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I bought the Farm - for Her (how we got where we're at)

(this is the start of a series, I hope to do, covering most of the last 20 years of farm life - for my lovely wife, please comment, ask questions, make corrections, whatever, call me stupid for starting it, whatever.)

Having been raised on a farm, my wife always wanting to live on a farm.... it was a matter of time.

We'd already run 2 businesses together, she was busy raising 8 kids, homeschooling - they would need some constructive outlet for all that energy, I was too busy with my high tech career & we were +20 years into our marriage.  This next venture would be 90% her operation, 10% would be me, I figured, being the mechanically minded one. 

In fact, we'd planned on doing this, the first year of marriage, and bought a big rototiller to do the Gardening / Canning thing.  The rototiller was a lifetime investment, an 8hp Troybilt - which easily paid for itself.  I hung some flyers, and the calls came flooding in, offered special deals, I'd till one person for free, if they got 5 of their neighbors lined up.  Tilled by the square foot, sometimes established gardens, sometimes a backyard, but always deeper than anyone expected...  The only mistake we made was loaning it out to a well meaning Pastor, who wore the tines down to nothing, neglected to ever check the engine or gear case oil - and then called me, after 2 months using it to make money, saying, "I won't start!"  He had been using boys from church, taking 'his cut' while they raked in the cash.  As it took several of us to push & pull it into the truck, I wasn't prepared for the $350 bill to rebuild the gear box, the Bolo Tines were worn down to stubs, they'd come later.  Little did I know, God was preparing me for more instances like that - but, that wasn't going to stop us from being charitable.  God was good to us at great cost to Him, so had many others along the way - we were 'wired' to do the same.

One job after another, finally 23 years into our marriage, and still renters, we had been asked to move closer to a customer who required by contract a rapid response for emergencies.  Being the sole technician in that immediate vicinity, seemed like real job security if I did my part.  The company changed hands several times, and kept me gainfully employed.  Enough to buy this 27 acre farm for just about the same monthly payment as renting the large house we were living in. The realtor was kinda surprised when I ran the water in the sink for 5 minutes, and then took a tall glass of water.  We'd lived in too many places around here with 'bitter water' or 'rotten egg smelling water'.  I'd grown up on a 250 acre farm with the best water I ever tasted, and wasn't going to pay a cent for a place with foul smelling, acid water - period.  That was the make or break deal for me... the realtor didn't understand that - she said all the water was wet, since she lived in the city & drank chlorinated / fluoridated river water.

My second request was +25 acres, on a ridge or hill, so flooding wouldn't ever be an issue, and, we wanted privacy.  I don't want to see or be seen by my neighbors - we wanted SPACE between us and the rest of the world... Far away from the city lights so we could let the stars & moon light our way at night.  Next was a stream or creek or spring - surface running water, for those times when we needed to carry buckets because the power was out.  If we could harness the moving water for power, even better!  In general terms, this acreage met those requirements for us. 

The 2000 yr, Modular Ranch style house with a full, clear, walk out basement, had real potential - despite a lower ceiling.  You'd think, for the price of another course or two of Cinder block... oh well.  Unlike the house we grew up in, a Modular has a 'glued & screwed' floor, it does not squeak.  The walls are tight, but 2x4 instead of 2x6 construction, a little less energy efficient.  Everything was basically "NEW", since the owners had it built and lived in it a couple of months, before they got a job offer that was too good to pass up.  The house sat on the market, overpriced for this area, 2 years.  Did we get a deal or not...?  27 acres, new well & septic, new house - nothing to 'FIX' we thought... OK.  Little did I realize, they hadn't really lived in it at all, just visited a few weekends, took a week vacation to visit - and let the neighbor take all the cuttings off the fields.

We took the plunge, and bought it AS-IS after weeks of offers & counter offers, May of 2003.

The week we closed, the Realtor suggested we drive by the property to be sure we really wanted it, sort of a, last chance to back out... suggestion.  The neighbor had PLOWED up half the fields - assuming we didn't need a front yard, and it'd be 'business as usual' for him & his cows.  Like someone had suggested, 'they're just gonna live in the house - you go ahead and keep doing what you're doing, raping this acreage & bitching about how poorly it produces'.  It had been part of a 600 acre Tobacco operation, then sat fallow, so the neighbor helped out by helping himself.  The fields had that light green / yellow cast of low nitrogen / low nutrients, I'd seen before in this area.  Taking everything OUT of the soil and putting nothing back INTO the soil.

For the person who thinks they can someday, 'live off the land' - lemme be clear, it's already been done in America, everything's been taken OUT, there's much less topsoil to work with.  A typical farm requires more INPUT that you'd expect, where that comes from, YOU decide, Very expensive Organic, or so-called, Cheaper Synthetic methods, there is no free lunch on rebuilding soil.  Our pastures are less than 3" of top soil, after 21 years.  Beneath that is 2' of clay, beneath that, 2-4' of magnetite (the greatest lighting attractant in the world.  If I could 'compost' 5-6 feet of wood chips, manure and spread that over my 11 acres of pasture, that might give me 5" of top soil... till the rain washed it down the hillsides.  That's the other problem, holding it all together- the cover crops.  If you're thinking about it, Nitrogen (in the air) is FREE, if you're able to get it into your soil.  Some crops, like Alfalfa, Clovers, can do that for you, but, they take time to establish, hence the cover crop, Rye grasses, Oats, Vetch.

Well, how are you gonna get RID of all the forage from those fields?  Cows?  Goats?  Sheep?  Horses?  How are you going to keep them "home"..?  Fences?  What type, smooth wire, barbed wire, roll mesh, panel mesh, electric?  Keep in mind, this is a moving target, it's not like fixing a truck - walk away for a week, return to it on weekends.  A farm keeps growing SOMETHING, which might be something you don't like, nor want.  Trees, scrub & brush, vines, Poison Ivy, Oak, Sumac, Thorny Blackberries all love acidic soil, the crops you want, love alkaline soil.

Didn't God say to man, Genesis 3:17-19 

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

The bottom line, you want a FARM, you're gonna WORK... There are seasons for planting, growing & harvesting, followed by a season of -nothing-. Planning and preparing for each, with someone who's new to the idea of farming - likely to end badly for both of you, unless there's a plan, which is what you see here.  Maybe the 'city' couple who had their dreams of a country estate, didn't realize there is no relaxing on the porch, occasionally milking a dairy cow, fetching a couple of fresh eggs when you felt like it.  Maybe they didn't know the deer would pillage the garden & coyotes would savage the livestock.  Maybe they hadn't planned at all, just bought acreage paid for a well, septic & house - to retire? 

Ever parcel of land has it's own, unique qualities, some good, some bad.  We looked at this, prayed and imagined, how can we make this work, efficiently, how can God bless this effort - we need a master plan.  Something that the kids can help with.  If we had it printed as a place mat, they could 'catch the vision' and pick-up-the-ball to run with it.  You're seeing the 2nd addition of plan, after 2 years of work, what we envisioned.

(to be continued)

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What one shot fired can do 😥😥😥

SEYFERTH PARK MUSKEGON MI

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Nugent Sand Company began mining dunes off Lake Michigan shore in 1912. Property sold to Muskegon County 2017. See what they left after 100 yrs of mining!
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And now... for some WNBA highlights!

( they lost $40m last year - the money came from the men's side... oops! )

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Good afternoon brothers and sisters hope everyone has a great blessed day God Bless u all🙏✝️🙏✝️🇺🇸🎆🇺🇸❣️🇺🇸🤍🇺🇸💙🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸
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NAH, STAYING INSIDE

What brings the real feel to 100, humidity you can cut with a knife 😯

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I believe UKRAINE has learned a lesson. Show weakness , and invade. It works almost everywhere , almost all the time. Right Hunter?
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How to create an article
Everyone with Admin access can do this

OK, so far, nobody has really used the power of LOCALS to Create news, Articles, Stories, whatever.  Everyone has been 'stuck' in CHAT mode, or Chit-Chat mode.  It's simple and powerful for publishing.  I can even have Videos & Pictures (or MEMEs) in the body of the Article.  Just creating a POST or REPLY to a POST, that's not an option.  All the non-admin users (look on Bongino for an example), get minimal rights (Regular Post & Reply) by comparison.  IMO, the system is for writing Articles, allowing subscribers to comment - really not intended for the way we've been using it. 

This screen shot, inserted into the article is not allowed in a Regular Post, but is part of the Article function.  

Wonder who let the poor guy know & if they fished a couple of those letters out of the dog crap, just to figure out who it was....?
I wanna know, who fished the letters out of that dog crap to figure out who was dropping them into the Dioggie Toilet!

Everyone knows how to do this part.  The schedule function is also easy, sometimes you've gotta click on the Calendar several times to get the date set.

Click on the Post Settings, some of you are already doing that part. 

Pick the day and date, then Schedule (red button)

That's easy.

The 1 individual who has the Admin Creator access, has a whole bunch of extra stuff they can do, even more once the subscribers hits 50.  One of those things is Podcasting for more than 30min, I believe it's 2 hours.  The next level is something like 3 hours of Podcasting.  Admin Creator also sets 'fees' for subscribers, Titles, has Edit, and all kinds of statistics avaliable - I don't want to do any of that stuff, I only wanted to write.

Have fun!

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Rare Apple Hunter
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Sunday and I'm missing one whole hour!
Daylight Saving, musta ripped me off again!

There's talk about finally stopping daylight saving time, which didn't save anything, just messed with well meaning people and enhanced the bottom line for anyone selling 9volt batteries for smoke detectors!  POTUS Trump, says it's, 50-50 on keeping or abandoing it.  Can't remember changing the time on a clock growing up, maybe my parents sat up half the night, careful to change the clock at 1 or 2 am... while we kids were sleeping.  All I had was a wind up alarm clock with 2 bells on top - and - a wall clock, a Kat Clock... a beige colored Kat clock, with the tail hanging down, swinging back and forth.  You can't imagine, a pre-teen kid, climbing up on a chair or chest, or brother, pulling that thing off the wall, changing the time, and then... struggling to get it back on the nail on the wall. 

Kat Clock

It didn't purr like a kitty, just made this gutteral sound, like a mouse or sparrow was being digested and burped up in 2 second intervals... we somehow managed to sleep, probably swearing to hunt sparrows for Black Fat instead of letting him chase mice.  Every power outage, we'd end up either climing up the wall to reset that Kat clock, or ... if the hour was right, unplug it and try to get it timed just right, one kid at the plug, the other downstairds, watching the house clock, "Ready?  5-4-3-2-1 - plug it in!!!"  It wasn't a precise operation, but, close enough.

The wind up clock pretty much stopped, slowed down, sped up - what a useless piece of metal for us.  This sort of Brass & Sea Green thing sat there, across the room, the only thing we could see at night, because of it's luminious dial.

Living in the country, that was the only thing that made any noise, tick-tock tick-tock when you went to bed, as the night wore on, and the 'bladder alarm clock, insisted, you gotta get up NOW', the sound changed.  There you are, stumbling down the hallway, bleary eyed, knocking into everything, stubbing toes @ 3am, to the bathroom.  Finding your way back, that old Oak Floor in the middle of the night, barefoot - it felt as cold as a cement floor.  Crawling back into bed, after sweeping the cat off your pillow... getting back to sleep, impossible with that wind up torture device!  The bedroom seemed lit-up by it's glowing dial, and it no longer ticked & tocked, but had morphed into a Vincent Price's, 'Pit & the Pendulum' horror movie!  Terrifying to a 10 year old with an active imagination!  You're laying on your side, one eye checking up for a razor sharp, swinging Pendulum!  The windup clock was a necessary evil in the farmhouse, power went off and nobody knew what time it was - the school bus was showing up at 7:15am ... 2 hours for chores, then breakfast, and there's the bus!  "Click-clang click-clang"... better take another look, did I wake up in a Vincent Price dungeon???   Just about the time you're falling asleep from exhaustion, the air is filled with this now ear-splitting ringing - "Heck no, you're now under a WW2 air raid, in a London Subway Tunnel, and your brother is gasping & moaning from a gut wound, "Turn that darn thing off!  Which one of you idiots wound it up again?  It's Sunday, and we've changed the clocks last night!"  mumble-mumble, covers rustling, little feet hustling across the floor to the dresser as it rang - silence.

She's sleeping in, having been up with the owls, chatting with the girls... it's good to have a daughter or two home for a few days.  Gives her a good diversion from the Farm.  We call it PQFarm, because we hatch & raise Ducks.  Heritage breeds, keeping their lines alive, Silver Appleyard, Welsh Harlequin, Buff Opingtons.  Whenever we've gone to the hatcheries for day old chicks, they're bound to throw in a few of those, "Surprise!  We're Pekins!  Lousy egg layers, & we like to EAT a lot - forarging, what's that..?  Not for me!  Just feed me!  Aflack-aflack-aflack!"  One of two Drakes (males) is good, they're likely to do guard duty for the Ducks (hens) who are the egg layers we really wanted.  Big eggs, I mean twice the volume of a medium/large egg, a 2 Duck egg omlette is same as a 3 egg chicken omlette.  Pekins, when they do lay, are even bigger!

Yesterday, the farmer gave the girls the word, start laying ... or else!  2 eggs this morning!  Welsh harlequin size eggs.  It's cold enough, they're not fertile, so clean them up a bit, and into the fridge.  We'll wait till it warms up and everything is in full lay before we start setting eggs in the Incubators.  One of them we bought, it holds180 duck size eggs, the other I built, about 8x that size... but, we've never filled it that full.  Having the capacity is always good.  We've loaded up the small incubator many times, with a mix of Chicken, Turkey, Duck, Bob White Quail & Ring Neck Pheasants.  Those days are over, the kids were pretty involved with the bird operation & selling them at the farmer's market.  Farmer's markets were a 100% loss for me - I wanted to kids to learn how to SELL, it was for their education.  Sometimes, they came home smiling, sometimes a little bumed out, but it was always there to learn from, how to sell & barter.  They'd sell day olds, week olds and hardened off chicks - the latter didn't need any heat lamps... prices went up each week as our input costs rose.  Once the kids starting figuring out the initial pricing, adding in feed & heat lamp costs for older birds - I would just back away, and let them figure it out, occasionally getting a call, "What do you think about this price for ...".   They got better and better at Farmer's Markets, often selling everything they took.

The boys managed to turn the Turkey chicks into Pet's ... they'd follow them accross the yard, while free ranging, begging for easy treats!  One of the boys would be laughing, 20 or more Turkey chicks at his feet, pecking away at his shoes, or anything shiney, to the point of becoming annoying.  He'd sit on the glider of the Front Porch, half a dozen Turkey chicks surrounding him, asleep... "I can't move, dad! I'm covered in Raptors!"  What???  "Raptors have me pinned down!"  A peek out the window, 'Oh, his Turkeys are napping on his lap again.'  The next month, they'd all sell at the Farmer's Market, and there was little doubt, bringing joy to another buy.  "You guys like to hand-tame your birds, we really like that, about your family!" - so did we, a repeat customer.  I hope they managed to serve those birds up for Thanksgiving... Those broad-breasted birds could be well over 50-60 lbs if you'd let them go till Christmas!  36 lbs was our biggest we ever tried to squeeze into our oven, even 20 of us, couldn't finish that bugger off.

Thanks to the neighbor's dogs... we're down to 3 Pekins & 3 Welsh Harlequin Ducks (1 Drake & 2 Ducks, of each), unfortunately, they are near 4 years old, so..... we're going to try and get some new birds, just incase these guys are sterile.  And... I wanna get a tray or two of Bob White Quail eggs to set.  The Fillet Mignon of the Sky, like a Florida Pompono is to fish, Wagyu Beef to cows - so is Bob White Quail to birds.  Most of them will wind up as Owl & Hawk food as we release a bunch of them.  Quail are like little birdie buddies too!  One of the girls would hang around the incubator, opening the door, so they would see her face right after hatching, "Are you my mommie?" - and follow her around like baby kittens.  They'd grow up, loving people.  Hearing them calling in the morning & evenings, or suddenly flush in the tall grassy areas - man-o-man, that's real country living.  It's a reminder for me, God has/had a purpose in everything, even allergies.

The sun is high, warm sunny day.  Ducks are just peacefully floating around the front pond, frockling is over - I bet they'd like so fresh popped corn!  Ya know, as many days & hours spent sitting in a saddle, I can't ever remember dozing off.  At my height, 6'3", with that much weight leverage over a horse's center of balance, knowing shifting my weight around they'd stagger like a drunk - we could both fall over!  Often said to the Students in Riding lessons, "you gotta fall 1000 times before you're and expert" - I might have reached half of that if you rolled all those falls in, as a kid on a pony.  Time to go pop some corn...

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