Light Brahmas

I thought I should not slight our other rooster, William Carey. Of course he is named after the famous missionary to India during the early 1800s. I like the India connection because the Brahma breed is an Asian breed.

King Arthur and Sir Lancelot are our roosters from our Engilsh breed and Abraham Lincoln is the rooster from our American breed, so I needed some great character from Asian history. There are some great names of Indian and Chineese leaders of the past, but none of them are worth emulating, in my opinion. The obvious reason for this stems from the non-Christian world-view of those leaders. So, I remembered some great names of Christian missionaries to Asia. William Carey was one of the first and most prominant missionaries to India. He ended his last 41 years of life spreading the gospel to those people.

I really like the looks of our Light Brahmas. We have 5 hens and they are all very large and pretty. None have gone broody yet, and we have not yet separated them from the flock for hatching eggs, but I have plans to do so before summer is over.

Here is what our hatchery, Murray McMurray had to say about them:

The Brahmas are a very old breed from Asia, probably originating in India and brought to this country about 1850 by Yankee sailors on their return from trading in Far Eastern ports. Because of its massive size, full feathered shanks and toes, and striking black and white plumage pattern, it has always been one of the most interesting varieties to work with. Brahmas are exceptionally quiet, gentle, and easy to handle. Their small pea comb, great size, and heavy plumage make them almost immune to cold weather. The hens are good layers of brown eggs, especially in winter, and will also set. Cockerels develop a tremendous frame, grow rather slowly, but when fully fleshed make a beautiful roasting chicken. They are easy to dress with light plumage and yellow skin. Baby chicks are creamy white, but some have shades of gray on the back.

Here is a picture of William Carey. He sure looks mean in this shot, but he is really gentle:



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1 comment
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sassyfras on May 29, 2009 at 3:46 am
He is very pretty, or handsome. Either way his colors are very pretty. Love his name

Jersey Giants

I’m still cleaning up the files on my computer and saw some things I had saved about Black Giant, or Jersey Giant chickens.

We got our first Black Giants from McMurray on June 24th, 2008. We had 5 hens and two roosters, but we sold one rooster and one of the hens disappeared a couple of weeks ago. Even though we have had them almost a year now, the jury is still out on them. I really like our rooster, Abe Lincoln, and the hens are nice. The jury (me) is still concerned about their body size and egg size. They are supposed to be the largest chicken breed, but ours have not been any larger than the Buff Orpingtons or Light Brahmas. They may even be a bit smaller than some of those others. Some of my Black Australorps are also as big or bigger than the Giants, and it is very hard to tell them apart from each other. Their eggs are also medium to small, but I was hoping for larger eggs.

We have hatched 6 eggs from the Black Giant hens. Three chicks are all black, and three are crossed with the Buff Orpington and are black and buff. The chicks are all very pretty. Perhaps they will grow to the extra-large size? We also just set 5Buff Orpington eggs under a broody Black Giant hen, so maybe we will get to see what kind of mama hens they will be.

Here is what McMurray has to say about them:

This is the original Jersey Giant developed in New Jersey in the late 19th century by crossing several of the large, dark Asiatic breeds. It is a super heavy bird even a little larger than the whites. Its black plumage has a beautiful green sheen, the eyes are dark brown, shanks and toes are black except for yellow skin showing on the bottoms of the feet. With the straight red comb and tremendous size it makes an unusually handsome variety for exhibition. Hens are good layers of brown eggs and especially persistent through cold weather. Baby chicks are mostly black but do show creamy patches on the underbody, wing tips, and around the face. The white persists in the plumage until final molt of chick feathers takes place.

http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/black_giants.html

Here is some interesting info from the American Livestock Breeds Conservatory:

Jersey Giant Chicken

The Jersey Giant chicken was developed between 1870 and 1890 by John and Thomas Black in Burlington County, near the town of Jobstown, New Jersey. As its name implies, these typically mellow chickens are impressive in size with mature roosters weighing 13 pounds and the mature hens weighing 10 pounds, making them the largest purebred chicken breed.

The original intention of the Black brothers was to create a chicken that could potentially replace the turkey as a premium table bird. During the breed’s development, Black Javas, Black Langshans, and Dark Brahmas were used to try and reach this objective. Around 1895 the term “Giant” was used in reference to the breed, and they became known as “Black Giants” in honor of their creators (not because of their color.) The name was later changed to “Jersey Giant” by Dexter P. Upham of Belmar, New Jersey, in honor of the state of origin. Mr. Upham was an early breeder interested in improving Black Giants. In 1921, the American Association of Jersey Black Giant Breeders Clubs was created and the name “Jersey Giant” was officially adopted for the breed by the group. The standard developed for the birds included a gigantic frame, single comb, yellow skin color, relatively rapid maturity, good vigor, and fine foraging ability. The Jersey Giant was recognized by the American Poultry Association (APA) in 1922. Today Jersey Giants are accepted in the APA Standard of Perfection in three color varieties – black, white, or blue.

Jersey Giants are dual purpose chickens, but they excel as a meat bird with their great body size. They are well-suited to producing very fine and large capons. The young birds grow relatively quickly but take time to fill out their hefty frame to produce a marketable bird – most take up to 8–9 months to reach a harvestable size with good body proportions. They are an excellent roasting bird when fully mature.

Concerning egg production, the hens of this breed tend to lay more eggs than those of other heavy breeds. Their eggs are extra large in size with color varying from dark brown to light cream. When incubating eggs, the Jersey Giant breed sometimes takes 1–2 days longer to hatch than most chicken breeds.

Status: Watch

http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/jerseygiant.html.


I will end this post with a picture of our Abe Lincoln. He is a beutiful bird! This picture does not do him justice, but at least you can get an idea:



(I will try to get a better picture of him someday)

Old Time Hog Killing Memories

I enjoyed this article back when I was researching butchering our own hogs. It is a good read, and everything he talks about makes sense now that we have killed our own pigs. We skinned ours instead of scraping, and we have not yet tried our hands at making sausage. Other than that, his memories mirror the ones we have created at our own homestead.

Old Time Hog Killing, Sausage and Lard Making
by Thurman Dwight Lane

You may ask, what has killing hogs and making lard got to do with genealogy? Well, I’m glad you ask. Genealogy is about the past and my past and my genealogy for many generations was in the rural areas of the southern states of Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia to name a few. Making do with what you had at hand was not by choice but a necessity. With the relatively small farms and the profusion of trees, grass land was not plentiful enough in most cases to raise herds of cattle, except for milking and oxen for working. Hogs on the other hand could live quite well in the woods and thickets. These hogs along with a few chickens and hunting wild game provided the protein and fats needed for survival. I would venture to say that every man, woman and child in the genealogy section of my family had some knowledge of how to set a hen, skin a rabbit, hitch a mule, and butcher a hog. It was a way of life.

FREE RANGE

I grew up in Lawrence County, Arkansas and I have traced several lines and generations of my family. Most lived in Lawrence, Sharp, Izard and Independence Counties in Arkansas. They settled there in the 1840s and 50s and continued a way of life their forefathers had lived. In most places the law of the land favored open range, and families had a brand or ear mark for their animals that was known to everyone. You let your hogs free range and checked on them occasionally to keep up with their condition and location. If my memory serves me correctly, hogs fattened on acorns tended to have a bitter tasting meat and did not produce bright white lard. For this reason most hogs to be slaughtered were rounded up and fattened on corn for a month or longer. We did much the same except our hogs only free ranged our own farm. A day or two before the slaughter the hogs were taken off all their food and just given water.

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A bit of Advice:
The first thing I would point out is the danger of slaughtering and preparing your own meat, of any kind. The need for clean working areas and tools along with the difficulty of keeping proper temperature makes it almost impossible to do this in a manner that is without risk. My advise is just don’t do it, leave it to the professionals. If your response is that it has been done for centuries then just remember the life span was much shorter back then. The purpose of this accounting is to acquaint you with a chapter of family life that I only had a brief glimpse. I was born in 1943 in rural Arkansas where electricity was a thing still hoped for and the old way of life was quite common. In many ways life was about the same as it had been for generations.

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{ The people who think their meat comes wrapped in plastic at the local Safeway may want to stop reading about here. }
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WEATHER AND SCALDING BARREL

The time of year to butcher hogs depended on the weather, it had to be cold enough to keep the meat from spoiling but not cold enough to freeze the carcass . Utensils , knifes, buckets, straining cloths and barrels were gathered. The wood for the fires was cut and neighbors and friends were waiting. Butchering day started before daylight, a fire was built just to keep warm and one was started under the scalding barrel and iron kettle. The scalding barrel we used was just a 55 gallon oil drum that had been burned out and cleaned. The kettle was used to keep fresh hot water to replenish what slouched out of the barrel and to heat water to clean.

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KILLING

Killing the hog was usually done with a single 22 caliber long or long riffle bullet between the eyes. A larger caliber was too destructive. Draw an imaginary line from the right ear to the left eye and a line from the left ear to the right eye. Where these lines crossed is where you placed the shot. This job was usually given to an expert hand and for good reasons. There is a lot of “good eating” on the hogs head. One delicacy is the pig brains. I have had this a few times and as a butcher have sold many, many pounds over the years. One way to eat them is with scrambled eggs. It was important to place the shot where it would not splinter the bone and ruin the brain. Another reason was a misplaced shot could just injure the animal and a 180 to 240 pound hog can be very dangerous. Immediately after the hog was shot , it was bled. This was accomplished in more than one way. One way was to insert a knife about three inches behind the jaw on the left side of the neck and cut the jugular vein. Another way was to lay the animal on its back and find the breast bone . Insert a long, 6 inches or more, knife pointing to the rear and parallel to the back bone, with an upward thrust sever the carotid artery. The important thing was to bleed the animal within about two minutes of shooting it. If you waited too long the animals blood pressure could increase and a condition some called blood splash” could occur, It didn’t ruin the meat but it did give the meat an unpleasing look.

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SCRAPING

After the hog was bled an incision was cut in the hind legs just above and back of the foot. The gambrel tendons in the back of the leg were stretched out and the hooks from a “single tree” {used to hook a horses harness to the wagon or plow} were inserted and hooked to a hoist. In this way the hog could be lowered and raised in the barrel as needed. The water in the scalding barrel needed to be heated from about 165 degrees to "just to the point of boiling". If it was too hot it would set the hair and make it almost impossible to remove and if too cold the hair would not slip and could not be scraped. I have been told it helped the scalding water to add just a little wood ash, to soften the water and loosen the hair.

You judged the time by raising the hog and scraping a small section to see if it slip or remove easily. It was important not to let the hog stay in the water too long or the hair would set and was almost impossible to remove. Small places of hair was removed by pouring hot water on it and scraping. It was important not use a scraping knife that was not too sharp. The idea was to scrape it and remove it ,roots and all, not shave it. After the scraping a very sharp knife was used just in case any hair escaped the scraping. Today some people use propane torches to burn the hard to reach hair. Just be careful and don’t burn the skin.

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HOIST

I have seen several methods used to hoist the hog up and keep him off the ground. One way was to build a tri-pod out of poles and hang the animal, I have used a pole hung between two trees and I have seen Y-Poles stuck into the ground and a pole placed between them. I have also just hung them from a convenient tree limb. I remember one time when some friends of mine were butchering a calf for a celebration in Memphis, Tennessee and hung it from a tree limb. The limb was not strong enough and broke, and the calf fell to the ground. A short time later the local police arrived and said they had a call that some people had shot a calf out of a tree. In that case I think it is a good idea to invite your neighbors over so you can keep an eye on them.

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HEAD

Removing the head was next and this was done simply by cutting around the neck at the base of the head until the entire neck bone was rounded. It was finished by a quick and firm twist and set aside for later use.

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GUTTING

It was important to have your tubs ready for this operation. This was also the time you appreciated the withholding of food for the last day or two. The idea was to open the entire gut cavity without puncturing the gut. It was done by carefully separating the outer skin and the membrane that holds the gut. A cut was made from the crouch to the chin. With this done and the tubs ready the large intestine was cut loose at the anus and tied off with a string and the entire mass was allowed to slide into the tub. When this was done the liver was removed and the gall bladder was carefully removed. Some of the liver was most times eat that day for supper or used to make liver sausage. [recipe later] Here is where you find people differed in their eating habits. Almost all the hog could be used for some purpose or another. The lungs, heart and (.?.) were almost always used and the stomach and small intestines were considered a delicacy by some. I have eaten chitterlings only once but as a butcher I have sold them in 10 lb. buckets by the truck loads. More about the chitterlings later.

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CUTTING THE CARCASS

When the carcass was cleaned inside and out it was time to cut it into usable pieces. This was usually done with the equipment at hand: Butcher knife and an chopping ax. At the same time a sausage making operation was started and the lard pot was going. The lean trimmings went into the sausage mill and the fat went into the lard pot. The lard pot was started while the hog was still hanging with the fat from the inside cavity around the intestines or leaf fat . This is also where you get cracklin’s and if you ain’t had cracklin cornbread, I just don’t know what to say. The ax was used to cut the hog down the middle into halves. In the old days they just cut down the back bone on each side staying as close as they could. you got some good meaty backbones and a nice thick piece of fatback. Nowadays it is cut in half using a saw and the loins are removed whole. The hams and shoulders are removed at the joints and you have the middling or side meat left. Separate the ribs from the side meat.

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LARD

Making lard was in some ways the most important chore of the day and required careful attention to detail. This was an art that you could become know for and your expertise was in demand on hog killing day . In fact , messing this job up, could make you known also. The lard bucket could get vary rancid before the winter was over, if you didn’t do the job right.

As mentioned before, the lard pot was started early in the operation. We used a large iron kettle or pot. A slow fire was built out of small sticks of wood so the temperature could be controlled. The first thing into the pot was a small amount of leaf fat from the gut cavity. This was the most pure fat and the easiest to render. As the leaf fat begin to render, the other fat was added slowly and the fire was increased until a slow boil was achieved. Cooking the lard took a couple of hours or more and was stirred constantly with a large wooden paddle. If you were a kid, this was a good time to be somewhere else or you would be put to work. If you ask my brothers, I am sure they will tell you that, being somewhere else, was something I was good at. The art of looking busy and just hiding came in handy.

The temperature of the fat should be kept at about 212 degrees. As the water evaporates the temperature will rise but it should be controlled. This is where the small sticks of wood came into play. They could be added as needed or could be raked away from the pot if it became too hot.

You knew the rendering process was complete when the cracklings turned brown and floated to the top. When the pot quit boiling and the water had evaporated out of the fat, it was time to strain the liquid through several layers of cheese cloth into your lard bucket or pails. As the lard set, it was stirred until it became creamy and if you had not left too much lean on the trimmings or scorched it while cooking, you had supply of pure lard that would meet your cooking needs, hopefully until next winter at “Hog Killin” time.

Hog lard has been given a bad ‘rap’ the last several years and I am sure that if my kin folks had lived in a region of the country where olives were grown, I would be writing this about olive oil, but they didn’t and if you ever had a young farm raised chicken fried to a golden brown in hog lard! I won’t have to say anything about biscuits made with lard and Martha White Flour!

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SAUSAGE

Here is where everyone is an expert and a critic. There are as many “old family recipes” as there are old families. I will start with just the basics. Good pork sausage is made by grinding and seasoning lean pork trimmings from the bellies, hams, and shoulders. Sausage should contain from 20 to 30 percent fat. If more fat is included, the sausage may be too greasy and shrink too much in cooking. If entire shoulders of hams are used, it may be necessary to add some fat.

Good sausage should start with good ingredients. Great care should be given to the selection of meat to be ground and since sausage is usually made on the farm in somewhat large amounts it is wise to make even batches, say 10 to 15 lbs. at a time. The spices should be added sparingly, just remember, in this case it is easier to add than subtract, and a test batch should be fried up and enjoyed by all, before you proceed to making the whole batch. Just remember that spices shorten the freezer life of the meat and fresh sausage can be kept safely frozen for about 1 or 2 months. If you have more trimmings than you need it would be wise to freeze the trimmings and later thaw and grind them into sausage.
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SAUSAGE RECIPES

MILD SAUSAGE

10 lbs. GROUND PORK
6 TABLESPOONS SALT
4 TEASPOONS SAGE
3 TEASPOONS BLACK PEPPER
white pepper can be substituted
for the black
MODERATELY SPICY SAUSAGE
10 lbs. ground pork
5 tablespoons salt
3 teaspoons black pepper
4 teaspoons ground red pepper
5 tablespoons sage
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons ground cloves


Add 2 to 3 teaspoons Cayenne pepper if you like it HOT.

Get your hands in and mix.

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I have used several ingredients to liven up the taste of pork sausage but a really well made sausage does not need much.

Add a quart of buttermilk to about 20 lbs. of sausage and hand mix well, after it sits over night it is indeed a wonderful flavor. I do not know how this will freeze, I have never had any left over long enough to try it.
Cayenne will give it a hot flaming taste.
Honey will sweeten it.
Thyme is a good addition.

I am not going to tell you how to make sausage gravy to go with the hog lard and Martha White Flour biscuits. You will be over at my house every morning for breakfast.

It may be best when making large batches to just stick to the tried and true recipes you know and love. If you want to experiment try small batches at first and when you reach perfection, go for it.

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HEAD CHEESE–SOUSE

Here is another place the iron pot or kettle was used. After cleaning the hog head and removing all the hair it was cut into quarters and soaked in cold water overnight. It was given a thorough rinsing in cold water and put into the pot along with other scraps like skin, bones, tongue and heart. This was simmered until the meat slipped from the bone and the skin was easily pierced with your finger. The skins were cooled and ground through the fine plate, about 1/8 th inch holes, on the meat grinder and the meat was picked from the bone and ground through the large plate, about 1/2 inch holes. This was mixed together with broth to the consistency of cake batter. you then added the spices.

FOR 1 HOGS HEAD

2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
dash red pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
dash of marjoram
dash of savory

Bring this mixture to a boil and remove from heat. Pour into loaf pans and chill. This will setup into loafs and can be refrigerated for a few days and frozen for a month or two. A head cheese press is sometimes used. It can range from a press designed for the job to a heavy weight set on top of the loaf pan. The hogs head usually produces enough gelatin to set the loaf without a press.

Break out the crackers!

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LIVER SAUSAGE

Liver Sausage is similar to Head Cheese and uses most of the same ingredients with the addition of the liver. The pork liver is just an ingredient in this and should not constitute more than 20 percent of the total by weight.

Liver Sausage:

Cook 3 lbs. of pork liver for about 12 to 20 minutes, until done. If you cook it too long it will crumble.

Add this to 12 lbs. of cooked head meat and scraps. Grind this together using a small hole plate on the grinder.

Add enough of the broth to make a soft, not runny, mix.

Season to your own taste:
8 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons black pepper
2 tablespoons ground sage
1 tablespoon allspice
add red pepper if you like or omit the sage or allspice if you prefer.

Pour into loaf pans and store in refrigerator for a few days or freeze for 1 to 2 months.

This is a excellent candidate for smoking. Stuff it into beef casings and smoke it, you have made Braunschweiger.

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1 comment
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janaeel on May 25, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Lots of useful info. Thanks for posting the article

Riverboats In Front of Our House: 1871

It has been many years since steamboats have sailed up and down the Big Sandy, but for a time it was a common sight. I’m going through documents I have saved from the web, and came across this piece.

It is interesting because the following incident happened right in front of our house. The shoals in front of our house are known as ‘Wild Goose Shoals’ and this spot is mentioned in the following article.

I hope you enjoy reading this little anectdote from the riverboat days!

BIG SANDY RIVERBOATS:

The following article, written by W.D. O’Neal, appeared in the Ashland Daily Independent newspaper on March 15, 1940.

"The ‘Dew Drop’ lacked the lighting conveniences of boats of the present day. It ran at night by light from burning pine knots in iron baskets on the bow on each side, and pine torches were used in receiving and discharging passengers and freight. The river was the main artery of commerce and travel. All roads led to the river. It was the highway for those moving out and those moving in to this great valley.

The ‘Dew Drop’ register of April 20, 1871 shows among the passengers leaving Catlettsburg and their destinations, the following: Pete Marcum and W.M. Marcum, Mouth of Blaine; John Caldwell, Whites Creek; J.G. Burgess, Burgess Landing; W.M. Cains, Jake Rice, Rolen Burns, F.T.D Wallace, Mrs. John Rice, J.N.See [John N. SEE], John Hatcher and Mont Goble, Louisa, KY. Other passengers were rigistered for points up the river.

As interesting as steamboating may have been in the 60′s & 70′s on the Big Sandy, it was not always smooth sailing. There are several shoals where the current is too swift for a boat to stem its engine power and it was necessary to "warp" through. A line was pulled along the waters edge and fastened to some solid object, the other end was wound around the capstan, and the boat moved on by a combination of manpower.

Sometimes there were amusing incidents. On one occasion the ‘Dew Drop’ was entering Wild Goose Shoal. The deck hands took the line and were wading up stream to make the tie when suddenly they stopped as they ran into a trot line. The mate yelled, ‘hurry up’. One of the men replied, ‘Alright captain, but you’ll have to wait ’til I git these here d–m fishhooks out of my britches!"
Had our house been situated where it currently is at the mouth of Pure Water Hollow, and had my family been here, I’m sure our dogs would have been barking and we would have been down at the river to see what all the commotion was!

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While I’m on this topic, I thought I would record another bit of info I discovered while researching our shoals. In 1871 the US Corp of Engineers did work to reduce the shoals in front of our house to make riverboat traffic more accessible.

I recently purchased a 14 foot john boat and I am looking forward to using it down on our river. I think it will be interesting to explore the waterways that were once so important that even the government was concerned about it’s condition!

Here is part of the report I found with everything deleted except our part of the river. I have also left in some of the mis-spellings, etc.

"Captain: I respectfully submit my report of operations on the improvement of Big Sandy River, West Virginia and Kentucky, during the months of August, September, October, and November, 1871), at that timo under the direction of Major William E. Merrill, United States Corps of Engineers.

Operations were commenced August 25, and continued until November 20. The work was done entirely by hired labor, and the force employed was divided into three parties—one party on the main river and one party on each fork….

…LOUISA FORK.

On this fork, from Louisa, Ky., to Piketon, Ky., a distance of 86 1/2 miles, -47 shoals were improved, as follows: Twist and Wind, Twin Brother und Contrary Shoals, by blasting and breaking up the bowlders and confining the water to one channel, by means of low wing-dams built from the blasted rock.

Griffith‘s Creek Sand Bar, by changing the channel over bar. Fish Trap, Graves, Bumble Bee, Joe Border’s Ripple, and several small shoals near Lost Creek, Chesnut, Jas. Davis, Murray Shoals, Nathan Border’s Ripple, and Little White House Shoals, Big White House, Vanhoose, Red House, Wild Goose, Ward’s and Greasy Shoals, were improved by blasting large rock, and removing small stones and gravel from the chutes, and repairing the old wing-dams,

The following were improved by constructing riprap wing-dams: L. Preston Ripple, Win. Preston Ripple, Jas. Proston Ripple, Búllalo Shoals (j of a mile long), and Twin Maple Shoals.

The following were improved by removing rock, straightening the chutes, and making the channel wide enough for the navigation of push-bouts, the only boats with which it is possible to ascend the river in low-water: Purgatory Ripple, Miller’s Creek, Bird and Preston Shoals, Parter Hippie, Auxier, Hager, and Wireman’s Shoals, Bay Ripple and Moody Shoals; Abbot Shoals by removing stone from channel and cutting down a sunken barge.

Middle Creek Sand Bar by removing snags and timber piles, half buried in the sand, in order that the river might resume its natural bed. Welt, Davidson, Joy, Strattoii’n, and Long Shoals were improved by blasting and removing bowlders and large stone from the rhaunol."

Many of those names of the various locations and shoals are familiar, although we don't know where many of them exactly are yet. I wonder when the last time was that the government dredged our river? I don't think it has been touched for many decades, but I sort of like the idea of the river going back to the natural state it would have been in when the first pioneers and Indians traveled it!

Kids Born at Purewater Hollow! (Take 2)

It has been 11 days since Mamma Belle gave birth to her kids, in which 2 of three survived. (One boy and one girl.) Belle and both kids seem to be doing great!

Now, Belle’s kids will have some nephews to play with! Little LuLu gave birth to 2 cute little black and white boys today! LuLu had bolted out of her stall earlier today when Matthew opened it to feed her and she headed up the hill! She did not seem to be in labor at that time.

A bit later, the pigs came down to the house, (which is unacceptable). When the children ran the pigs back up to the barn, Matthew noticed that LuLu was not with the other goats on the hill. A brief search revealed 2 little kids and LuLu just a bit above the goat barn. The kids were dirty from rolling down the steep hill some, but they were ok otherwise. We carried the kids down to the stall where we had been keeping LuLu and eventually rounded LuLu up and got a rope around her neck to take her back to the stall. She was not very cooperative, but after some sweat and work, Matthew persuaded her to get back into the stall.

Here is what they looked like when we found them:





You can sort of tell how steep the hill is in these shots:




And here they are exploring the barn stall:



And starting to nurse off LuLu:



When we left the barn, mother and babies were all doing fine. LuLu was cleaning up the kids and they were both nursing some on each side of her udder.

Belle gave birth to the first kids of Purewater Hollow, but LuLu gets an asterisk in the record books as giving birth to the first kids actually born on Purewater Hollow soil. (Belle technically gave birth over the ridge about 50 feet off of our property, but LuLu delivered right in the heart of the goat lot on the hill.) !

So, our goat herd of 5 has now increased to 9 with the addition of these three boys and one girl. We will probably keep them all for the foreseeable future, making the boys wethers, and allowing them all to continue clearing up the briars and kudzu, making the hillside suitable for cattle one day, hopefully.

This may not be the best time to mention this next fact, but LuLu, the mother, is half Alpine and half Boer. Alpine is a milk breed, but Boer is a meat breed. It is possible that LuLu’s kids could be very benefitial to our homestead as a meat supply, someday, even though that is not neccessarily our plans for this litter.

We are thankful to God, and the future of our homestead is in His hands, as always. We just want to be good stewards of what He gives to us!

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1 comment
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sassyfras on May 25, 2009 at 4:32 am
Sounds like things are going good.There is just something about an animal being born on your own land, for the first time that just makes you step back and just praise !!!! Have a wonderful day.

1909 America

What was life like 100 years ago? Well, this came across in an email and I thought it was interesting. I have not personally verified any of these statitistics, so they may not be accurate. We tend to believe everything that we hear or see in print, but who really knows? I do think that this has the ring of truth to it, however. Enjoy!

~Eric

THE YEAR 1909

This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
The year is 1909.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some statistics for the Year 1909 :

************ ********* ********* ****** ********

The average life expectancy was 47years.

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour. The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year . A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME.

Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as ‘substandard. ‘

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn’t read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said,’Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health’

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

I am now going to forward this to someone else without typing it myself. From there, it will be sent to others all over the WORLD - all in a matter of seconds!

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

IT STAGGERS THE MIND
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1 comment
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Purewater on May 21, 2009 at 1:56 pm
OK. I looked the flag up, and Oklahoma became a state in 1907. The 46th star was added to the flag and this flag became official July 4th, 1908. So there were 46 stars and not the 45 the email states.

I think I will check a few more of these facts out.

Question about daytime chicken predators

I have some sad news. Yesterday we apparently lost our mamma hen, Wingleg, and 7 of her 14 chicks. 5 of the Buff Orpington chicks and 2 of the White Rock chicks are gone. We heard the chickens making a commotion around 5:30 yesterday evening, but when Simon ran back to check, everything got quiet and he didn’t see anything. Later that evening, as we went up to milk Belle, we found several feathers that were the color of Wingleg. She apparently put up a fight, but a handful of feathers was the only evidence.

Also, last Friday, just 4 days earlier, a similar incident happened. We heard a commotion late afternoon/early evening, no evidence at all that time, and one of my Black Giant hens did not show up to roost in the coop and hasn’t been seen since.

I am diligent about locking the chickens up in a secure coop at night and they stay in a fenced lot all day until about 4:00. We then usually let them out to free range and enjoy the sun, grass, worms, and bugs for the last 4 or 5 hours of the day and then they all come back to roost in the coop and be shut in.

We have an abundance of tree, bush and weed cover for the chickens. We also have 4 dogs running around to protect the property, although they do nap a lot during the day.

What could be getting our chickens in the middle/end of the day? All I can think of is a hawk, but would a hawk take out 7 chicks and a mama hen all in one swoop?

I’m planning on leaving them all locked in their lots today, but I don’t want to do that all the time. I think they are healthier and happier when they are allowed to free range some. If I continue to free-range them, will I just have to accept loosing some of them every once in a while? But two attacks in 5 days is too many!

Any ideas or suggestions? Does anyone else have trouble with day-time chicken predators?

Thanks for the comments in advance.

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7 comments
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Karen on May 20, 2009 at 11:36 am
If we hadn't seen it with our own eyes we wouldn't have believed it. A fox was doing the same thing exactly as you have described to our chickens. The fox is so sneaky and sly about it that it's just a wonder that we saw him in action one day after chickens had been disappearing when we'd turn them out late in the afternoons.
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jrejhkids on May 20, 2009 at 11:47 am
We let ours out in the afternoon as well. We haven't lost any yet, but we don't have the woods, etc. Ours roam in the pasture with the steer and goat. We have lost one to a pig, when it flew into the pig pen and the pig ate it.

Hope you find out what killed them.

~jrejhkids
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mountainmama on May 20, 2009 at 11:47 am
A fox could be it or possibly a coyote. They travel in packs and could easily kill many chickens. They are also hard to spot.

I hope you find what is doing this. Last year we discovered a rat was killing our chicks. I sympathize because it is frustrating.
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Lorena on May 20, 2009 at 11:57 am
We turn 80 this year and no longer live in the country our son lives on the farm now. We had a sneaky fox one year during the day at night we had a chicken fence around a yard where they could go in and out the chicken house.Each niight we would find the heads of some birds as they likely stuck their heads out. After sitting in the car all night it was the bigest great horned owl I had ever seen.Your place sounds wonderful.
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karen in MS on May 20, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I also think this sounds like a fox. They are very sneaky and hard to catch.
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sassyfras on May 24, 2009 at 5:16 am
I guess the fox also, even though a tom cat will do the same thing. We had a big yellow tom cat that we saw go in an take one of our hens over the fence. Could you tie one of your dogs around the pen area to get his scent around the pen? That might help until you find whats around you.
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janaeel on May 27, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Racoons are most known for there nightime raids be we recently killed one that was after ours at high noon. Our dog treed the rascal and it met it demise. Not a big racoon fan. Have fed too many chicken dinners to them.

Janaeel

You've Got To Be Kidding!

The 13th of May was a beautiful, windy afternoon. The sun was shining, but fluffy, rain filled clouds were encircling the sky like a school of hungry sharks surrounding a life raft in the ocean. There was a magical feeling in the mountains this day, as the trees swayed in the breeze and the sky continuously swirled and churned. The distant rumbles of thunder were both foreboding and exhilarating.

We were not in the mountains today just enjoying God’s wondrous nature. We were on a mission of serious importance! The entire goat herd was missing and Belle had been seen earlier in the day with the early discharge that would precede kidding. We had wanted to put Belle in the barn to give birth, but she had disappeared during the time it took the children to return to the house with the news. Matthew, Christina, and Simon spent all afternoon searching the entire east side of our hollow for the goats to no avail. It is quite a hike up to the ridge, and after criss-crossing the goat pasture hill and beyond they were pretty wore out!

We had gotten Mama Belle back in the spring of 2007 along with her three 6-week old kids. During the past couple of years we have gradually worked on our goat fencing and facilities until we decided that we would finally be ready to start raising goats from birth. (We still have much we need to do to complete the goat pasture and things we want to do in the goat barn. I guess things will never be “perfect” enough, so may as well trudge ahead!)

We borrowed a buck from a friend in December and kept him all winter long. Apparently he and Belle bred almost immediately, because she was now giving birth just 151 days after she had first met this buck! (150 days is the gestation period for goats, give or take a week.)

After work I hurried home to help look for the goats. They had never disappeared so completely before! I guessed that Belle had set off to deliver her kids in private and the rest of the herd had followed her far away, but at the same time I was prepared for the worse. I hoped the goats were ok, but I also instructed the children to search for signs of an attack from a pack of wild dogs or coyotes and we were prepared to find some seriously injured or killed goats. There are some very steep cliffs up at the ridge, and it could be possible that an ill-timed jump or a slip of the hoof could cause a goat to plummet to its death. We organized a search party of Matthew, Christina, Simon and I, with Lisa and Erica holding down the fort at home.

Christina and Simon trekked once again up the ridge beginning at the house. I started at the goat pasture, following the trails to the ridge top. I sent Matthew to check the neighboring hollow on his four-wheeler, in case they had gone up and over and perhaps gotten lost. All the while we were noticing the beauty around us we were also looking under briars and next to rock cliffs for signs of destruction!

We were connected to each other via two way radios, so Lisa could listen in to our progress as we gave periodic reports. It wasn’t too long before Christina and Simon reached the spot on the ridge above the goat lot where I was, with none of us seeing any sign of the goats. Matthew drove as far as he could on his four-wheeler before he was blocked by fallen trees in the road. Since no one lives over in that hollow, no one had cleaned up anything after our February ice storms and wind storms. Mathew had to backtrack out of there instead of coming on up to the ridge like I had hoped.

We spread out, once again, and started combing the ridge and hillsides “manhunt” style, being just far enough away from each other that we could not hear each other unless we yelled pretty loudly. Simon and I took the lower spot on the opposite side of the ridge, Christina took the top part of the ridge, and Matthew was going up to the North rim to come back toward us.

It wasn’t too long before Simon and I thought we heard strange sounds up in the distance. It sounded like it could be horns butting each other in playful combat! After hearing it a couple more times, Christina broke the radio silence with a euphoric, “I found the goats! At least some of them…” When I asked where she was, it was a bit comical at first, because she couldn’t say for sure. I thought, “Christina found the goats, but now we’ve lost Christina!” A couple minutes later we heard her come over the radio, “Here’s Belle. She’s ok.” And after a few moments of silence she came back on, “And she has kids! They’re adorable!”

I soon ascertained the position of Christina and the goats. Belle was way up under a rock-cliff cave and the other goats were on top and around the giant rock. It was a rather strenuous climb to get up to where they were from the angle I was coming from and Simon quickly outpaced me up the steep hillside.

It is difficult to describe the topography of this spot. There are sheer cliff sides that are impossible to climb, some as much as 20 to 30 feet while others are just 6 or 7 feet. There are several crevices amidst the cliffs and overhanging rock ledges. It is similar to the areas on our side, but we had not been on this land much, since our property line stops at the top of the ridge and this was on the other side. The unfamiliarity lent to the excitement and wonder of the whole situation!

It was also impossible to get any pictures that really do the spot justice, since we couldn’t get back far enough to take in the whole spot in the viewfinder of the camera. But perhaps these shots give some idea of the terrain we were navigating to get to Belle and her kids. This was the rock that Belle was hiding out in:



Here is Christina next to what I am now calling "Goat Rock":



Here is a picture of Belle on guard; probably something like Christina first saw when she rounded the side of the rock:



We did not have our cameras with us on the search and rescue mission, so all of these pictures were taken after Matthew volunteered to go back to the house to get the cameras, a rope, and some sacks to carry the kids in.

When I got up the cliff, Christina and Simon were admiring two very cute, little goats that were still wet. Belle was in the process of cleaning them off, and she had the beginnings of the after birth material still attached to her backside. (I don’t know how to describe that delicately.) We figured that these kids had to only be perhaps 30 minutes old, since we have read that they dry off quickly. There was a female that was mostly black, and a male that was mostly white. Unfortunately there was also another male that looked just like the black female that was lying to the side, dead.

Here are some pictures of them up in their "birthing room" under Goat Rock.

The boy:



The girl:



A close-up:



Mama Belle knew how to take care of them:




We all enjoyed watching the new kids as we were aware that we had just stumbled upon a miracle of God!





You can see in the above picture a bit of the ledge that this rock crevice was on. We knew that we needed to get them to the barn for their safety. I was afraid that the little goats would hop out to the edge and then fall about 15 feet down and get hurt, or perhaps those wild animals we thought of before would find an easy meal up here, away from our dogs normal patrol route.

The trek carrying the kids down the mountain was full of adventure and adrenaline. For one thing, the sky had clouded up quite a bit and coupled with the wind and thunder, it looked like we could be in for a good storm! We put each kid in a feed sack and hoped that Belle would follow their bleating down the mountain. It turned out that Matthew needed to put a rope around her neck to lead her down the mountain side. For some reason she was more concerned with eating greens than keeping up with her babies. Maybe she knew they were in good hands? Matthew and Belle found their own route off the mountain while Christina, Simon and I did the best we could getting down without shaking or squeezing the kids too hard.

We took turns carrying the kids because of the difficulty of the hike. Christina and Simon had a much easier time than I did! It was difficult finding solid footholds climbing down the hill and I actually fell a few times. Once I caught my leg under a fallen tree and could have broken it had I fallen forward instead of backward! By the time we got down to the goat barn, the sweat was drenching my undershirt. I was glad to get them into a stall in the old barn and that Mama Belle still wanted to take care of them in the stall!

Here they are in the barn stall before we retired for the night:



We took some more pictures the next day. We have been vascillating some concerning names for the kids, but it seems like "Galadriel", named after the elf princess in Lord of the Rings, has stuck for the black girl. We have been calling her "Galaddy" or "Gladdy" for short. It seems the boy will be named after Lord of the Rings’ Tom Bombadil, "Master of wood, water and hill." We have been calling him "Tom" or "Tommy" but we have also been calling him "George" after Curious George.





So this adventure took place last Wednesday, May 13th. We estimate that Tom and Galaddy were born about 4:00 in the afternoon. They are 6 days old today.

A couple final notes:

Lisa milked Belle last night and the evening before! Belle is full Alpine, so she should be a good milk goat. Milking a goat is new for us, and so far we have just taken enough to make Belle more comfortable. For some reason, one side of her utter has been very much engorged compared to the other side. We are considering working out a regular milking schedule, but we definitely do not want to bottle feed the kids. Maybe we will be able to share with the kids. I am pleased with the taste of the milk; there’s not much difference from store bought cow’s milk. Any suggestions on milking a goat would be welcomed!

Our other doe, Little LuLu, seems to be near kidding. We have her in a private barn stall, so there will not likely be such an adventure as we had with Mama Belle’s kidding. This will be LuLu’s first kidding, even though she is over two years old. She is half Alpine (from Belle) and half Boer, so she should be a good milk goat also. The problem with her is that she is not very friendly toward us, and I don’t know if she will let us milk her or not. We are hoping she will be able to deliver without any complications.

It has been exciting to welcome the first goats born at Pure Water Hollow. We didn’t get to witness the birthing first hand, but we were close! We are very thankful for the kids that have joined our homestead and we give God the praise for His creations! Had we not found them in time, this episode could have ended with in a tragic note. Perhaps things are starting to turn around for us at Pure Water Hollow for the better!

There is another sad footnote to the day of May 13th, however. While we were looking for the goats, we noticed one of the Rouen ducks were gone. We later found Champ, our chocolate Lab, with a duck wing in his mouth! We don’t know for sure if he killed the duck, or just finished her off. Either way, it has pretty much sealed his fate. We will try to find a new home for him.

I hate to end this post on a sad note! I am pumped up about our new kids and they are so cute! If you want some cute, friendly little animals at your homestead, all I have to say is, "You’ve got to be kidding!" Ha! Ha!


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2 comments
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karen in MS on May 19, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Wow!! What a day you've had!! You live in a truly beautiful place way up in those mountains. We don't have any mountains in South Mississippi, but I've always loved them.

Good luck with your new baaaaaaaaaabies, lol!!
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sassyfras on May 24, 2009 at 5:34 am
Wow !!! what an adventure, the kids are cute……yours plus the four legged ones….if your lab took the duck could he have taken the chicks ?… .

Mother's Day Flood

This blog is about many common, everyday sort of things that go on around here, but every now and then something unusual might arise (like the river). When unique events occur, I usually feel like recording them as well.

Today was a slightly different sort of Mother’s Day, in that our church service was canceled. Why would a church dismiss on Mother’s Day, you might ask? There is little choice it seems, when the road coming from either direction leading to the church-house is under water! Our church is the River Baptist Church, so named because it is located adjacent to the river, but today the church building was actually surrounded by the river!

We had fun checking it out, and I took some pictures. Our church is just to the left behind the trees. You can see the maroon church sign if you look closely:





The church is just a mile from Pure Water Hollow, so I am speaking of the same river that runs in front of our house. Normally, we can’t see the actual water unless we walk out to the road. It has been strange today to look out from our living room and see the current of the river rushing by, because the water is so high.

Our rain gauge has collected 6 inches of rain during the past week, and since all the surrounding areas up the river had similar amounts of rain, it was just too much water for the old river banks to handle all at once.

This phenomenon is not especially rare, but it is uncommon enough to be notable. This has only happened perhaps 5 or 6 times since we have lived here since 1993. The last time we remember the river being over the roads was February of 2006. And also in February of 2003 there was a crest of 37.67 feet at our county seat, which was the 16th highest on the NOAA list of historical crests for our area. During those times, we have been completely cut off here at Pure Water Hollow, unless we wanted to cross over the mountains on foot, or risk the whirlpools of the river by boat.

Our Mother’s Day flood today was destined to crest out at only 31.2 feet this afternoon, so it wasn’t really any big deal in the grand scheme of things. The NOAA site lists 28 feet as "Action Stage", 35 feet as "Flood Stage", 38 feet as "Moderate Flood Stage", and 42 feet as "Major Flood Stage". They say that 35 feet is when the streets are flooding in our county seat and parts of the county are cut off, and then at 38 feet houses are getting flooded in our county seat, and at 42 feet the businesses are getting flooded. I’m sure the measurements are probably a bit different out here where we are, but I think it’s a pretty good comparison.

Saturday morning I decided it would be prudent to clean up our riverbank, just in case the river continued to rise. At 9:00am the water was still below our big flat area where we try to have a garden and some peach trees. We had down there some chairs, milk crates, and many hundred feet of chicken wire that I had used last year to deter the rabbits and turtles from the veggies. I didn’t want to loose all that fence material and I thought it would at least get mangled if left down there in flood waters. We worked on it all morning, and by that afternoon the water was beginning to creep up on the riverbank and surround the trunks of the peach trees.

Fortunately, we have been behind in getting our garden sites ready and planted, so there was no time-investment or seed-investment lost with this flood. Our four peach trees were loaded with small peaches, and unfortunately, they may suffer some damage.

These peach trees are kind of special in regards to Mother’s Day. The children each presented Mom with a peach tree for Mother’s Day back in 2002 (I think that is the correct year). We planted them on the riverbank and they found themselves under water the very next February! The first tree you come to is a Belle of Georgia semi-dwarf, the next is called Sugar Princess, and then Diamond Princess, and lastly a JB Hale semi-dwarf.

The Belle of Georgia seemed to have the greatest early yield of baby peaches this year, and being in front, it had to take the brunt of the current from the river. And being a semi-dwarf, it is not quite as tall as the Sugar Princess and Diamond Princess. This being said, the Belle of Georgia only had about 6 inches of one limb left protruding above the floodwaters as the river crested this afternoon for several hours and the current pushed the tree at an angle! Some of the limbs from the other trees were also submerged, but the top halves of the Princess trees were still visible above the water, and some of the JB Hale. Just last week I was saying that I should have pruned the middle of those Princess trees so they wouldn’t be so tall! Once again, being too busy may have actually proved beneficial! Perhaps we will still be able to harvest some peaches from the riverbank. We will have to wait and see what they look like after the floodwaters recede.

Here is a picture of a couple of the peach trees before the river had crested. It got much higher than this. What you can’t tell is how strong the current is going by the trees.:



Well, the river continued to rise all through Saturday, Saturday night, and Sunday morning. I took a strange pleasure in checking the river level regularly. When I went to check at 7 am this morning, the road to church was already underwater. We placed stakes in the riverbank to mark the progress of the encroaching water. I guess we had about 8 sticks in the ground starting yesterday, but the early ones became submerged quickly. We could still see the stakes from midnight, 7 am, 9 am, and 11 am. The water level held steady until about 3 PM, and then it began to gradually go down. The weather service on the computer said that the river crested at 31.2 feet at 11:00 am.

Historically, the biggest river flood here was on January 31, 1957. The NOAA site says that the crest for that one was 45.92 feet! I wonder if the water was actually in our house during that flood? In the book Swimming Upriver, an earlier flood is described when the floodwater got up to the top of the cellar, stopping just short of coming into the house. If that flood was February 3rd, 1950 the NOAA site lists that crest at 38.88 ft, which was the 13th highest crest on record! (There is an excerpt from the book on the website about that flood if you would like to read about it. It is pretty good.)

A flood on Mother’s Day is not the best present for an incredible mom like Lisa, especially since it preoccupied my time yesterday instead of working on remodeling the bathroom! We did not have church today, but Lisa still had a nice Mother’s Day. The children presented Lisa with homemade cards and Erica fixed a wonderful brunch of biscuits and gravy, sausage and scrambled eggs, juicy bacon, and fried apples. It was a meal consisting of food that was all home raised here at Pure Water Hollow except for the grain for the biscuits!

After our family Bible reading we drove up the road to look at the floodwaters and walked out on the suspension bridge spanning the river. We then took a nice walk through our hills identifying various plants and trees, which is one of Lisa’s favorite activities. We found a plant that Lisa had never positively identified before. She was happy to discover that it was what she thought it might be; purslane. It can be used in salads or boiled as a green and is supposed to be high in vitamin C, vitamin A, calcium, and phosphorus. I bet we will try it sometime soon!

After our walk we relaxed and had a nice dinner of pork loin roast. Lisa read to the children until bedtime while I finished typing this post.

All in all, I thought it was a nice Mother’s Day, even with a flood. Of course, Lisa deserves so much more than we can ever do. She is the most wonderful wife and mother I could ever dream of. The love I feel for her is impossible to put into adequate words!

If my love for Lisa were changed into drops of water, my heart would quickly overflow. It would run into the river, but the river never would crest. It would flood not only the riverbank, but also our house as well, and the surrounding land, the county seat, and the whole state of Kentucky! The flood would continue until the peaks of the majestic Rocky Mountains would become victim as the great nation of the United States and the whole continent of North America and, yes, even the entire world became submerged by the water from my love for Lisa! But since God promised he would never again flood the entire world I’m quite certain that He would never turn my love for Lisa into drops of water. Every one reading this should now breathe a deep sigh of relief!

It has gotten late. If the preceding love analogy seemed corny to you, just chalk it up to my being sleepy. But even when I am sleepy, I am thankful and grateful to the mother of my children, and I do love her that much! I am even more thankful and grateful to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for saving me, for giving me such a Godly wife and mother for my children, and for blessing my home and family here at Pure Water Hollow!

Good night everyone, and God bless.

When It Rains, It Pours

The saying, "When it rains, it pours" has a ring of truth to it when considering the current state of our homestead.

On the literal side, we got 3 1/2 inches of rain over the weekend, which caused flash flooding in our hollow. It made the rest of the dam break on through, so that it is now beyond repair with the tractor I have been hoping to get. I will not have a stocked fish pond this year, nor will I be able to use my ram pump with the supply lines from the pond.

The water again flooded our lower yard, part of the garden, and driveway, leaving debris all over the place once again.

Various places in our roads have been rutted out by the water, and we lost part of the road above the clearing that we had made last summer. I spent all morning yesterday digging trenches to divert the water, clearing out debris from the ditches on the roads, and opening up the culverts that had gotten stopped up.

Also our cellar is filled up with water almost to the top, completely submerging the kereosene heater I had stored down there. Another $100 loss?

Meanwhile, some critter got the goose eggs and ran Mother Goose off her nest, so no goslings this go around.

Also yesterday, we moved Nellie and Sally back to the barn again. Nellie is seemingly in heat and Rufus was not leaving her alone and we were afraid he was going to hurt her. This time Rufus, (the giant 900 plus pound boar) was not going to stand for it. He snapped the post (which was in concrete) that the gate was hung on, and proceeded to follow the sows to the barn. It was just a stick in the mud to him, it seems. It will take some work to repair it. We put the gate on the other lot and eventually moved Rufus and Nellie in there. We may need to sell Rufus sooner than expected. Sally is still in the barn. I don’t know if she is pregnant or not?

More rain is expected. The peach trees on the river bank are looking very good. I hope the water does not get over them as it is apt to do if the river floods out of it's banks.

But, when it rains, it pours.