because it is too risky to have those back milk glands fill up so full with no place for the milk to go, which he said would happen every time. 

So the bottom line is that we should be able to raise Rosebud and milk Dandelion for as long as we want, or until she starts to dry up, and then we will probably need to sell her.  Mark said that this condition is not necessarily hereditary, so Rosebud could likely grow up to be a good milk cow. 

We are thankful for God blessing us with this adorable little calf, and for the fact that both mamma and baby are basically healthy!  We'll feel much better after we know that she is nursing on her own whenever she wants to, and after she is a week old.  I'll try to get back for an update, especially after she passes that one week mark if I've not checked back in by then. 

It's time now for us to go back to the barn to make sure that Rosebud has nursed again and that everything else is ok.

Pondering 20 Years Ago Today (and some colorful previous history)

A momentous event took place concerning the history of the land we now call Pure Water Hollow on February 11th, 1993. At least it was momentous for my family. On this day, 20 years ago, this land found itself officially belonging to new owners.

We were a young couple, toting a 15 month old baby girl, looking forward to the Lord’s blessings in our new home. During our first 4 years of marriage we had lived in 4 different places and we would now celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary in our 5th house! This move, however, would be of a more permanent nature. During the next 20 years, this place would see not only our 5th wedding anniversary, but also our 10th, 15th, 20th and in three more months, our 25th! During that time, God increased our family to 7 members as He blessed us with 4 more children to be raised on this beautiful property.

Reflecting about our 20 year chapter in the history of this land leads me to ponder upon the previous chapters. I wonder what stories this piece of property could tell about the families of the past who have also called this land home?

Being interested in the past, I have dug out the old deeds from previous owners of this land. I know the names and dates, but only the land really knows the stories. In 1860 Isom Daniel passed away and his very considerable amount of land went to his heirs. He had 9 children; John, James, Catherine, Isom, Hettie, David, Sarah, Peter, and Wyatt. Peter and Wyatt got the land March 12, 1860 and paid the other siblings a total of $2,125 for their interests in the inheritance. In 1874 there was a division of land between Peter and Wyatt, with Peter keeping a considerable amount of land, part of which would become Pure Water Hollow.

Peter also had 9 children.  Some of their names are a bit unusual to 21st century folk; Valentine, Isom, Farmer, John, Major, Ruthford, Louis, Samona, and Sarah. According to the 1880 census Peter was a 47 year old farmer in 1880. Peter lived a long life and owned this land for 54 years. Like I said, part of Peter Daniel’s lands contained Pure Water Hollow, but I don’t know exactly where on his lands his homestead was. I can only imagine how his family may have used the part of their land that we now call Pure Water Hollow. I would love to be able to see the kind of farm they had!

Peter Daniel passed away in 1914, at which time his lands were apparently divided into 9 lots, one for each of his children. They appear to have made 9 different deeds and deeded each other their respective interests in their father’s estate, dated January 28, 1914. Pure Water Hollow went to Major A. Daniel. This is the deed that contains the wording which has continued down through the decades to the deed we have now held for 20 years.

To commemorate our 20th anniversary of owning said property, I would like to record the description of Pure Water Hollow from that deed. I think it is rather interesting, even though it makes little sense to anyone a century later. I am also leaving the original spelling.

“Beginning at a beech near the county road about 25 poles below the mouth of the Sand Branch on the west side of Sandy River, it being a corner of the widow’s dower of the estate of the late Peter Daniels and being Lot No. 8 of the said estate and allotted to the said Major Daniels; thence to Sandy River and up the River to the out side line of the said Peter Daniels’ farm and with said to the top of the knob to a corner on said line, it being a corner of Lot No. 7 or John Daniels’ corner; thence with Lot No. 7 a straight line to a hickory corner in John Daniels’ former deed; thence reversing said John Daniels’ line to the line of land laid off for the widow’s dower and with her said line to the beginning, containing 35 acres, more or less.

Being a part of the same land conveyed by John Daniel, David Daniel, etc., to Peter Daniel by deed dated March 12, 1860 and recorded in DeedBook No. “D” at page 310.”

Major and his wife Brilla owned the land of Pure Water Hollow for 8 years from January 28, 1914 to June 10, 1922. According to the 1920 census, Major was a 50 year old coal miner and Brilla was a 42 year old house wife. At the time of that census they had 5 children living with them; Grey (18), Gladys(17), Jay(14), Arnolis(12), and Genna May(8), which means they were all born before Major inherited our property in 1914. I wonder if his family ever lived here or if those children ever hunted this hollow or explored the rock houses in the sides of the mountains?  A neighbor of ours who is 86 says that some of her kinfolk named Daniel once lived here.  She thinks their house sat where our garden is now.  Maybe this was Major's family?

June 10, 1922 found this hollow being owned by a non-Daniel family for the first time in perhaps a hundred years when Major and Brilla sold the property to David O. and Maltia Johnson for $200. They evidently moved here with a 5 month old baby.  Their first child, David Jr., was born on January 11th of the
same year they purchased the land.  I have discovered that they had a total of at least 6 children with some decidedly, delightful names: David Jr., Dennis, Delmer, Donald, Delores, and Doris.  We've been told that the Johnson's are the ones who moved this house that we are currently living in to it's current location, which is a fascinating story in itself.

David O. supposedly bought our house at an auction from the Consolidated Coal Company at the White House Coal Camp, which is a couple miles down river and on the opposite bank.  It was one of the foreman's houses so it was much nicer than many of the other houses in the camp.  They apparently put the house on skids and dragged it to the river, poled it up river on a raft, and then pulled it up the riverbank on skids again and up a hill and then across a good section of land to set it up where it is now. 

I want to believe that the Johnson family had many wonderful times in this home and on this land, but their 22 years here are marked with two tragedies that I don't think I could bear. Their second son, Dennis, was born on March 20, 1925 less than three years after they bought the property.  The first tradegy I speak of was when that baby died just a year later on August 28, 1926, not even seeing his 2nd birthday.  Meanwhile, David Jr. grew strong and tall.  I wonder if he enjoyed his childhood and teen years growing up with his siblings here at Pure Water Hollow?  I wonder what he thought of the war in Europe calling him away from these sheltering hills?  He was just 19 years old when the USA entered WWII after Pearl Harbor was bombed.  I don't know when he went off to the war, but I know when he came home.  He was killed in action in October, 1944, in a far off country named France.  I wonder how such an event affected his mother, father, 2 brothers, and 2 sisters who were still here?

Less than two years later, on August 16th, 1946, David and Maltia sold their homestead here to Don Carlos Meek for $500 and they moved to Pike County.  An interesting footnote to the Johnson chapter of our land is that the Johnson's are buried in the cemetary next to the house at Pure Water Pastures down the road from here.  The graves of Baby Dennis and PFC David Jr are there, as well as both David O. and Malta. 

David O. died in 1954 but Maltia outlived David by a considerable number of years and didn't pass away until after Lisa and I moved here in 1993, one month before her 95th birthday!

The Meek chapter of Pure Water Hollow ran from 1946 to 1966.  Don and Willa Mae Meek raised 7 children on this piece of property.  One of those children, Jewel Meek Harwood wrote a 490 page book about her family's experience here, called Swimming Upriver, so I have many details concerning this chapter.  It would be safer to say that Willa Mae raised the children, as Don Meek was not always around.

Don's many faults are detailed in the book. He and Willa Mae divorced after 23 years of marriage, which was unusual in the 1950s. Don deeded the property to Willa Mae on August 12th, 1958.  I think it is interesting that during some good years in the late 40s Don Meek was a school teacher and taught in the community school that was just a half mile from Pure Water Hollow.  He then changed jobs frequently, being a furniture salesman, running a sporting goods store in town, and then leaving our county to be a used car salesman in Barbourville, Kentucky during the week.  (The Barbourville, KY connection is a strange coincidence, being Lisa's hometown.  It is possible that her dad could have known Don Carlos Meek.)

Ownership of this land changed hands once again on February 16th, 1966 when Willa Mae Meek sold the property to Joe and Lockie Mae Pack.  Joe was a lineman for the power company and he and Lockie raised two children here, both of whom still live within 5 miles of Pure Water Hollow.  Lockie passed away in 1988 and before long Joe was ready to sell his old homestead.  This brings us to the magic date of February 11th, 1993, when Joe sold the property to us after owning it for 27 years. 

A few years after Pure Water Hollow became our homestead we had the honor of attending church with Joe when he started going to Baker Branch Free Will Baptist which was the church we belonged to at the time.  I wish I had asked him more questions about his feelings about this land before he passed away.  I know he had cattle on these hills once upon a time and he had some of the land logged in the early 80s.  I wonder how else he may have made use of his homestead here?

So, over the years, many families have had the joy of being a part of this land.  Some were here longer than others, but they all came and went.  Isom Daniel owned this property in the early 1800s and he died; his son Peter Daniel owned and farmed this land for 54 years and he died; his son Major Daniel owned the property for  8 years and he is now dead; David O. Johnson had this land for 22 years and he is now deceased; Willa Mae Meek was here for 20 years and she is now dead; Joe Pack owned the land for 27 years and he has now passed on.  I have been blessed to own this property for the past 20 years.  Do I think I am really any different than the ones who came before me?

They each had their turn and are now gone.  We are all just temporary stewards of earthly gifts such as houses and land that God allows us to have during our brief time here on His footstool.  I desire to make the most of the chapter of my stewardship of Pure Water Hollow for the glory of God!  We are now 20 years into it as of today, and this chapter could easily last another 20 years if the Lord tarries His return.  But one thing is for certain:  one day, I will not be here.  If time continues on there will be another generation that will call this place home; there will be another custodian of this hollow and these hills that I love so much.

God's Word is so profound.  Solomon knew all about this truth that I have been pondering.  God led him to write about it many years ago in Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 4,

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever."

I was going to end this post with that quote from Ecclesiastes, but Lisa pointed out that it could be regarded as a bit depressing to do that.  I don't want to leave any doubt about the lesson my ponderings have turned into so I should go ahead and add that I agree with Solomon when he explains the most important thing in life: 

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:  Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." 

I love this land that the Lord has given into my trust, but I use the word love loosely.  God has blessed Pure Water Hollow Homestead greatly during my time here, but I must not allow this land, or anything else, to become more important than loving and serving my Father in Heaven, as well as loving and serving my fellow man here on earth. 

I have learned that I should be careful to not allow my attitudes towards this land (or any of the wonderful things I possess), to even remotely resemble the fool that Jesus speaks about in Luke 12:

15 Take heed, and beware of covetousness:  for a man's life consistesth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.  16 And he spake a parable unto them saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:  17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do:  I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.  19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.  20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?  21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

I'm also reminded of the clear words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-21,

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

I have some temporary treasures here on earth.  I thank God for them, but they are not important at all in the eternal scheme of things.  Will any of these treasures matter to me 100 years from now?  My true treasures are laid up in Heaven! 

May God bless all of you who are reading this, whether you be family, a stranger, or perhaps one of my decendents in the far off future;  whoever you are, my prayer is for you to be with me in Heaven one day!

A Brief Reflection on Our 2012 Homestead

The year 2012 has absolutely flown by, it seems!  On this final day of 2012 I find myself reflecting about many things in my life concerning the past year.  However, for this post, I'm going to try to stick to mainly my thoughts concerning our "homesteading" aspects during 2012.  It is with some difficulty that I attempt this, as the entire year of 2012 seems like a blur to me.  I notice that I only blogged sporadically and missed writing about many daily homestead happenings throughout the year.

We were very successful raising 3 hogs from feeder pig to butcher hog during 2012.  Our new lot worked well, they grew fast and large, and did not present much trouble at all!  Simon took care of the feeding and watering chores most of the time.  These pigs reminded us that raising home-grown pork could still be done very efficiently and also be a rewarding experience.  We had two of them butchered in the summer and then processed the final one ourselves in November.  I regret that I did not find a boar to go with that 3rd hog as my original hope was.  I think she would have thrown excellent piglets as her genetics seemed to be of  a fast growing large hog!

We also had some bad experiences trying to raise some pigs from an outfit that sells "show pigs".  These were supposed to be superior genetic hogs, but ours did not want to grow and actually had trouble surviving!  We first bought three girls and they all got sick.  When the first one died the fellow gave us the boar I was wanting for free.  I wonder now if he was worth the price, because he has also had trouble growing!  A bit later another of the girls died.  It looks like the other girl along with the boar have at least survived as they are now 9 months and 7 months old, respectively.  We think they have bred so I have decided to keep them around to see if they will have piglets and then see if those piglets will grow better than their parents did.  I am afraid it will all turn out to be a disaster and we will have to start over again with new stock.  But, let's try to be optimistic and enjoy the adventure!

Our garden did well in several areas, although it seemed difficult for us to focus on it the way we should have.  Our artesian well did the job keeping everything watered during the drought.  Thanks to the drought, there was not much weeding that needed to be done early in the season.  This turned out to be bad for a family that was having trouble focusing on the garden anyway because sometime in there the drought was over and the weeds were ready to make up for lost time!  Since we never got in a good habit of working the garden earlier, it seemed like in no time those weeds completely took over!  We learned that tomato plants and pepper plants are very forgiving as they still provided abundantly for us, even when they could not be seen!  We had a modest harvest of most of the crops that Lisa planned, although the watermelons and pumpkins did not do anything.

Our honey bees did a fine job keeping everything pollinated.  2012 was the year of the swarm as they swarmed much more than we wanted!  Perhaps it was the mild winter, but whatever the reason, they swarmed and swarmed and swarmed!  Sometimes we had two and three swarms hanging in our trees at the same time!  We were able to capture 3 swarms and start new colonies, but one of them was a partial swarm and did not make it.  We did get 10 quarts of honey from the strongest hive, but since the other one swarmed so much they didn't produce as much honey and we decided that they would need what they had to survive the winter.  As we end 2012 we think we have four good stands of bees.  We just need to get into them and take out the queen cells so they won't swarm themselves to death in 2013.  If all goes well, they should make plenty of honey for us this next season!

We also attempted to re-stock our chicken flock in 2012.  Twenty-five white-rock chicks arrived on July 13th at our post office in town.  Due to the fact that we free range our chickens amongst a predator laden environment, we were expecting to lose some of them.  I thought we may even lose a third of them by the time they reach maturity.  I expected, however, to still have at least 17 or 18 at this time of the year.  I am sad to report that we only have 11 white-rock pullets as we close out the year!  We lost them gradually.  Some were taken off by hawks (I even witnessed it once), some were hit in the road, and some just disappeared.  But the 11 we have right now are all beautiful, big hens and should start laying eggs any time now.

The worst chicken news of 2012 happened one of the nights that I did not close up the cage where those chicks slept with their surrogate mother, One Feather.  One Feather was the beloved game hen we had had for 8 years who had raised clutches of chicks every year, sometimes 2 and even 3 times during some seasons!  She could always be counted on to go broody and she was always an excellent mother to any chicks we gave her.  She was one of the hens helping to raise some of the new white-rock chicks. They would free range during the day but One Feather always took them back to the safety of her cage at night which I would then close up for the night.  I had been lulled into a false sense of security as there had been no night-time evidence of any predators for quite a while. 

That night had not been the first night I neglected my duty, but it turned out to be the night that I severely let our beloved mama hen down.  We heard the squawking from the house after we had gone to bed, and got out there as quickly as we could.  She obviously fought the predator off as evidenced by the 50 foot trail of scattered feathers leading away from the cage down to the creek to where her body was left.  At least the predator did not have the satisfaction of having One Feather as a meal and, as best we could tell, all of the chicks under her care were also accounted for.  We found them scattered all over the yard, hiding in different places, but not harmed.  One Feather gave her life to save these chicks!  She will be greatly missed and I doubt that we will ever have another hen quite like One Feather.

So as we end 2012, our laying flock consists of 3 mature Buff Orpington mixed hens, 11 almost mature White-Rock hens and I think 4 black pullets from eggs we hatched that a friend gave us later in the summer.  By next summer we should have 14 to 18 hens laying for us, so we will be getting plenty of eggs!  We have already been getting one or two eggs a day these last few weeks of December which we have been happy with.  Our butchering flock currently consists of one Red-Star hen (who developed a habit of eating eggs and plucking feathers), as well as 6 black cockerels hatched from those eggs from a friend.

The summer of 2012 was also the summer of the horse as Christina and Simon took lessons with Gracie as we had her trained.  Gracie did very well and is now a good saddle horse.  The children had fun and I think it was a great experience for them.  After we finally got Gracie moved to Pure Water Pastures, the children did ride her some on their own, and I expect they will more as the weather gets better this spring.  I think we have a potentially nice place to make a horse trail along the river up there, but some fallen trees will need to be cleared.

Fall found us fulfilling a dream of having a family milk cow.  Violet, the 4 year old Jersey cow, was already in milk and had two bull calves with her.  Dandelion, the 2 year old Jersey cow, was expected to calve in December.  So our plan was that we could milk Violet now and dry her up around March or April in order to help her have a healthy calving in June.  About the time Violet was being dried up, we would be milking Dandelion pretty heavily.  A note about Dandelion calving:  today was the last day of December and she has still not calved!  She has been put up by herself in the barn since December 10th, and it has been driving me crazy wondering where her calf is.  She still seems healthy, and as far as I know, she is ready to calve any time (just like she was on the 10th.)  It looks like the New Year will find us learning much more about raising dairy cattle!

It was a great accomplishment to get a large section of our pasture fenced for Gracie and the cattle.  I was amazed at how quickly the field got eaten down, though.  It has really demonstrated the need to get some more areas fenced as soon as possible so we can rotate pastures in the spring.  It was also wonderful to see the shelter being erected for the cattle that Matthew, Christina, and Simon have been working on.  There are many, many other projects that still need to be done, however, both there at our pastures as well as here on the home front!

After re-reading the above paragraphs and thinking over the past year, I can't help but notice that our homestead in 2012 was only marginally successful.  At every turn there were challenges, setbacks, and unfulfilled plans.  I think the word I used about the garden sums up our entire year:  a lack of focus.  There were some serious distractions that we were dealing with throughout the year (which I have not written about), and I believe that they affected our overall family and homestead more than can be measured.  It is difficult to stay focused on anything while dealing with serious emotional disharmony and stress. 

These issues are still not completely resolved, but, for the sake of my family, we need to regain our focus in this coming year!  As we enter 2013, I want my life, my family, and Pure Water Hollow Homestead, to glorify God in every aspect of what we do!  We cannot do that without living purposefully and staying focused on the tasks at hand while also staying focused on God and His will!  To Him be the glory and we give Him thanks for all he allowed us to do in 2012 and for the lessons He taught us along the way!

No Calf This Week

I wanted to follow up on that post from Monday about Dandelion.  We've checked on her several times everyday this week, but there has not been any change that we could notice.  She seemed a bit more restless, tonight, but that could be from being penned up for a week now.  She has the run of a large stall and the barn breezeway, but it's not much space compared to the entire pasture field she did have.  She does show all the signs of being ready to calve any time.

Here is what Carla says in her excellent book that we frequently refer to:

"Because a cow's birthing instinct is to go hide in a woods and do it all by herself, it's wise to bring her into ... the barn where you're providing a warm stall with losts of clean bedding... Do that at least a couple days before her calving date so you can keep a close watch on her.  You'll know calving is getting near when her udder swells with a milk supply, her vulva swells, and the flesh seems to loosen around her tail bone and fall away.  After that point, check on her several times a day.  You have a big investment at stake here and will want to help or call the vet if she has calving trouble.  But ordinarily your cow will calve, and you'll find her standing there nuzzling her baby, and you won't have to do a thing except provide the usual necessities of food, water, and shelter..."

Here's Dandelion.  Maybe you can tell by her belly that baby calf is getting close!

On another farm note, the White Rock pullet that disappeared Sunday showed back up Tuesday, no worse for the wear!  Maybe she was around Monday, but I didn't notice her.  I guess she just chose to spend a couple nights out in a tree but then decided that she preferred the coop!  I'm very thankful that it was not a predator.  I am also very thankful that we got an egg in the coop nests both yesterday morning and this morning!  It has been rare for us to get any eggs in December in the past, and it especially seems strange to get 2 eggs the week before the winter solstice while the daylight hours continue to shorten.  I hope this egg trend will continue and some of the other hens and pullets will pick up on the idea!

Scenes From the Mountain Homeplace : 2012

In my previous post I shared several photos of the people who served as "Interpreters" for the Mountain Homeplace Heritage Days  during this past Thrusday, Friday, and Saturday. 

In this post I want to share some great shots of various scenes, mostly without people, that make up the Mountain Homeplace in Paintsville, Kentucky.  Our friend Tracy Stephens took many of the following pictures on Thursday and Friday and posted them on Facebook.  I think she has a very good eye for photography and the pictures were so good I had to borrow them. ( By the way, many of the pictures of the people I used in the previous post were taken by Tracy as well.)  Just sit back and enjoy the scenery!

I liked seeing what the home place looked like on an early foggy morning. 

First up is the McKenzie Cabin:

The little white church in the valley:

The old barn:

The corn crib and another out building:

The one-room school:



The sun came out with a gentle breeze and all three days were absolutely beautiful!

Inside the church:

Inside the school:

 

Inside the cabin:

Around the barn:

 

The guests had a great time!

I'll end with a few more shots of Timothy in action wearing his "Dan'l Boone" hat.  He was a good boy all three days and had a blast!