BFF Blog Archives
About Us: We are a Christian homeschooling family of eight striving to serve the Lord on an acreage in Kansas. We have a family business and sell all-natural chicken & turkey, grass-finished beef, fresh eggs, and goat milk. This is the journal of our farm life, adventures, and learning experiences. Visit us again soon!
The Farm Hands:
Tom & Dana, Brandon-24, Sarah-17, Nathan-13, Jonathan-11, Rachael-10, & Samuel-8
On Our Shelf...
The Backyard Beekeeper
Kim Flottum
Baptism By Fire
Mark Updegrove
American Lion: Andrew Jackson and the White House
Jon Meacham
Mornings on Horseback
by David McCullough
Brave Companions
by David McCullough
Tobacco, Corn, & Caviar: The Amazing Struggle to settle Jamestown
edited by Curtin S. Reinhardt
Let us know what books you're reading!
Words of the Month:
Effuse (verb) to pour out as a fluid; to spill; to shed.
Loquacious (adj) talkative;given to continual talking.
Vociferous (adj) making a loud outcry; clamorous; noisy.
Precocious (adj) ripe before the natural or proper time; premature.
Palpable (adj) perceptible by the touch; that may be felt
Incongruent (adj) unsuitable; inconsistent.
Disparate (adj) unequal; unlike; 'dissimilar.
Innocuous (adj) harmless,; safe, producing no ill effect; innocent.
Definitions from American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster 1828
Read previous definitions here.
Photo of the Month:
Quote of the Month:
"Planning is an unnatural process; it is more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being proceded by a period of worry and depression."
-Sir John Harvey-Jones
Visitors
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Samuel Is In Business!
Saturday | May 30, 2009
Loading the cargo!
Samuel, our entrepreneurial chicken farmer, started raising day-old pullets in March. The chickens are finally at the age Samuel wanted to sell them, and he made his first sale today! His hard work and diligence has paid off; he has nice-looking, healthy hens and cash to pay for his next load of feed. Congratulations, Samuel; we are proud of you!
The business man
The buyer's grandchildren help catch the hens they are taking home
"Thank you, Sir!"
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Interesting Conversations
Thursday | May 28, 2009
Ladies talking
Our friend, Betty, invited us to have lunch with her this week at the conservatory where we take music lessons. This is our last lesson until September. We usually take lessons through July and resume in September. Tom felt we needed a break, so we will have THREE entire months off. We enjoy hearing how our friends at the monastery grew up; most in large families. It is a blessing to hear them reminisce of by-gone days.
You have all those animals?!
Several lively conversations at once...
Mom with Roberta: "I'm taller than you!"
Lately the family joke has been how tall everyone is getting...except Mom. She is now one of the shortest ones in our family! Nathan just passed Sarah in height: Sarah is reluctant to admit it, though.
Here is proof!
"Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him
with the psaltery
and an instrument of ten strings."
(Psa 33:2)
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Chevre Cheese Making
Wednesday | May 20, 2009
These are bags of chevre hanging in oder to drain all the whey
I added three more bags of soon-to-be feta to this collection of chevre. This time of year is the peak for our goat milk supply; it will start diminishing by mid summer. We have several hundred pounds of milk in our new freezer; in fact, the freezer is full and an even newer one is to be ordered soon. Chicken, beef and pork will be butchered in early June, so we need more freezer space. Since we have very little room to freeze more milk, I thought I would start making cheese again. Mozzarella, chevre, and feta are in the works right now. Chevre is a spreadable cheese that I add homegrown herbs, and this new batch of feta I will soak in olive oil and herbs for a tasty addition to salads. I like to give away free samples of our cheese, in order for our customers to be completely satisfied with our products.
Music Recital
Tuesday | May 19, 2009
Music Scholars
We joined two other families at one of their homes for a music recital. The music was beautiful and such a blessing to hear 15 young men and ladies playing various instruments, using their talents for the glory of the Lord! What a refreshing time this was for our family
Violinists Nathan and Samuel played a duet
Nathan joined Sarah in a harp piece
Many piano performances
Our family
After the recital we were free....to play! Of course we brought changes of clothes. We enjoyed the time of playing tag, catching frogs and snakes, hide-and-seek, dirtballs, talking, and playing more music together
The young men that milk cows and goats engaged in arm wrestling - milking must be good exercise since they both were so strong! So, does milking a goat or a cow make you stronger?!
The older musicians also enjoyed swapping music pieces
"Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him
with the psaltery
and an instrument of ten strings."
(Psa 33:2)
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When the Cows Come Home...
Monday | May 18, 2009
The cattle rustlers set off...
It was another of those days that I say "Thank you,
Lord for another day." It was to be like most other days; chores, breakfast, school...but before chores were even completed, it had symptoms of being another one of THOSE days; seems we have had three weeks of THOSE days. During chore time, I had a report of the cows being out of their fencing, and Jonathan could not get them back to the paddock they were supposed to be in. I examined the situation, and the cattle were not too far away and still on our property. After much deliberation, I decided to wait a while
to see if the cows would come back into the fenced area. We ate breakfast and started school.
Then we found our
dog eating two of our meat birds-- the ones we are to butcher and sell in June. We recovered and placed them in the brooder house to recuperate. That is what chickens do, re coop, since they live in chicken coops. It was obvious one of the chickens would not make it. So, do we have him for our dinner? Or give him back to the dog for his dinner? At that point, our school was school of hard knocks.
After lunch, the boys went
to make sure the cows were back in their fencing and to mend the downed fence. After 45 minutes, I walked to the back pasture to see what was
taking so long, and found the boys still looking for the cows. They saw one
of the eight cows well away from our property. They were unable to
locate all of them and could not get even one to return. I called our
neighbor to let him know our cows were on his property. Two points to make here: our cows have never escaped. The second point, is when you grass feed cows, well, you grass feed them. That means NO grain or other feed, so we did not really have a good way to lure them back home. If the grass was actually greener on the other side of the fence, well, they could just stay there and enjoy it. No reason to be here. They certainly do not appreciate all the love and care we give them. So, we wondered how far they might wander and if they would return at all. A couple of hours later, our neighbor rides up on his Gator and takes four of the children to look for the cows.
Two hours 15 minutes later, I wondered what was taking so long. Actually, I wondered this long before two hours, but tried not to assume the worst. Yet two hours 45 minutes later, the neighbor and children returned. After much walking and herding, they had found the cows and herded them to our neighbors' backyard pasture. They were 1.5 hours late for milking and chores, which
made everything late and many things undone for the day. Including me.
I could only be thankful we had a day and a safe one, at that. Ah, the lessons we learn. I will save those for another time,
though.
After tramping the "north 40," the search crew took a rest before herding the cows home
We toured a Holstein dairy up the road from us yesterday
The bottle-fed calves were cute
Farmer guys talking trucks. We see these red dump trucks haul corn every autumn past our house from their farms to their storage sight. It was neat to finally see these trucks up close and hear the reason behind them running constantly for days each year...
This morning since it was raining, Jonathan constructed raincoats from feed bags for his siblings. It worked quite well, accompanied by a Filson hat and bonnet, respectively.
"He causeth the grass to grow
for the cattle,
and herb for the service of man:
that he may bring forth food out of the earth."
(Psa 104:14)
4 Comments
~Dana, for the
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Happy Mother's Day!
May 2009
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!
Twenty-Five Reasons
Why I am Thankful For You
By Sarah Lee
1. You are the best mom that I could have ever been given!
2. You chose the most important job in the world-a mother
3. You are willing to have many children according to God’s will
4. You teach us good character and raise us in the fear of the Lord
5. You patiently help us overcome bad habits, attitudes, and actions
6. You teach us useful homemaking and farming skills
7. You homeschool us diligently everyday, no matter what
8. You manage a clean and attractive home
9. You write us special notes
10. You read us good books
11. You make us yummy milk drinks
12. You feed us nutritious meals
13. You make us special desserts
14. You are always researching more “health information”
15. You grow the biggest garden in the county
Mom with Nathan and Jonathan, 1997
16. You can lots of vegetables even though you didn’t know how growing up
17. You know how to sell our products
18. You are not scared to meet new people and love to laugh
19. You take us fun places and give up your desires to do what we want to do
Mom with Brandon and Sarah, 1994
20. You’re always up early in the morning, ready to start another day
21. You married the best man in the world and are always ready to do projects for Dad, work “behind the scenes” cheerfully
22. You always have the house clean when Dad comes home, and are ready to “follow his map”
"Where next?" Mom with Dad, 2007
23. You willingly edit every issue of KBR and write herb articles, you support my work
24. You taught me how to write letters and good etiquette, and remind me to follow those rules
25. You are a virtuous woman!
Thank you for all you do. I will always be thankful that God blessed me with such a wonderful mother! I love you,
Sarah
"My son...
forsake not the law of thy mother."
(Pro 1:8)
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Broilers: Out To Pasture
Tuesday | May 5, 2009
"Greetings from Bryant Family Farm!"
We are raising naturally grown and pastured chickens ready for dinner on June 9. We are currently accepting orders. We have waited for the weather to warm up a bit and dry out before we turned them onto the pasture. Now they can have all the fresh air and grass they can digest.
Nathan and Jonathan completed the two pens so the broilers could "graduate" to fresh grass
And then they moved the pens to pasture
Samuel and Rachael helped move the chickens, placing them in crates and hauling them to the pen
"What are we supposed to do with this GREEN stuff??" The chicks were shocked! They were so funny, not knowing how to walk on the grass nor what to do with it. But it did not take long for them to graze all the grass down!
As a side note, we had ten goat kids this year, eight of which were females. We bottle feed our goat kids and all but three are weaned. Here is a doeling, with her newborn kid, and all the cows lined up ready to welcome her to our world!
First radish from our garden this year! Lots of onions, peas and lettuce growing as well. We are thankful for the wet spring we have had; as a result, planting has been slow and weeds growing like, well, weeds! We also have an excellent crop of yellow dock and dandelions growing; we just need to get to work educating the public about how nutritional and beneficial these two herbs are! They both make good tonics. Dandelion is great for your liver and yellow dock a good source of iron. You can use the root from both plants to make tinctures and teas and of course, every part of the dandelion is edible--except the seeds.
"He causeth the grass to grow
for the cattle,
and herb for the service of man:
that he may bring forth food out of the earth."
(Psa 104:14)
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Hogs: At the Butcher
Monday | May 04, 2009
Nathan and Jonathan's latest entrepreneurial venture has been very successful!
We are thankful and relieved that their pigs weighed 261 lbs and 285 lbs, respectively. We were told 250 lbs is a good weight for a pig; a higher weight is not economical for the gain rate.
The butcher said the meat looked good, it was firm and there was little fat. We are thankful their first time at raising pigs was successful; the learning curve is high at our home and everything does not always turn out so good! We pick the meat up Friday from the butcher and our customers will pick it up that afternoon. We do not regularly eat pork, but wanted to try our first naturally-raised pork, so we had shoulder roast yesterday. I had to find a recipe since I have never cooked one. It was delicious!
Nathan: a happy hog farmer!
Jonathan: keeping track of his hog cuts
"You've NEVER had ribs?!"
"He causeth the grass to grow
for the cattle,
and herb for the service of man:
that he may bring forth food out of the earth."
(Psa 104:14)
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Visiting with The Robbins Family
Saturday | May 02, 2009
We enjoyed a visit from a family that is moving cross-country. We are thankful the Lord was gracious to allow us to meet and fellowship with the Robbins family. We enjoyed their visit and the time of fellowship with them!
Manly discussion
The boys enjoyed doing chores together: milking goats, feeding chickens, moving pens...
"Look at the chicks!"
Guests enjoy seeing our recently hatched chicks. We bought 36 fertilized eggs from Stover Hatchery, in order to incubate and hatch chicks. We had an 80% survival rate,and we are enjoying their little peeps. We were not very successful last month when we incubated and tried to hatch eggs from our own layers. Survival rate was 4 out of 24 because the eggs were not all fertilized; a necessity when trying to hatch baby chicks!
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