Coyote Ridge FarmsWelcome To Our Rural Blog

Carol received a call on her cell phone this morning.  It was from a past customer of ours.  Some time back, the caller purchased a little billy goat from us – the goat’s name was Bam-Bam.  This is not the first call we got from these nice folks and hopefully it will not be the last.

Anywho -  this call was to let us know that Bam-Bam is a new papa goat.  His first offspring were twin doelings.  The caller also wanted to let us know that Mr. Bam-Bam is quite large now but remains a favorite animals on their farm.  I guess he’s a real sweetheart.  The call we got some time ago was not so posative… maybe a little worrisome.  It seems, shortly after bringing Bam-Bam to his new home, he was a little mean-ish.  During that call, they described to Carol the situation.  Carol told these folks that it sounded like Bam-Bam was in rut.  What they were experiencing was pretty normal for a new buck who now found himself in the alpha male role on the farm.  They only needed to watch him and let nature run its course.  With time, it should be fine… It was.

Bam-Bam is now quite gentle and is putting out some gorgeous kids.  Thanks for the call.

Or is it?

After baling for Farmer Mike on some rented land he controls, it was time to do a little baling here on this farm. We have about 3 straw bales remaining for the goats and then we’re out… completely.  The straw we have been using for bedding has been from the stockpile we set aside 2 years ago (2008).  It’s a wonder it’s lasted this long.

A few days ago, Farmer Mike offered his John Deere, small square baler for us to use.  Well, I thought we should take him up on his kind offer.  We have approx. 300+ bales to bale and rain has been in the forecast for days now.  Normally, I would use the the neighbor’s JD 24T baler, but with time being a luxury we did not have, I needed to get our season straw baling done ASAP.

After driving the tractor to Mike’s, I hooked up to his baler, with hay basket behind that.  The drive, on a tractor, takes some time.  All the while I was thinking I should just use the neighbor’s baler… it would have be quicker.  Well, well, well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Mike’s baler is a little bigger than the neighbor’s and has more teeth on the pickup.  I was able to bale in 2nd gear, with no problems.  Before picking the baler up I had raked 2 windrows straw into one larger on.  Needless to say. I was glad I went the extra mile for this more modern baler.  And with the hay basket catching the bales as I bale, was a true time saver.  This device is wonderful.  One can easily bale about 70-75 bales and haul them with you.  There is no going back to get the bales, putting them on rack and bringing them back to the place.

Here I am using a bale basket while baling our wheat straw.

The first day, we had nearly all the straw bales baled.  Not put away, but baled.  The bales we did get put away, Madison helped with.  The next day, we put most of the baled oats straw in the loft. When Carol was busy with Chas, Madison would be in the loft, helping me pile bales until I could get in the loft to stack them.  We had a few issues with the bale conveyor,  but after some minor repairs, we were back in business.  Later, I went out to the field and made a few rounds in the wheat field for 70-80 bales of wheat straw.  It was smooth going. I really liked Mike’s baler.  Gotta get me one of those.

As I was finishing up with the baling of the wheat straw, it started to drizzle.  No biggy, I was headed home anyway.  Oh crap! We need to put this stuff away.  After pulling into the yard, I helped Carol stack the rest of the load of oat straw (on the ground) into the barn.  When we got done with those bales, we still had the hay basket still full of bales.  I was quick to drop the load off near the barn – that’s when the work really started. Austin (just back from work), Carol and myself high-tailed the wheat straw into the barn.  We already had some straw in the loft, but we like putting bales along the outer walls of the barn.  By doing this it helps hold the heat of the animals during the cold winter months.  It makes a huge difference.

The last couple of days reminded me of when I was growing up, helping my dad and grandpa do the baling, in the 1970′s.  It seemed we always baled straw on some of the hottest, most miserably days of the year.  It was just the way it was done back then I guess.  Today, we started the day with temps in the 90′s°F with high humidity.  Later in the day, Carol mentioned to me that our weather station alarm went off – I had it set to sound off at 95°F.

Again, using Farmer Mike’s baling equipment was a Godsend.  I’m sure grateful for his help and so glad I never p*ssed him off when was younger.  I don’t think we could be doing nearly as well as we are without his help and guidance.

The haying is done for now. This time I baled everything into small square bales for the goats (and Ruby, Madison’s mini horse) this winter. A big thanks goes to our wonderful neighbors who lets me use their old JD 24T baler whenever I need it.

I forgot to look at the bale counter to see how many bales I baled, but if I had to guess, I’d say we have approx. 300-350 in the loft now. This hay is mostly used for the nanny goats when they are in the birthing pens and for the little ones in the nurseries. If we had a skid loader I suppose round bales would be the ticket, but when you a lacking certain things for bale handling, the square bales work just fine.

For the most part I was the one to get the bales out of the field. Austin has a job, Madison doesn’t like driving the tractor on the steep hills and Carol has been busy getting her mother ready for her surgery date and then again, there is the occasional sales-barn auction. So.. when the mice are out playing, the cat (me) has to do the work when it needs to be done. This morning and early afternoon, I was able to load, unload and stack 3 hay racks of hay. Later, I was glad to have Austin & Carol helping collect the bales (when they could) and Austin & Madison doing the unloading while I stacked the hay in the loft. Haying is a real family event on this farm. The real labor saver was the the old homemade bale elevator that I pulled out of the woods. It works like a charm. I’m quite happy with it.

The next crop to command attention is the wheat. It is or is nearly ripe. It is such an attractive golden tan with the oats next to it just as golden as it could possibly be.

Some of you know that Carol grew up as a ‘Townie‘.  With that said, more folks know her as a farm gal.  But being on the farm for only 2 years, there are many experiences left to explore.

The last 2 days, Carol has found herself outside the ring of a couple local-ish livestock auctions, looking for goats & chickens.  It seems we are selling more livestock and poultry directly to our customers than we think we can replace sustainably.  It’s a good position to be in [business-wise] but we want all of our customers (present and future) to be able to buy the meat they want and still have a good selection in which to do so.  So, Carol has been looking primarily for more meat goats as well as a dairy goat or two… the last few weekends, we have been selling-out of raw goat milk too.

Well, today, Carol found a few things at one of the auctions she attended.  She did find some goats, but only dairy goats.  These goats will help improve her herd as she intends to cull some of her lesser quality milkers.  She also purchased a few more layer hens – yep… we have been selling out of eggs as well.  We have standing orders for 6-8 dozen and we haven’t been able to meet the demand.  My question to Carol, after she got home, was how does she know if she got hens that were actually going to lay for us.  It seems that when the hens lay eggs on the way home from the auction, chances are the hens are in good working order.  We’re both happy.  BTW:  You can buy our fresh eggs in Kerkhoven from Kristine at Inspiring Path Alternatives.

Another thing she bought was this little tool.   Or maybe I should say “little tools”.  She bought 2 cases of them.

Tote-N-Cut bale handling/feeding device

She may have paid too much for them… who knows.  But, we have one down in the barn, awaiting to be used.  It looks like it would be a handy thing to have around, but I guess the proof is in the pudding.  If you want one, contact Carol.  She’s selling them for only $2/each.  I tried to find some information about them on the Internet, but came-up empty.  As you can see, they are/were locally made… the question is “When?”

Carol also bought a Home Health brand home milk/juice pasteurizer, if for no other reason than to give folks a chance to experience or taste our farm-fresh dairy products without the worry of things made from raw milk as seeming weird.  Believe it or not, but some folks still think milk comes from a carton and not a cow or goat.  The pasteurizer Carol bought is a low temp unit.  Instead of heating the milk to 165°F for 15 seconds, it heats it to 145°F for 30 minutes.  The lower heat process does not kill all the helpful/healthful micro-organisms, like the beneficial pro-biotics… just the bad (if the milk were not handled properly).  The price of this handy-dandy appliance was 50¢, minus the 25¢ worth of puzzles she sold [that came with the pasteurizer].  Once home, we tested the Home Health pasteurizer and it seems to work perfectly.  If you would like to taste some pasteurized goat milk or goat milk cheese, let Carol know before heading out to the farm.  Of course, our goat milk soap does not need pasteurized milk – soap is soap (even if it is weird).

The day was cool and rainy, but that didn’t stop our visitors from coming out from St Cloud, MN.  Visitors?  I should say new farm customers.  Three younger fellows searched the Internet for goat meat and our farm came up in the search engines.  We were the closest.

These gentleman were transplants from Kenya, they said… two of them going to school at St Cloud State Univ. and the other at Mankato, MN – all cousins.  They wanted a nice goat or two for a BBQ.  It seems their grandparents would be visiting the United States for the very first time and the boys wanted to make it extra special for them.  These guys were as polite as could be and seemed very appreciative for letting them buy some of our animals for butchering.  Along with 2 goats, they also purchased 3 chickens and 8 dozen eggs.  All three guys mentioned how much better true, farm-raised food tasted, compared to the stuff one normally finds in the super-markets.  The one cousin mentioned he loved our farm, with the variety of animals.  He said it reminded him of the farm he grew-up, 10 years earlier.  He smiled as he said, “I feel at home here.”  He, too, had chickens that were allowed to free-range about the farm.  He expressed to me that he was looking forward to eating one of the chickens as soon as possible.  “The birds in the grocery store are soggy,” he said.  He also commented that farm birds have so much more flavor than the chicken found in the stores and even the eggs taste better.

When they guys were done butchering the goats and chickens, they cleaned-up their mess.  In fact, it was hard to tell they had even been here – not even a feather from the chicken could be found.  They were super neat.  It was a joy to speak with them while they were here.

I sure hope nobody comes out looking for eggs today – we’re sold out.

I received a call this morning. It was a gentleman who identified himself as Mark, from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR)  The main topic, being the raw milk issue in Minnesota, which is just now making it to the national new services.

This is the 2nd interview I have participated in with MPR.  The first being in May… again on the subject of raw milk.  Today’s interview focused on the reaction that we have seen from our raw milk customers.  As I told Mark, Carol and I have not seen an increase or decrease of our raw milk sales, nor have we heard any concern from customers with regards the general safety and/or hazards of raw milk.  I told the MPR reporter that many people have yet to hear about the raw milk issue(s) of the Hartmann farm that has been in the news lately.

When asked about how we would describe our milk customers, I also mentioned that our customer base cannot be put into any one group (other than being raw milk drinkers).  I let Mark know that we sell raw milk to educators associated with the University of Minnesota, wealthy area families… as well as those who once drank raw goat milk when they were growing up and have simply missed the taste of the product.  As I mentioned in my previous MPR interview, our family started drinking raw milk due to the complications associated with Asthma that our daughter, Madison, experiences.  Since drinking raw milk, her asthma symptoms have decreased from monthly (sometimes weekly) to less than bi-monthly.  That is ultimately the reason why we got involved with dairy goats.  We thought a cow would produce too much milk for our family… a goat or two would be perfect.  Since we started raising and milking goats, folks have found us and have purchased our raw goat milk.  We may not make much money selling goat milk, but the sale of the milk does help pay for the goat’s feed and care.

As a side-note… goat milk makes some of the best homemade kefir, cheeses and ice creams we have ever tasted.  Carol is getting quite good at making it.  It truly is some of the most delicious products we have ever eaten.  Our family drinks raw milk everyday and we believe we are living a healthier lifestyle because of it.

The girls were ill today.  We’re not sure if they had the same ‘yuck’ or not.  The good news is that Madison appears to be getting over the hump (she missed 2 days of school last week), but  Chas still seems to be in the thick of it.  In the afternoon, I stayed home with Chas, while Carol and Madison made a run to Willmar for some medicine and a few ingredients for some home remedy potions.   Chas slept most of the afternoon.

Once Carol got home, I headed out to help the neighbors with chores.  As I understand, illness is hitting them hard as well.  When I returned, Carol jokingly mentioned that she cured Chas… for now – no congestion, no coughing, no nothin.   That was kind of unexpected… we’ll see how long that lasts.

After dinner/supper, some of the critters were letting me know it was time for some hay to be headed their way.  While bringing the cattle their bale of grass-hay, I couldn’t help but notice the oats was starting to show itself.  It seems as though it hasn’t been in the ground long enough, but with the warm weather and rain, it is time to grow I guess.  I was presently surprised to see it.  While I had the tractor running, I decided to run the goats & sheep a bale of grass-hay as well.  They now have a choice between grass or grass/alfalfa mix… kind of a buffet.

I got done what I had been dreading for months – since December actually.  I finally poured the small cement pad for our Ritchie™ brand automatic waterer.  This needed to be done as part of the farm’s conservation grant program (it was suppose to have been done last year, but I ran out of time).  Although the pad was only 4′x5′x6″… I hated the thought of doing it.  Last December I had purchased 20 bags of cement mix when it was on sale.  I paid about $50.  I decided to do the cement work myself after contacting a couple local companies about the job – the cheapest price I got was $250… the highest was nearly $400.  Most of the cost was for the hauling of the cement, not the cement itself .

Anyway, I had borrowed a small electric mixer that was a throw-away from a small masonry company.  I now know why they got rid of it… it was/is junk.  It turned the drum just fine… until cement was in it… then it skipped, rattled and at times, stopped turning.  At one time, it dumped the concrete when my back was turned.  Grrrr!  It was so frustrating.  The thing is, once you start the pouring/mixing process, you need to keep going until it is done, so I really couldn’t stop what I was doing to fix the mixer.  I figure it took twice as long as it should have.  I got through it, but it was definitely Miller-time afterward .

When I finished the pour and drove back to the homestead, one of our neighbors was there with his pickup and livestock trailer.  It was Farmer Mike’s little brother Rod.  He was here to pick-up/borrow a few of our little goat kids.  His family hosts annual farm visits for some local preschool classes.  This year he wanted some new animals, aside his farm’s usual cows and pigs.  Needless to say, we were more than happy to contribute to this learning experience.  He didn’t want to ‘borrow’ Wilbert, our pot-bellied pig.

I was able to dig a new post in where needed- by the gate.  When I first attepted to install the post (a few days ago), I hit frost.  Well, today I used the hand-powered post hole digger.  Although I still hit frost, I was able to dig past it.  Once the hole was dug and the post was in, I finished running our used woven fencing along the parameter of the old barn yard.  I’m hoping the woven wire will keep the goats & sheep in.  I have learned in the past that hot-wires and barbed-wire fencing will eventually get figured out and the critters will escape.  I want those days behind me.

After the “new” fencing was stapled to the posts, I let the goats and sheep out into the new, bigger yard.  Quickly they went to the edges of the new area.  As an extra pracation, I decided to re-install the 2 strands of hot-wires that were once there, before starting this little project.  I no sooner had it up and the charger turned on when I heard a little goat scream.  Just that quick the little goat found its mother to get a couple sucks from her udder.  Whenever the goat babies seemed stressed, they are able to find comfort in a few seconds of nursing on mama.  Ah!  The miracle of milk.

I few more goats got zapped by the fencer before day’s end, but now seem to know their boundries.

With the satisfaction of the goat fencing, I thought I’d tackle the nagging problem I had with the ‘new’ high-tensile fencing.  Ever sence it was installed, there as been a short in it… it’s grounding out somewhere, but I could never seem to locate the problem.  I decided to take another look.  Without the need to get shocked, I had Carol unplug the fence charger.  Wouldn’t you know… within 5 minutes of the fencer being off, I watched some of the cattle break out of the paddock they were in.  Oh Crap!  I quick ran back to the barn and got the fencer plugged in, hopefully I can keep some of the remaining cattle from getting out.  It seemed to work.

Trying to lure the escapees back in, I rolled a grass bale into the paddock.  Just that quick, the cattle that were out, broke back in.  With the fencer on, I carefully repaired the fence.  I then moved to discovering where the pesky short was.  Walking the fenceline, I stopped at each and every fence post.  I was sure to inspect every possible area that was likely to be the cause of my problem.  From time to time, I set my fencing pliers against the steel post and touching each hot wire.  As I moved down the fence, the spark seemed to get weaker and weaker – I must be getting close.

Towards the end of my hike, I decide to touch the pliers to a lower, non-electrict wire… it sparked.  HUH?  But that’s impossible.  There is no leads connecting it to a hot wire.  I walk back-and-forth trying to locate the problem – nothing.  OK.  I thought it must be a plant touching a hot wire to the other wire, making it now hot.  I cut bush after bucs until all were gone.  Still… there was juice in the one wire.  Crap, crap, crap!  It’s got to be grass or something.  With that notion, I started removing any and all dried grass. Eureka!  It turns out that what looks like grass isn’t always grass.  A piece of rusty wire was making contact to both the hot wire and the neutral.  After its removal, I then tried touching my piers to the fence post and wire… SNAP!  Sure enough, I had found the problem.  Finally.

We had another nice day… snow melting, mud all over and slipping & sliding for all.  Once again, I went north of the creek to retreive a round bale of hay for the cattle.  On my was home, before I could react, I literally slid the tractor down a hillside (sideways), where it rested up against the pasture fence.  I guess I would have simply driven through the fence, except that in this case, I had a steel post between the front and rear tire.  I tried to wiggle it out of the spot… but that was a no-go.  So I walked home.  We’ll pull it out tomorrow with the other tractor.

For supper, Carol made something I thought we’d never eat.  In the slow-cooker, she made goat.  We had our meal of goat, not because we want to be area’s foodie trend setters (see the article Is Goat the New Cow?), but because we butchered a goat who had broken it’s leg.  I will have to admit… it wasn’t half bad.  In fact, it was tender, moist and tasted much like lamb.  Between you, me and the dinner plate, I would rather eat goat than rabbit.

The following morning, Carol made the left-over goat, taters and carrots into a delicious hash.  It was pretty good.  A great way to serve leftovers.  After lunch, I took the other tractor out to where I had gotten stuck with the other one.  To my surprise, there was no snow by the tractor.  So  instead of attempting the pull the tractor from it’s temporary parking spot, I decided I would try to drive it out.  I backed it a little (so it was away from the fence) then I simply drove it home.  I didn’t need the other tractor at all.

Thursday afternoon brought Madison some very sad news.  She found one of our young goats with a broken leg.  It was one that she was training to pull a cart.  It may not have been a pet yet, but one could say he was close to it.  We have not figured out what happened to cause the break, but it was broken bad… way bad.  So much so that we ruled out any attempt to set the leg.  Without trying to be to graphic, I’ll say that skin was the only thing holding the lower back leg to it’s body.  We called our faithful friend and natural healing professional… even she gave us a grim prognosis for this little guy.  By the end of the evening, we had decided we would bring the goat to the butcher as soon as possible.  This dicision was not made lightly, but on this farm, we strive to waste little.  Madison was sad… and maybe a little angry with our choice, but she understood. 

The next morning, I was the one to bring the goat to the butcher.  Understandably, the girls didn’t want to got with.

What a busy day.  We did this, then that… sold a ram, a goat and even got ¾ ton of feed.

The m0rning started with phone calls… lots of them.  First, the person who wanted to buy Puga (poo-gah) our pot-bellied sow called from Wisconsin (6-7 hrs away), saying they would be leaving soon and that they would give us a call when they reached the Metro.  Another call came from a  local butcher who wanted to know if we had any ram lambs for sale.  Once the butcher heard that we had a couple, we would contact a client of his and come out to look at what we had.  Carol also got a call from folks from the Wadena, MN area.  They wanted to buy a breeding buck and maybe a dairy doe.   They hoped to arrive early in the afternoon.  I had called the neighbor to ask if he could help me with a some snow removal task, since our snow blower broke down.  He said he would have time to remove the snow tomorrow morning.

While waiting for our customers to show, Carol and I trimmed some hooves on a couple of goats.  We also tended to some goats that had some minor health issues.  It was such a nice day, it seemed as if we were looking for any excuse to stay outside.  Before noon, Carol got a call from the buyer for Puga, mentioning they have relatives near us and they agreed to pick-up the pig, saving them a trip.  It looks like Puga will be with us a short time longer.

Shortly after 2:00pm, our lamb customer and the butcher drove in.  After looking at both of the rams they decided to buy Simon.  Simon is 50% Katahdin and 50% wool sheep.  At a $1/lb, he was a good buy.  I told them that I would bring the ram over to the butcher shop in less than an hour… after I get the lamb loaded.  I had to pull the horse trailer out of the snow with the tractor, then hook it up to the van.

The ram weighed 155#… he was a good sized boy for only being 9 months old.  These cross-bred sheep grow extremely fast and I think it is worth mentioning that this ram was raised on forage only – pasture and hay only… no corn or other grains.  We are so impressed with these lambs.  I saw the carcass after it was butchered… it was quite lean.  It only had a slight covering of fat (about the same as a beef animal).  At about the same time the ram was being butchered, I went to get the custom feed we had ordered from an area farmer.  Before I left, the family who wanted a breeding buck showed-up.  Carol talked with them and showed them around.  They bought Bam-Bam, a young, stud, meat buck.  They decided not to get a producing dairy goat, due to the fact the one who would be doing the milking would be gone and the spouse didn’t want to do the milking.  Carol said they were a great couple and they were so impressed with how tame our animals were… Bam-Bam didn’t leave them alone.  He was enjoying all the attention he was getting… he loves people.

It was a great day.