December update

Two months since the last update? Here's whats been happening at the Brown's house.

I'd say the biggest event of the last few weeks happened yesterday as we were preparing to leave for church. I was just about to load the kids in the truck when I looked out the kitchen window to see about 30 calves casually strolling out of a "secured" gate into the great wide open and a 30 below zero windchill blizzard. I quickly threw on some warm clothes and headed out to cut them off and get them back into their yard. At the sight of me their casual stroll turned into a stampede up the county line. I was able to catch up to them in the truck about 1/2 mile up the road and turn them around. As I was driving them back home, Kristin was hustling to the gate to corrale them back into the yard. She arrived just in time to watch them sprint past the gate and go about 1/2 mile in the other direction. Fortunately Kristin called a neighbor to come and help and after about 45 mintutes we had them all back home. The last time we called this neighbor, it was to ask for his help moving a piano. I'm sure he's thrilled to have the Brown's in the neighborhood!

September Pictures

A trip to the apple tree! This has been a dialy event for the kids...sometimes 2-3 trips and then a belly-ache.

Cousin Malachy and came to visit from Honduras. Loving the wheelbarrow ride! Was there just manure in there, mom?
Friends Lily and Faith came to visit. Ben shows them how to do chores.

Ben on the Haywagon. Nora wasn't a big fan.

Taking a break with dad.

Visitors from Washington

Well, its been long enough since I updated this that I forgot my username and password. It was a great summer on the farm. We are up to 27 calves (heifers and bulls) and needless to say this provides plenty to do in our "free time". Our latest batch of chickens has just started to lay and we are enjoying about a dozen eggs per day and anticipating that number to go up to 2 dozen. Time to start advertising and selling around the school again.

Biggest news around here has been the recent visit of our friends the Brewers and the Felmley's from Bellingham, WA. The two families went in together to buy a 1973 Winnebego Brave for the road trip. After buying it, they tuned it up, modified it slightly to fit their needs, and successfully drove it across the country and back! The 4500-mile trip was made with 7 children, all 4 or under. The time was such a joy, and a great chance to remember how the Lord blesses us in our marriages, our frienships and with our children! See the video below for some of the action!

New Video

Summer is off to a great start here in Iowa. Enjoy the video! (Make sure to scroll down and see previous post too)

Toad on a Tractor

Not much to say other than the toad is on the tractor~

More pictures

The kids at Uncle Gary's model railroad open house.

Swimming in the "cool"

Some recent pictures

Nora swinging at "Grandma's Park"









Benny swinging too. (Not too high Grandma!)









Eating dirt cake.









Kristin's chore-mobile.









Ben fully outfitted for his bike. Training wheels, helmet and all.

Gardening...almost

The man at the equipment rental store assured me that cutting the sod for a 30'x30' garden would only take about 15 minutes. True...but rolling it and removing it took an extra 8 hours. Good thing I had some help from the kids. Finally, when all the sod was gone, I was excited to take the tiller to the soil and get started only to find the soil so hard and clay-like that the tiller just bounced around on top of the earth. SO, I called up a farmer friend of mine...






Grandpa with the plow.










Thanks, Grandpa!

Heifer Calves

Since our last update, a new opportunity has come our way! We will be raising "replacement heifers" for a local dairy farmer. We will pick up calves from his farm when they are two days old, bring them to our farm and feed and care for them until they are 6 months of age. At that point we will take and sell them back to the farmer we got them from. This allows him to free his facilities and his time to concentrate on the milking herd.

We picked up our first two calves on Wednesday night. We will be bottle feeding them twice a day for a few weeks before we start the weening process. Also, we'll start taking all newborns from now on. When we are fully "up and running" we will have somewhere between 10-16 calves and up to 40 cows here at a time! We will also raise 1-2 bull calves per month to sell to a friend who will raise them for meat.

We are very excited and learning a lot! They kids were skeptical at first and were fearful of getting bit, but are now comfortable and very excited to see the "baby cows".

Get ready for a garden

We got a start on our "starts" today with a little help from the kids. Planted broccoli, 2 tomato varieties, eggplant, hot peppers, and onions.

Eric also took down an arbor-vitae tree that was taking up all the sun from the sun room. We also think this tree was how the racoon got access to the roof and, more importantly, access to the house last summer. The amount of sunlight our kitchen gets now is dramatically different. The plastic insulation around the windows came off today too! We finished the day off with spring cleaning in the garage and a family trip in the truck to the rock quarry. A great day!

Free Range Kids

Winter is slowly winding down here in Iowa. As you can see, much of the snow is gone now and we have even been able to enjoy a few sunny afternoons outdoors. Check out the videos of the kids free ranging with the hens! We enjoyed a quiet week of spring break together including a visit to Madison to see some friends, a trip to Fort Atkinson to see Grandpa Dean and Grandma Mary. Later in the week, we had a nice Easter Sunday at my Mom's new house here in Clinton. She hosted 13 of us including Aunt Linda all the way from Maine.

Hope you all had a nice Easter and are enjoying spring wherever you may be!

Still Snowing

We've had two snow days, a late arrival and an early release from school this week. We are 20 inches above the average winter snowfall here and still snowing.


All this hasn't kept the hens from laying. Here is a picture of today's eggs, (notice the freakishly long one on the left) and a video of our snow day fun.

Eggs!

This week brought our first eggs from our layers. We haven't eaten any yet, however. The first blue egg (from Aracana's) was weak and cracked. Ben spent the morning showing off the first brown egg to all the folks at the retirement home where Grandpa Mack lives. It lasted about 45 minutes before it met its fate on the floor. We placed the others in the nest boxes to try to train the chickens to lay in there.

Christmas Break 2007

Lots of fun this Christmas Break! Here are some highlights...