We bought a straight run of 100 chicks in May.  A straight run is the “luck of the draw”, so to speak.  When the chicks hatch in the incubator, we get whatever hatches.  We can choose the breed, but the ratio of rooster to poulet will not be our choice.   A rooster is a male; a poulet is a female.  Generally speaking, though, in all the time we have ordered chicks we have gotten nearly a 50:50 assortment.

We keep the chicks in a brooder house all summer.  We fence them in so that they don’t mix with the laying hens and the “head” rooster in their roaming or in the coop.

At this time of year, our roosters and poulets are mature.  The roosters dominate the poulets somewhat.  To allow the poulets to begin their egg-laying duties they must have more space.

When we butcher the roosters, that gives the poulets the environment they need.  They begin to enhance our egg supply.  The brown eggs are very small at the start.  But the size grows as time goes by.

We keep the poulets and sometimes sell the old hens so that we don’t have to keep so many in the coop over the winter.  Since the fox has cheated us out of a lot of old hens this summer, we have considered keeping the old ones as well as the young ones.  We like to have a generous supply of eggs on hand to share with our family and friends.

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Just one week after our fire,  we set aside a Fire Clean-up Day. 

The night before the event, our daughter and son-in-law helped us clear our garden.  Some of the wood had to be transported to the basement woodroom on the tractor loader which meant that the tractor had to cross over the garden.  Some beets, carrots and potatoes had to be dug.  Other crops and flowers had to be pulled, as well.  They handily cleared the way for the morrow’s activity.

That next day, friends came over to help move the pile of old charred wood to a new woodpile closer to the house.  One  brought his skid loader over to help move wood and ashes and to level out the soil where the fire had been.  Another brought his trailer over so we could place trash items in it. A total of eight men labored together day.  They worked joyfully from 10:30 AM till about 2:PM.  They accomplished much.

Ladies supplied us with a nice variety of foods to feed the workers a filling and refreshing lunch on our picnic tables.   They served beverages, sandwiches, weiners, fried chicken, melon, cabbage salad, cupcakes, soup, cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and chocolate cake and many other yummies.

Several generous individuals have donated wood to replace the firewood we lost.

We are grateful that folks such as these had it in their hearts to be generous to us with their time and possessions.

II Corinthians 9:7 (NIV) says, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Thank you, dear friends.

Question:  If it pleases God for people to give with cheer in their hearts, then do you suppose that God gives to us with a cheerful heart, too?

I think so.  Thank you, Lord.

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Photo credit: Crystal Burmeister
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What an afternoon.  The sun shone in the clear blue sky.  Gentle winds reminded us that fall has arrived.  It was corny! 

You may think that means that I did something worthless, but not so.

Field Corn Ready to be Picked

We had the pleasure of receiving three visitors as guests on our farm.  They expressed interest in corn husking.  You see, the Minnesota State Hand Corn Husking Contest is just a week away.  They came to learn how to do it so as to prepare themselves for the competition.

My husband hitched up the corn wagon to the tractor and took all of us to the corn field.  There he explained the technique of cornhusking by hand.  He also related the rules of the contest to these future competitors.

I got to drive tractor, the John Deere B, that pulled the corn wagon while the huskers tossed the yellow ears of corn into the wagon.

As time went on the young huskers got used to the technique and got to work on increasing their speed.  I expect we will see them next week at the contest.

Yes, the afternoon was corny in that we were busy in the corn field.  And it did have value.  We made some new friends!

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I raise cucumbers in my garden some years.  When I do, I make dill pickles.

Generally, I raise the dill, too.  My favorite way to use dill is in my pickle recipe.  I use the flower and leaves in the pickling.

Sadly, I had no dill this year, except for a couple of volunteers that showed up late in the summer.   However, I had frozen dill from prior years tucked away in my freezer and I put them to use in this year’s batches of pickles.   To freeze the dill I pick the leaves, flowers and seed heads and put them into a freezer bag and freeze them with no other preparation.  They can last several years.  They come in handy for years like this one, when dill is not handy at pickling time.

Dill is a refreshing scent and flavor in foods.

Another favorite way to use dill is with freshly-cooked, red potatoes from my garden.  I cook the potatoes till tender and drain them.  I add butter and snipped dill leaves into the dish and stir.  It is a treat when the first potatoes are dug.

I do not harvest all of the dill.  I like to let some seed heads mature.  Some will survive the winter and volunteer in the garden next year.

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My husband checked underneath the grape leaves.  He discovered the grapes were ready for harvesting.  He picked over half of them.  The rest will be ready later.  He stored them in an old peach crate till I could process them.

Grapes Ready for the Harvest

We have the concord variety of grapes.  This type of grape has enough pectin in it to be good for jelly-making.  It also makes delicious juice.

Today is my grape day.  I immersed them in water for cleaning.  I picked the good grapes off of their stalks.  Moldy grapes get discarded.  Some appeared to have a worm hidden inside.  (If a worm is hidden inside one spot of the grape remains hard and green while the rest gets ripe and darkened.)  Those grapes are not welcome in my juice either.

I put the cleaned grapes in my 8-quart stainless steel kettle.  Covering the grapes with water readies them for extracting the juice.  I heat the grapes and water to steaming.  I watch so that the pot does not boil.  Boiling will destroy any vitamin C in the juice.  I  mash the grapes occasionally with my potato masher as they get soft to get more color and flavor out of the grape and into the juice.

When the cooking is complete, I strain the juice in a jelly bag or strainer.  The solids and seeds are discarded.  (The chickens wholeheartedly approve.)

Quart Jars of Grape Juice for Winter

If I have the time to can the juice right away, I do.  I process the juice with 1/2 cup sugar to each quart.  If I cannot process them right away, I refrigerate the juice for processing the next day.  If I want to make jelly from the juice at a later date, I can the juice without sugar.  That way I can follow the jelly recipe and add the sugar at that time.

One should not delay the processing long, lest it ferment.  Juice that is not sugared will get hard more quickly than the sugared kind if it is not sealed.  Doing it sooner is more to my liking.

Grape juice is a delicious part of our winter rations.  I recommend it.

Preserved Foods and God’s Bounty are 2 of the many cards to see in our store.  They reflect to joy of using the foods that God supplies.

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We have two varieties of pear trees taking up residence in our little orchard.

The oldest is too tall and is half gone due to a lightning strike many years ago.  The fruit is as hard and crunchy as an apple till it yellows and softens like the ones I can get at the store.  They sweeten up nicely, but if I wait to use them when they yellow, the cores are brown and render the fruits useless for the canning process.  Therefore, the picking and canning take place when they are still as hard as apples.

The other tree is a smaller, younger one.  It bears fruit that retains its crunch even when the fruit is ripe.  They are smaller, delicate pears with a refreshing sweetness that we enjoy.  We like to eat them fresh.

My husband and I saw that the time for picking the fruit was upon us.  So I picked up the windfalls while he sported climbing the ladder and picked  from the tree.  We got 10 wire baskets picked that day.

Peeling that many pears was not practical.  So we hauled the old apple cider press out from the basement.  We placed it in the shade of our ancient Burr Oak tree and washed it.

My husband washed all of the pears.  I cleaned old ice cream pails and a filtering device and made the kitchen ready for the chore ahead.   I gathered and washed up several quart jars, lids and screw bands for the next phase of this job.

This job takes effort.  It is more fun if company can come over to help enjoy the project with us.  But this day, as spontaneously as it came up, made us do the job alone.

The juice was extracted, the chickens got to enjoy the leftovers and the press was washed and stored away till we have use for it again.

In the kitchen, I strained solids from the juice through a few layers of cheesecloth.

I heated the juice to scalding with cinnamon to taste.  (Try stick cinnamon sometime.)    I flavored one batch with lemon juice.   I have used red food coloring for a pink-pear juice.

We were a very tired pair that day, but pears were on the shelf.  We  rested that night content that we had preserved the bounty that the Lord had provided.

Generally we gather about 3 dozen eggs from our 50 hens each day.  Lately, however, the egg production has taken an unwanted dive.  That always makes a farmer suspicious.

Since the flock of hens is let out of the coop near the noon hour, hens wander in search of interesting additions to their diet.  The bugs and worms mixed with bits of grass and weeds in the cow pasture make their lives and eggs more interesting.

After the evening chores, my husband has noticed some tell-tale chicken feathers in the calf pasture.  When the chickens roost in the hen house for the night, he counts them.  Sure enough, another hen is missing! 

Now, who is the culprit? A weasel will sneak into the hen house and bite at their heads and leave the rest of the chicken alone.  But a fox or coyote could dare to come within range of the hen yard to grab the whole animal.  That seems to be the case.

The Sly Fox

My husband has been watching.  He has spied a fox and her kit coming to the calf pasture for a little fast food.  He has noticed that they come nosing around the farm at about 4:30 in the afternoon.  They have been successful in getting the chickens.  We have lost about a dozen so far.

Now is the time for this good farmer to come to the aid of his chickens.

He will lie in wait.  The dog will do his part.  Look out foxes!  You would both be better off if you found a new restaurant.

Randall Grabau Copyright 2012

To my amazement, the little “sprinkle” did not stop.  It rained harder and it kept on raining.  After about an hour of steady rain, our daughter, with

Weather Service Radar

the help of her computer, retrieved National Weather Service radar images for the past hour.  About the time I heard that wimpy rumble of thunder, the radar screen showed just one small spot of rain.  As she progressed through a series of images, we watched that tiny spot expand.  Then it split into two cells, but all the while it remained directly over us.  Even the weatherman on the 10 o’clock news commented on the one small area of rain that did not seem to move.  Finally, it stopped raining about 1 1/2 hours after it started and amounted to about 3/4 of an inch.  That was more rain than we had gotten for the last two months!  The next day, we received an additional  3/4 inch of rain.

I had recently been studying a part of the book of Job for the Men’s Bible Study in which I am involved.  Most people know of the trials Job experienced; trials relating to his family, his farming business and his health.  Most also recognize that in the end, God blessed Job for his steadfastness through his trials.  But the prerequisite to Job experiencing God’s blessing is found in Job 42:10.  It says, “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends.”  Only after Job prayed for his friends, not just for himself, were his fortunes restored.  At times our prayers seem to go unanswered.  Perhaps one of the reasons is that we focus too much on ourselves.  Maybe what God wants for his children is to be less selfish with their petitions and to focus on the needs of others.

Those two days of rain revived our crops.  The rest of the summer has still been very dry.  But without that 1 1/2  inches of rain, our crops would have been much worse.  God blessed us that evening and that “one small cloud” refreshed our spirits as well as our crops.

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Randall Grabau Copyright 2012

People from all over the country prayed for rain.  Churches prayed.  Later in the summer, friends told us that they had asked God specifically for rain for our farm.  I did, too.  I petitioned the Lord for rain on our farm, but also for our friends and neighbors who needed it just as much as we did.

The weather forecasters occasionally offered some hope of rain,but as the predicted day approached the chances of rain diminished.  As the day arrived, we were often disappointed.

On July 17, 2012, the forecast included a chance of rain.  But, as the sun set that evening, it looked as though, once again, the rain had gone around us.
We had baled hay that day, so about 9 PM, as the sun approached the horizon, I had just finished milking our cows and all the other evening chores.  I looked to the southeast as I left the barn and saw a towering thundercloud with plenty of lightning flashing in it.  “Somebody is getting some welcome rain,” I thought.

Small Storm Cloud

When I looked up directly above us, I saw a small patch of clouds with clear sky to the north and west.  The setting sun brightened the scene.  Just before I entered the house basement door, I heard a little, wimpy rumble of thunder from the cloud above me.  I thought to myself, “Even if that little cloud does produce some rain, it won’t amount to much more than a sprinkle.”

A Bible story in the book of I Kings tells of a similar situation.  After a 3 1/2 year drought, the prophet Elijah is praying for rain.  Elijah sends his servant seven times to check the horizon as he prays.  On the seventh time, the servant returns to Elijah and says, “A little cloud like a man’s hand is rising out of the sea.” (I Kings 18:44)  Verse 45 adds, “In a little while, the heavens grew black with clouds and wind and there was a great rain.”

“That’s nice,” I responded, “but it won’t last long.”

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