Funny

We often go to Aristacats for breakfast on Saturday mornings.  They have free Wi-Fi, advertised on a homemade sign.  Apparently a customer had a better meal than marriage experience...

Another Farmer's Holiday

Now I see why they call it the Red River

I try to save office work (including blogging) for rainy days, but those are so few and far between that I get way behind.  We're forecast to have showers all day so I made a big pot of coffee, brought up 2 days' supply of wood, built a fire and hunkered down.  I'll try to catch you up...

I might have mentioned before that, soon after we moved in, we spent a little money and had the chimney fixed so the fireplace doesn't smoke any more.  I really wish I had done it as a gift for Dad years ago, he enjoyed a fire so much and enjoyed tinkering with this firebox and heating system.  Kathy loves a fire too, and can go through a lot of firewood.  By the time I got back from Africa she had burned everything I had cut for the fireplace, the smoker, the chiminea and a couple of old fenceposts!

Argh, argh, argh!

Since my attempts to cut more were hampered by frequent trips to the  chainsaw repair shop, Kathy got me a Christmas/Valentine/Father's Day/birthday present of a new chainsaw.  It's awesome!  I immediately took it to the Gamblin place where there's a big thicket of dead Live Oaks, and cut more in half an hour than I had all fall.  Two days ago I put a big old stump in as a back log, figuring it would last the night.  It lasted 3 and still had embers this morning so I put one little stick in there and had a fire in 5 minutes.

We're deep into our favorite season, calving.  I've talked enough about the shortage of grass and hopefully expressed enough thanks for a good hay year last year.  I know I complained this summer about all the time I spent in the tractor, but I'll never complain again.  We started feeding hay in September, got the cows in good condition, and calving is going great.    

First one--Amy's, wouldn't you know

The first one arrived January 29.  Amy and Todd were here last week and helped me tag on Friday, and there were 8.  Last night (Tuesday) I counted 18!   A perfect score would be that we have 24 by tomorrow, which would indicate all the cows conceived on their first heat cycle, a sign of excellent fertility and nutrition (not to mention hard-working bulls).  I'm happy with how well it's going.  Two of the four 2011 Polled Hereford heifers we raised have calved and the other 2 are looking close. 

Baldies

 You can see a little winter grass greening up thanks to the January rains.  I'm hopeful for some more today.  After being brown and dead-looking the oats have grown out a little and now I'm trying to decide whether to graze them or save them for hay.

Polled Herefords

Sometimes we take a glass of wine and go up on the Gator just to sit and watch them run around.  Kathy's working at H&R Block in Waco, making almost enough to pay for her gas, and it's our favorite way to spend the last half hour of daylight when she gets home.

Not that it's all work.  Holly and I decided to check on the bass situation at the tank.  The tank's low and the bass are hungry.

Come see us.  There's enough work and fun to go around and we'd love to share it with you.

Life is good

I've Looked At Rain From Both Sides Now

With major apologies to Joni Mitchell...I returned last week from  our water project at the Angel House orphanage in Tanzania in the middle of a 3-inch rain in central Texas, the first we've had in a long time, and I guess I'm still appreciating both.

The water project trip was a wonderful experience.  For some reason--maybe having been there once--I felt much more comfortable on every phase of the trip and much more able to enjoy it.  The orphanage kids were great as always, and our volunteer team was delightful.  The following paragraphs are excerpted from the last status report we sent from Tanzania.  Due to procurement lead times I need to make one more trip to complete the equipment installations and see it all in operation.

Rainwater Collection System

The rainwater system on the school building is complete.  Our friend Marwa from Tarime installed the gutters and our team installed the downspouts, rain collectors, first flush diverters and water manifold system.  We purchased the storage tank and ran pipe to it but did not hook it up, awaiting final installation of the tank support stand.  In a rain shower this afternoon we had a glorious gushing flow of water from our pipe, rinsing out the system before final connection to the tank tomorrow. We are close enough that the teachers, cooks and students can envision the end result, and are very happy and appreciative.  The science teachers in particular are interested in how the system operates, and we discussed ideas for possibly building a distilled water generator in order to avoid having to go to Nairobi to buy distilled water for the laboratory experiments.

The rainwater system on the school

Our 5000-liter tank ready to be hooked up

The "glorious gushing" flow during a rainshower

Submersible Pump System

Pipe from the well to the storage tank has been run and buried, and pipe from the tank to the bathrooms has been run.  The tank stand and solar panel support structure are being welded.  A pipe has also been run from the storage tank to the rainwater storage tank so that during the 3-month dry season, water can be pumped to the rainwater tank for an uninterrupted supply.  Our friend our Lucas, the installation technician, will finish these provisions on Saturday.  When the submersible pump, pressure pump and purification system are on site we will fill every available bucket, remove the hand pump, install the submersible and run around to the tank to listen for flowing water.

The hand pump we'll replace and our first trench

Trench from the tank location to the house

We accomplished the greatest part of our task and I consider it a complete success.  Our team learned a lot about patience within given circumstances, and accomplished this job with a minimum of expertise but a maximum of teamwork. We look forward to getting running water in the orphanage, and we feel like the rainwater system provides a model for effective and inexpensive water collection that can be applied anywhere. There is still certainly room to grow, as there are more tanks to be added as well as a complete system of modern plumbing that would include showers and sinks in the future.

Again, we are grateful for your contributions and support, and for the chance to perform this service to these deserving kids. 

I'm Farming And I Grow It

Maybe you've seen these guys by now--they've gotten pretty popular.  K-Staters, they were featured at halftime of the KSU-Texas game (which, for the 5th straight time, was a KSU victory but I digress again).  Check'em out (click on the link).  Gotta Feed Everybody

A Load Of Bull

Our 4 little bulls from 2012 and Lambert, the one I bought in Kansas, are spending a celibate time away from the females, eating the left-over Coastal over at the Gamblin place and grumbling to Tommy Fuqua's bull through the east fence or Larry's across the road.  I take them range cubes each morning and drink a cup of coffee while they eat.

Kind Of Nutty...

The Pecan is the official state tree of Texas so I assume it must also be the official nut of Texas.  Apologies to my children, who grew up believing that distinction was held by my brother Pete (I don't know where they got that idea).  In fact, Pete is actually from Florida, and when Mom and Dad corrected his residency from Texas to there, the average intelligence of both states increased.  But I digress...

The Busted Handle Pecan Factory is enjoying its best harvest since we've lived here.  The nice big tree in the back yard has marble-sized, thick-shelled pecans that taste great but are just too much trouble to shell.  The big dogs enjoy crunching them, though, and the back porch will be covered with shell fragments if we don't sweep it often.  The little scraggly tree in the front yard, however, is loaded with big thin-shelled pecans.  I enjoy picking them up every day or so, and our recent cold snap will probably yield the last of the crop as the husks freeze or dry out, curl away from the pecans and let them drop to the ground or expose them for picking.

I can spend a productive time cracking them and picking them out by hand during a Cowboys game or an evening by the fire but, when I accumulate enough and have reason to go to Stephenville, I really enjoy taking them to a nursery there that has this Rube Goldberg machine for cracking them.  I wish I had invented it.  It looks like it's built from spare parts, so I'm sure I could have.  You pour your pecans in the top and they drop to a bin at the bottom, where a bicycle chain with little claws riveted to it that look like they were sawed off the back of a hammer rotates through the nuts, picking up one in each set of claws.  As the chain continues to rotate each pecan is carried upward past a little anvil where a hammer head is spring loaded and timed to whack it.  The claws continue over the top of the sprocket and dump the cracked pecans into the hopper at the left, where they're poured back into our gucket and taken home to be shelled.  It makes a joyful noise, sprays fragments all over the place and is a delight to watch.  A dollar a pound and worth every cent.  Someday I might build one if have have an old bicycle and enough hammers.

The result, whether shelled by me or Rube, is perfect for pies, cinnamon spiced pecans, or eating just as God made them.  We have plenty--come on down and help me eat'em.

Calves Status

I delivered the marketing alliance steers on Wednesday, Oct 24.  One, the youngest of all, was under 600 pounds so I kept him back for a load in December.  The others averaged 625 pounds, right where they were supposed to be.  Now we have the 11 Polled Herefords, the one baldie steer, and Lambert the yearling bull left here at the house.  I fed them all in the barn trough then left the gate open so, when they finished and ambled out, the 2 little twins would go with them.

They did, and they all stayed together last night in the pasture, but the little ones didn't come up with the others for breakfast.  I guess they have to develop social skills and the herd instinct.  They did all come up for dinner tonight, so I bet they figure it out pretty quickly.  We'll see if Kathy still sneaks Starr a bottle through the fence.