Dorper Sheep

At the Texas County Fair in Houston, MO we got to see the Dorper sheep for the first time. Our neighbor is thinking about breeding these sheep on his farm. I had never heard of this kind of sheep before. You do not have to shear them, they are a hair sheep. This is great as finding shearers is very hard these days. These sheep were very docile and stocky, sold for meat. The breeder was showing ewes and a ram pure blood Dorper. His daughter won 1st prize showing her sheep without a halter or lead rope. After seeing these sheep I think my neighbor is on to something fun and exciting to raise. We also enjoyed seeing the young children learning how to show their livestock.

Texas County Fair

Here in the Ozarks we have farm fairs starting up as fall rolls in. Though a hot 100 degrees, people brought in their livestock to be judged. There were swine, poultry, goats, sheep, rabbits and bovines. They also set up tractors for all to see. I got to see several kinds of chickens I was interested in adding to our farm. We are hoping to see the car demolition derby they are having at night this year after the animals all go home.

Making Bread

One good thing about hot summer days, you can proof bread outside. I was able to get my two loaves of sunflower seed bread to rise on my deck. They both baked up nice and brown. And my cat Daisy waits for our dinner guest in the head chair of our kitchen.

Deadly Heat

Today was a bad day for our chickens. One of our year old hens died in the coop a victim of the heat, it was 108 today. And we have 2 other hens missing at nightly role call. I had no idea chickens could die from the heat even under the shade. We had the coop open and the chickens were free to run out and into the pasture. This afternoon we installed a box fan to keep our flock cool. I hosed down the coop and the yard. The coop and the pasture are under the shade of trees. Tomorrow I will hose down the yard for the chickens and give them watermelon to keep them cool. I hope the heat will be ending soon before I lose all my chickens.

Damn Hot

It is way too hot here in the Ozarks. The grasshoppers are baking on my deck, the horses are melting and the chickens are laying hard boiled eggs. I put out 2 loaves of bread to rise on the deck and they were cooking instead! It was 105 out here and that is too hot. Everything is dry. Wildlife is coming to drink out of my horse water tanks. I can barely keep stuff watered. We need rain badly out here. This is way not normal for this area. And now it is August the hottest month normally. We are praying for a good rain in church. It has been like this for the last 3 weeks and that is not normal. I get my outside chores done before 10am and stay inside until dusk for feedings. Lets hope cool fronts come soon and bring rain for all our trees, plants and animals.

My First Love

My husband does not get it, but I had a first love before him - it was a car. It was a 1965 teal Ford Galaxie. How could someone love a car? It was not the car itself, it was the attention my Grandfather gave me while we worked on his car back in the 1970's in New Orleans. He loved this car and it was how he communicated with his first grandchild. I learned at a young age how to speak car. I learned about chrome, mag wheels, engine sounds, spark plugs and making this car purr. You take care of your car and it will take you anywhere. I understood how to maintain a machine and how it can serve me. It was my first love that car and I miss my Grandfather.

Yes, my first love had mag wheels.

Century Link- Coyote Stupid

Congratulations Century Link, you get awarded my prized Coyote Stupid Award.
I read a blog about how in Vermont they are getting fiber optic high speed Internet in very rural areas. They are using horses to pull the cable along the power poles. Here in Missouri we have horses, hills and power poles, but we also have Century Link. They have one man to install DSL for the town of Summersville, MO. Right, one guy! And that is his second job!

We called Century Link to ask if we will ever get DSL, they have no ideas. We offered to pay Century Link to install DSL at our farm, they laughed at us and said they don't do that.

I called the head of sales and he said there are not enough people on my street to make the Internet worth any money to them, nice huh? Am I living in a cave?

Basically Century Link is doing a great big nothing for the Ozarks of rural Missouri. They are keeping Missouri residents in the stone ages keeping us from having what the rest of the USA has, high speed Internet. All our Federal Government will do is just give Century Link more money. And Century Link will just buy up other phone/Internet companies and keep being the big fat MONOPOLY it is.

They did it to Show Me Power, a company that tried to get fiber optic to the small rural towns. Century Link lowered their price for Internet until Show Me Power could not make any more sales. Then after Show Me Power went belly up, Century Link stopped adding any more fiber and sat on the money.

So thank you Century Link for keep us in the dark ages. Thanks for giving the rest of our state that wholesome hillbilly backwoods backwards profile we love. Thanks Century Link for holding back sales, deliveries, movies, realty, e-mail and all other forms of Internet commerce the rest of the US uses. I am so damn proud of how you are keeping Missouri behind, I could just scream.

Spiky Wish List

Here is a close up of the best front end 3 spike bale loader we have seen yet. It is a fully adjustable addition on our medium sized tractor. The problem is this device is quite out of our budget new. So we are going to put it on our wish list and look for one used or at auction. It made our round bale moving a breeze. We are so grateful to have friends lend it to us. I hope Santa can haul one like it on his sleigh for us this Christmas.

All My Hay Men in a Row

How many men does it take to unload 28 round bales of hay? How many tractors? For us it took 3 men and 3 tractors, 1 house trailer and 1 F-350. We picked up our bales from the hay farmer in the morning. He loaded up the bales with his green John Deere. We hauled the hay to our farm 4 bales at a time on the borrowed house trailer. Then we needed to remove the bales from the trailer bed using a friends tractor with the best 3 spike loader. My husband finished the job with the 3 spike borrowed tractor. We drove back and forth 7 times to collect all the bales about 1.5 miles away from our farm. Today we used our tractor to organize the 28 bales on wood pallets. Our tractor is not fitted up to lift bales off a trailer, yet. We drank about 5 gallons of iced tea doing all this on a hot July day. With the lack of rain we might not be able to get this much hay again before winter comes. And we have to feed 4 horses over winter. Being an observer/photographer to all these machines, men and hay can make a farm girl feel like a queen for a day.

Rolla Tank

We stopped over at the Rolla VFW hall to see their tank. It was not going anywhere as the rear wheels were welded. But it was fun to see one up close. They are very proud of their tank.

Hot and Scrappy

What to do on a hot humid July morning? How about move a 400lb washer, dryer, and an electric organ out of a basement? And what fun that was. Three adults were able to get these vintage machines up and out of a basement and onto a flatbed. We helped our neighbor get glass, paper and scrap metal out of his property and to the recycling center. It was worth the effort since scrap metal is worth some money. Beats rusting away in a basement. Since there is no trash service out here in the Ozarks we have to figure out what to do with it. It can get creative. At least were were able to get it all loaded and hauled off under the shade of the trees.

Our neighbor was kind enough to make us steaks for dinner to celebrate working so hard today. It was nice to relax after such a hot day outside.

Peach Me

This week I bought a bushel of peaches to can. The peaches are close to overripe and very sweet tasting. I canned only 5 jars this go round. I will make fruit leather and jam out of the remainder peaches. All the skins, buggy pulp and seeds went to our flock. It was a tasty treat for our hens on a hot dry day.

Swimming Ducks

Here are our young ducks cooling off in their tubs. They swim, dive and chase each other into the tubs. The chickens just stand by and watch.