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Yesterday was Madison’s show day for her bunny at the Minnesota State Fair.  Carol and I left the farm early in the morning to get to the show ring early enough to watch her.  As it turns out, Madison’s class of rabbits (mini-lops) were the last class of rabbits shown that day.  They finally got to the show ring at 11:00 am or so – 3 hrs later than we thought.

Afraid of disease or her top rabbits becoming ill from being potentially exposed to 100′s or 1000′s of other bunnies from around the state, Madison didn’t bring her 1st choice rabbit… or even her 2nd best rabbit… she brought her 3rd choice.  The bunny she brought didn’t even have a name yet.  The animal she took was so far down the county fair line up, Madison had mentally prepared herself for a poor showing at the state fair level… after all, it was what we all considered a ‘scrub’ – nothing more than an “OK” rabbit… good enough for the first-timer being at the fair.

Madison at the judging table with her mini-lop rabbit

Here you can see Madison in the middle, watching the judge.  The class she participated in was the Mini-lop Jr Buck.  Carol and I were somewhat surprised when the judge explained that all the animals on the table were good quality rabbits and most of them would do fine at any ARBA sanctioned rabbit show.  Yeah, yeah… blah, blah.  Then when he announced that Madison and the gal in red would receive a purple ribbon AND that they should come back for the Best of Breed competition,  Carol and I couldn’t believe it.  This little rabbit, with no name prior to the fair, was a champion grade, Mini-lop Jr buck. This was not a purchased rabbit.  It was a rabbit that was born and bred on the farm.  In fact, this Jr Buck rabbit is a 3rd generation animal, coming from a breeding program that Madison is mostly in-charge of.  Simply put – Madison knows her rabbits.

Madison with her champion Mini-lop Jr Buck.

It turned out that Madison was the only rabbit exhibitor from our county that received a purple ribbon.  When Madison competed in Best of Breed, we thought she might have trophied.  Every time the judge handled her rabbit, he looked back at the other top rabbits as if trying to decide if this was the top rabbit or 2nd or 3rd.  As it turned out, Madison did not win champion or reserve champion.  But of all the rabbits up on the table to be judged Best of Breed, you could tell her’s was one of those that stood out as having the right to be there.

You could see it on Madison’s face that she was a happy camper… and why shouldn’t she be?  This was the first time competing at the Minnesota State Fair level and her 3rd string rabbit was one of the best there.  Now we wonder how well would she have done if she would have brought one of her better animals.  Oh well… maybe next year.

Madison participating in showmanship, after winning a purple ribbon just a few minute earlier.

BTW:  The rabbit’s name is now Chip.  Chip’s sire, Moses, was a Best Of Breed winner at a State rabbit show this past spring.  (see Carol’s blog entry: Sherburne Rabbit Show)

As most of us Minnesotans know, the State Fair is a big deal, attracting nearly 2 million folks each year.  I guess that’s why the call it the “Great Minnesota Get-together.”  It’s one of the few fairs that does not allow guests from other states to enter the gate… (I’m kidding of course).  For those of you who have never been to our fair, I took this pic.

Let me explain the photo.  This was taken of a side-street… not a main traffic area.  The arch you see at the end of the street is not a gate that is used by the general public, it is merely an arch with a few dorms in it for the exhibitors.  It also doubles as a shaded staging area for the livestock exhibitors waiting to enter to show their animals.  The building to the left is the livestock show arena.  Out of view, to the right of the show area, is the dairy barn. Our State Fair is 12 days long, with 4 days dedicated to each type of livestock exhibitor – 4-H, FFA & open-class.  Carol and I attended the fair to watch Madison show her rabbit… more about that in another post.

Today is the day we send our 4H’er off to the Minnesota State Fair for 4 days.  At the County Fair level daughter Madison won several State Fair trips.

This morning she will start her first trip with a bus ride, with other 4H’ers, to the Metro.  She will be showing her mini lop bunny on 8am, Saturday… as well as giving her State Fair quality demonstration on Friday.  She will hanging with other kids that will also be showing rabbits.  There is quite a little group going.

Madison waiting for the state fair charter bus

Carol and I will be heading out to the fair on Sat. to watch the rabbit show.  After Sunday, Madison will have a few days off before going back to the State Fair for her 3rd project – an information display on how to make Mozzarella cheese from raw milk.

This morning, after dropping Madison off at the County Fairgrounds, Carol and I had an appointment with the loan officer at the Concord Bank, in Willmar.  We’re trying to secure a loan, in order to purchase a used house for the farm.  After speaking with the Farm Management Program instructor from the Willmar Community College, we were told that the Concord is a small, independently owned bank that is farmer friendly… more so than the larger area banks.  Carol and I have spoken with 2 other banks, but because the farm is in a non-revocable trust, it’s been tough going.  We’re hoping Concord is not afraid of the trust.  The other banks mentioned that since the farm is in the trust that it is in, nobody really owns the farm – thus… technically, no “person” is responsible for the loan.

After the bank meeting, Carol and I walked away from it with a less than optimistic feeling.  It seems that the bank has never given a loan to a trust… I think it is fair to mention, the bank president also stated that the bank had never had the opportunity to do such.  With that said, one might preclude from saying that there is no chance that we can get a loan from this bank.  I just don’t get the feeling our chances are much better than with the other banks.    I guess we’ll see.

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.

Carol, Madison & I buckled-down and got to the task of constructing the high-tunnel.  We ran string-line to make sure we had a level building site.  It turned out the one corner of the high-tunnel will be trenched approx. 14″ into the garden bed (hill-side).  Where we placed the building, we thought was the most level area on the farm for it.  We had no idea it was so ‘off.’

The girls laid out the structure’s frame work on the ground, where I then assembled the individual framing units.  Later, Carol and I lifted 2 of the frames into place, over the ground stakes.  Not knowing if the wind would pick-up, we assembled the cross frame supports , tying the 2 pieces together.  It should keep the frame from blowing over.

Carol, the girls and I headed south to the Granite Falls, MN area.  Our mission was to look at a Scottish Highlander bull that we’re interested in leasing for the summer.  We heard of this bull (name Curly) from Farmer Mike, who called me last week.  He asked if we’d found a sire for our four cows.  When I regretfully told him no, he mentioned he had gotten a phone call from a fellow farmer and among other things, this farmer asked if we had gotten a bull for the summer.  It seems the guy’s aunt had a Highlander that she may be willing to lease… and that’s how we got to this point.

The ranch we visited belonged to a gal named Terry (of Red Tail Valley Beef), who raises grass fed Angus/Highlander beef for direct marketing to [I believe] restaurants in the Metro area.  She was a lovely human being with a real passion for what she was doing on her ranch.  Her small spread was nestled in a river valley, with grass as far as the eye could see.  It was a wonderful site… like a mini version of the ranch on the old TV show Bonanza.  As we drove onto the place, Carol mentioned to me that she recognized Terry from an Organic Seminar we attended a year or two ago.  Anyway, after some light chit-chat, she escorted us to the pasture to “meet” Curly.  We first walked past some of her beef cows… a few with calves and then there was Curly.  WOW!  What a handsome little bull.  Immediately, we could tell how he came upon his name.  His forelocks were more curls than long hair.  He was dun in color.  I say he was a “little bull” only because when one thinks of bulls, we think of massive, almost monstrous creatures, but Curly was not that.  He’s a Highlander and as Highlanders should be… he was smaller in size, especially compared to Terry’s cows.

The size of Curly impressed me.  As most folks, who know me, know that I’m not a real big fan of large animals.  Big cattle are less efficient, harder to maintain if things get tough and they don’t dress-out as well as smaller cattle.  Large cattle have a higher ratio of bone and gut (waste) to meat than do smaller creatures.  Personally, I believe it’s easier to sell a small amount of beef than it is to sell lots.  If you want a half of beef, I think one can find room in the deep freeze for 300 lbs of meat much easier than 450 lbs.  Smaller is better. And Curly was small… just right for our cows.

After leaving the pasture, we talked about what she wanted from us for leasing her bull.  I asked if she still thought $25/cow was enough.  She thought it was fair… but after a few seconds of thought, she changed her mind.  She asked if we raised turkey… we said we did.  She mentioned how she would be interested in one of our free-range, heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving (instead of a store-bought bird).  She also thought some lamb-chops would be good too.  It seems as though $$$ is over-rated, but we all need food.  Score another point for team barter.  One could say we are trading beef for turkey and lamb.

After we got back from or little road trip, I headed north of the creek to do a few more hours of fencing.  I know have the wires on the east side of the paddock up… not all the insulators are on the posts yet, but the wires are there.  I also had time to finish all my H-post assemblies on the north side of the paddock.  I have more work to do on this side… like measure and mark the positions of the T-posts, install the insulators and then run my wires.  It sure is exciting to see this phase of fencing draw nearer to the end.  Once the perimeter is fenced in, I think I will let the cattle start grazing this area as I subdivide it into 3 smaller paddocks.  The grass right now is quite tall.  A little grazing over the entire pasture will do it some good.

Hey folks, the grade-schoolers in our area have helped published a cookbook.  It’s a fund raiser to help buy white-boards for their classrooms.

The cookbook contains hundreds of recipes from some of this areas best home cooks, Carol being one of them.  I think daughter Madison was able to get nearly ½ dozen of her mother’s recipes published… including Coyote Ridge Farms Cream Chicken Soup (page 22).

As many of you know, this farm is considered a Pasture-based farm and to Carol’s credit, she submitted a recipe that ended up appearing on page 73.  One of the ingredients in the recipe is a ‘boneless, grass-fed chuck-roast‘.  We really do our best to promote what we believe in.  We believe in grass feeding.

Coyote Ridge Farms Cream Chicken Soup

This ‘little’ cookbook is packed with 160+ page of recipes and dozens and dozens of other cooking, caloric and general information.  Carol had the cookbook in her hands for just a few hours before she tried a recipe from of the book.  Notes are already being written in the pages.

Get yours before they are sold out.  The price is only $12/copy.

Last week, daughter Madison took some corn out of the farm’s 4 row planter.  She then put them into a baggy, containing a moist paper towel.  Within days she had healthy little corn plants sprouting, then growing their way out of the baggy and into a small container.  We then talked about planting some of the kernels from an ear of pod-corn we had on the wall (for decoration).  A few days ago, she planted 6 kernels – 3 with the pods and 3 without.

As of today, the pod-corn has not germinated.

An ear of pod corn.

Pod-corn is the oldest corn variety known, with one ancestor… that being a grass.

The last couple of days have been cheese making days.  This weekend, Carol made 2 lbs of Mozzarella from some of the farm’s raw goat milk.  She also whipped-up a batch of goat milk cream cheese.  Tonight (Tues) Madison is making her own batch of Mozzarella Cheese.   Madison has decided to make cheese for a school science project.  As you can see from the photo below, there really is no need for fancy equipment.

These are all the supplies and equipment needed to make mozzarella cheese

Madison has learned where rennet comes from and what it does.  For those of you who do not know, natural rennet comes from the stomach of young calves.  It is an enzyeme that thickens milk to keep it from passing through the calf’s system before it can be digested.  We use a liquid organic vegetable rennet for cheese making, which seems to work just fine for our needs.  From one gallon of milk, we get approx. 1 lb of cheese.

On Monday afternoon, Carol & her friend [and natural healer], Kristine, brought daughter Chastiti’ to the clinic for blood work and a routine consult.  Both Carol and Kristine were surprised to how open the doc was to adding some natural medicine to Chas’ program.  In fact, the good doctor gave Carol a hand written recipe for a probotic smoothie.  It is one of the smoothie recipes he makes for his family and can be made with yogurt made at home from the raw milk we get from our dairy goats.

footnote:  Kristine runs a natural healing clinic in Kerkhoven.