Where Does the Time Go? Cherish the Time

I can’t believe it’s been four years since I last wrote a blog post. The title of the post says it all, but it is pretty clear where the time went. Our family has added two more children in the last four and a half years. The older kids keep on getting older, and with the progression of age comes the addition of more activities. We currently have homeschool, co-op, gymnastics, ballet, basketball, three different youth groups, and a multitude of other events in between. To say we are busy is an understatement, but not a complaint. My wife and I talked early on in the Covid shutdown about how nice it was that there were NO activities to get kids to so every single night we had a family dinner that wasn’t rushed and everyone is there. It wasn’t a complaint about the aforementioned activities, but a remembering of why we have a large family… we enjoy our children and like spending time with them.

As the world has continued to move back to our new normal the activities have returned and the busyness with them. During shutdown our oldest got his driver’s license, and that has been a game changer, but we are still busy.

Our oldest also worked all summer at a full time job. It is certainly a new season in our parenting journey and it has forced me to cherish the times when our entire family is spending time together. Adding another full time schedule, that I don’t fully control, to the mix has made family vacations and even chores around the house more of a juggling act.

All of this is to say, life is good. I am blessed. While nothing is ever perfect, I have a wonderful wife, great kids, a roof over our heads, and food to eat. I can’t ask for much more. I know that God is on his throne, and with all of the above, I can live a very happy life.

I’m Giving Up

I am giving up on rotational grazing for the year.  A friend of mine, whom I consider to be a mentor, mentioned that Oreo could probably stand to put on a few pounds.  I haven’t been making time to change the pastures as often as I should, so today I just opened up the whole pasture and am going to let them finish it out through the fall.

I think that rotational grazing is great, it improves the pasture, and it gives you more time to have eyes on your animals.  My problem now is that my vocation is as a husband, and father, which includes homeschooling the kids.  Those things take priority so I am hanging it up on rotational grazing this year.  My thought is that next year I may make it part of the boys chores to move the animals on a regular basis.  We’ll see.

If you’re interested, I will have a YouTube video tomorrow.

New YouTube Trailer

I don’t know how many of you watch YouTube videos on a regular basis, but that is kind of my television.  One of the channels I really like is Justin Rhodes.  He and his family live in North Carolina and they are currently planning a cross country trip, in a bus that they are converting(I’m so jealous) and they need places to stop.  I applied to be one of them.  One of the things they wanted in the application is one minute video about the applicant’s location.

I needed to add a trailer to my YouTube channel so I killed two birds with one stone and created this.  Let me know what you think.  And if you do watch YouTube, please consider subscribing.  Thanks.

Kids Shooting the Longbow

I still have ambitions for making my own longbow, but the kids wanted to shoot the one I bought.  It was a good time, even for the four year old.

Small Project Turns not so Small

I was only planning on quickly fixing a small break in the hot wire for our electric fence.  It turned into a bit bigger fix, diagnose, and rotational grazing while I was at it.

Anniversary Weekend

This past weekend my wife and I celebrated our anniversary.  I was able to plan a weekend for us away while keeping the details a secret from my wife.  First off, I have to thank our family and friends who took our kids to soccer,  took them to church, and watched our kids for 24+ hours.  Without them, this weekend wouldn’t have been possible.

I wanted to plan something that would be interesting, but also relaxing.  We started off by visiting the Pious Union of St. Joseph in Grass Lake, MI.  We got there a bit before Mass so we walked the grounds for a few minutes, seeing the outdoor cross, stations of the cross, and the Marian grotto.  I think it would be an amazing place to attend an outdoor Mass during good weather.  The chapel itself was quite beautiful with an amazing amount of woodwork inside, appropriate for a chapel named after a carpenter.

After Mass, we went for lunch.  My wife loves barbecue, as do I.  We have wanted to visit West Texas Barbecue for awhile.  It is purported to be one of the best barbecue places in the whole state of Michigan, and it didn’t disappoint.  The weather ended up being beautiful so we were even able to eat our barbecue at a picnic table outside.

Later in the evening we went to the vigil Mass at another place we have been wanting to visit, St. Mary Star of the Sea.  The church is absolutely gorgeous.  It has the feel that I would call that of a mini basilica.  It is impressive from the outside, but inside it just feels so much larger than it looks.  If you are every in Jackson, MI, stop in for Mass.

Aside from those events we were able to just relax and enjoy each other’s company without any distractions.  While I love spending time with all of our children, it was really amazing to just be able to talk and hang out without having to answer homework questions, break up an argument, or other parent things.  I think it showed me we need to have date nights on a more regular basis, just to have the “us” time.

Until next time.

Putting the Pieces Back Together

I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago that it seemed like everything around here was breaking.  First the golf cart, then the lawn tractor, it was getting bad.  On the way back from our vacation I ordered a rebuild kit for the golf cart engine.  That means there is a plan to get that back in action.

Once we got back I had grass to cut and I needed a quick way to make some headway.  I put the finish mower on our big tractor and got to work.  When I was done with what I needed to get done, I got to work trying to fix the lawn tractor.  After taking the deck off and surveying the situation, it became apparent that the problem might not be as bad as I first thought.  The spindle seemed like it was still ok, but the bolts attaching the spindle assembly to the deck seemed to have backed out.  I was able to find some acceptable hardware, I would have preferred better but it was what I had, so I got everything put back together and the Cub Cadet is back in action.  This is actually quite big, as it allows the boys to help me get grass cut.  I realized when I was on the big tractor, I hadn’t really cut much grass this year, and that was just fine by me.

I made a video for the YouTube channel on the mower fix.  If you are interested, you can find it here.

Until next time.

Back From Vacation

We were blessed enough to spend the last week in Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach actually, with our family and my in laws.  It was great, and I will have a post on the week in more detail shortly, but I just wanted to let you all know I’m still here.

Now that we’re back, it is back to the chores of daily life.  While I was cutting some grass for the animals I started wondering if there was a way to save some of this myself for the animals to eat when the grass wasn’t growing.  I am currently looking into ideas of do it yourself, small scale haylage and silage.  I’ll be sure to let you know what I decide, but if you have done either, please let me know.

I also have ordered the rebuild kit for the golf cart engine, so that will probably be a post or two, and a video as well.  I’m also tossing around the idea of rebuilding my hay wagon, if I can find time, as well as building a post frame shed/building for the pasture animals.  Lots to do before the snow flies.

What is on your to do list before winter?

No matter how far I go, I always find my way home to this sunset

 

The Homestead is Falling Apart, and it’s all My Fault

It seems like every time I touch something on the Homestead lately, it breaks.  If you watched my golf cart video on YouTube, that was one of the things to which I am referring.  In that case, my not checking on the oil on a regular basis is going to cost me several hundred dollars in order to rebuild the golf cart engine.  Check out the video where I explain the situation more fully.  The one silver lining to that situation is that I will get to learn how to rebuild an engine with my father so I will gain that knowledge, so there’s that.

The latest event happened a couple days ago.  Homestead Boy #2 was out mowing the grass when I hear a sound coming from his direction.  It sounded like he ran over something with the mower and that said item was stuck in the blades.  He did the right thing and shut off the blades and then the mower, and waited for help.  When I got over there I didn’t find anything in the blades or anywhere else that made it evident what the problem was.  It drove fine without the blades on so we took it to the barn and put it up on ramps so I could get a better look underneath.  After careful perusal I believe I have found the problem.  The center spindle on the mowing deck went bad.  In other words, I believe the bearings have failed, meaning I will have to remove that spindle and replace it.  This could have been caused by a multitude of things. Lack of grease or the blades being out of balance are the leaders in the clubhouse.  Since I was able to find a silver lining to the golf cart fiasco, let’s see if I can find one for the mower…..  Let’s go with me being able to show the boys how to replace a mower spindle and making sure they know where all the grease zerks are on the mower.

They say that “unlucky” events come in three and while I am not a superstitious person at all, I am at the current moment hiding under a chair waiting for number three.

Until next time.

Huge Farming Operation

The other day we had an opportunity to visit with one of my wife’s co-workers and her husband.  They live just up the street from where my wife and I lived not long after we got married so it was fun to drive past there and show the kids.

They have a beautiful new house tucked back in the woods on 16 acres, it is idyllic.  We were able to have dinner and visit for awhile which is always great.  The kids even got to play some pool and meet their grand kids and play with them for awhile.

One of the main reasons for our visit was that they wanted to show us my wife’s coworker’s uncles farming operation.  It was just a few minutes away, and quite impressive.  I am repeating any stats from memory so forgive me if I get them wrong.

They have a large milking operation milking over 3,000 Holstein cows, which they milk pretty much 24 hours a day.  They have about 3,500 of their own acres that they farm, and then lease that many more which to my mind is an amazing undertaking.

We were able to see the milking parlor briefly, and the amount of automation that goes into that is a sight to see.  The stanchions for feeding the cows while they get milking are all automated and raise up when the cow is done milking, allowing the cow to leave the milking parlor.

In the barns where the cows spend a lot of their time, the cows each have their own waterbed for laying on to rest.  Apparently it helps in their digestion.

The kids were then able to see some of the calves in one of their calf barns.  When you have an operation as big as theirs, calves are being born just about every day, and sure enough we saw a calf that was born that morning.  It reminded me of last spring when we bought five steer calves to raise.

The last stop on the tour was the swimming/fishing pond and what I will call the party barn.  They have created an amazing spot for their family to have get togethers and visit.  They have the swimming pond, to which they added a zip line, water slide made out of plastic culvert pipe, and a couple swings that swing out over the pond.  They also have a sand beach volleyball pit and a soccer field.  The party barn was a big open, very nice barn that had bathrooms and plenty of space for the family to gather.  They have a set up that I am envious of, and someday hope to have similar.

It was a very impressive operation, and I was honored to have it been shared with our family.  I can’t imagine trying to manage that amount of property, animals, or chores.  Honestly, it’s not something I personally would be interested in, but it is very cool to see.  I’m more of a, couple of cows, pigs, chickens, etc on as much grass and pasture as possible but we need some of each to make the world go round.