Dinner Out

We headed downstream to our favorite place to eat out, The Galice Resort!

But we knew at this time of year Galice is closed for the winter so we brought our own dinner to enjoy outside on this rare, warmish, sunny day in January!

We started with farm fresh eggs because who doesn't love breakfast for dinner?!

We are still getting a few eggs a day even in the short days of winter!

The eggs were cracked into an onion ring. Yep, just a freshly sliced onion used as a place to hold the eggs!

They cooked alongside some farm fresh sausage.

Then they were stacked together to make a sausage-onion-egg bagel dinner sandwich!

There were a few extra onions cooked also so they went into the stack. Then the dinner sandwiches were wrapped in foil and packed in a picnic basket and we headed out for a beautiful view along the river.

We parked at the boatramp at Galice. The river is flowing high right now with the winter rains that we have had lately.

We ate our dinner outside and watched the ducks, herons and listened to the water.

We had the perfect place to eat our dinner out!

See you soon, Debbie!

Pasture Raised Pigs

The slow grown pigs on the farm have had plenty of time to roam, root, graze, and move from pasture to pasture depending on the weather and time of year.

Fresh clean air, grass, sunlight and open access at all times raises the best tasting pork.

Walnuts and apples are among the favorite staple of the pigs, You can see their heavy jowls and snout used for roots and foraging.

Open pasture to roam and yes, play as pigs are quite intelligent and actually create games with one another.

Facing the morning sun.

Napping in the shade of the trees on the cool green grass.

Growing into happy and healthy animals, these pigs will be harvested soon. They have incredible flavor and exceptional meat quality and best of all there is never any hormone, antibiotic or genetically modified feed given to the animals on our farm for the home grown, sweet meat flavor. 

Memorial Day Week End

It was a perfect weekend to celebrate family and friends, young and old and everything in between.

Here is to remembering the gift of service and freedom.

In between parades and planting the garden there was time to gather together for a BBQ on the farm.

But first a word from our sponsors!! Hey, look at these friendly pigs. They are now weighing about 250 pounds. They have a definite routine throughout the day and enjoy the company of the other farm animals.

Here the pigs feed and there are usually a hen or two ready to help clean up after the pigs eat.

Back to the BBQ! We used the fire pit with madrone wood for seasoned smoke flavor.

Jolene and Peter had plenty of supervision while the grilled up bison-elk burgers! YUM!!

Ryan helped set the tables and made sure the food was properly placed!

After a prayer of thanks, 13 grateful hearts sat down to share a meal prepared by many hands.

The first BBQ of the season was wonderful!

The kids filled to their hearts' content and then it was time for play.

Some fun in the sun and sprinklers.

Some needed more encouragement than others!!

Then the victory run through the sprinklers all together.

Strawberry Blueberry Shortcake covered in whipped cream made a patriotic dessert!

Of course there was plenty to go around.

Red-White-Blue!

Darrell and Jane, thank you for a career of service with the US Marine Corps!

Happy in the water!

Anna on the tire swing. There is always time for a ride.

And a gathering on the front porch as the sun was getting low in the sky.

It was a day to remember so many blessings.

Happy Memorial Day, 2014

Neighborhood Watch

This beautiful barn owl is part of the neighborhood watch on mice, voles, and other rodents. This one is a fairly large owl and it is difficult to tell the difference between male and female. The owl does not hoot, but it make a loud screetching call. The wing span is enormous and the white face has given the owl the nickname of ghost owl. Since it was viewed near the full moon, we will call it the moon owl! No matter the name nor the sex of the bird, it sure is a beautiful bird! 

This February Snow Moon had the perfect timing of shining brightly on Valentine's Day. 

As you can tell we are all under the spell of the Night Watch!

We Need the Rain!

It has been so very dry in Southern Oregon since September. We are all very relieved to have this rain. Hopefully the river can keep up with the drainage. The river reached a flow in Grants Pass of over 18,000 cubic feet per second.  The Rogue River is considered flood stage at 20,000 cfs. Fortunately there was a lull in the rain to last long enough for more of the land to drain.  We have strategically placed water buckets under the barn roof line for the animals to drink easily and to access every bit that Mother Nature has to offer!

Buckets collecting rain water under the barn eaves.

Giant, old walnut trees. They look like sculptures.

Wonderful water everywhere!

Rain is literally streaming off of the barn.

Again, strategic placement on the buckets keeps them full!

Turkeys are dry and warm.

Pigs are getting ready to snuggle into the straw!

Amazingly, there were three eggs today.

Pretty wet, but chores are finished for the day. We are so lucky to have the rain!

Farm and Feed

Sometimes bringing in the feed isn't as easy as it sounds! We have a small silo that holds 4,000 pounds of feed. Just two tons. Last week we needed to purchase only 1,500 pounds of feed and that is not deliverable by Grange truck, so the next best thing is a good friend's truck! Our truck has a canopy on it and while that can be removed, it was easier and more efficient to swap trucks for a day. Thank you Charlie and Jeri! Once the exchange was complete, we were off to the local feed store to pick up our feed order.

The first challenge was navigating between raindrops! We have had such a dry start to our winter in Southern Oregon, and suddenly rain, rain, rain, just as soon as we needed to pick up the grain, it started pouring!

Out tote of grain is in there among the massive amounts of other feed. The guys in the feed store couldn't be nicer and even though they had to move about three tons of feed, it was all done with a smile and a story!

Forklifts always make things look so easy! Raise it up high and set down gently. After two readjustments, the 1,500 pound tote was centered right over the tires.

The tote had a drawstring for the inside layer to twist, tighten and tie down, like a giant twisty tie!                                                           

We covered our giant tote with a tarp and secured it with a rope and drove home through the pouring down rain.  

It was really coming down and we so desperately need the rain, that we welcomed it! However, all that moisture had to be kept off of the grain.  

It rained hard and so we waited, unwrapped the tarp tie, started filling five gallon buckets with the grain, waited some more and hoped for a short clearing in the rain.

Organic Hog Grower, with the perfect balance of healthy grains to see our pigs growing. The pig preference is still to dig and forage and root, then they subsidize the pasture nutrients with the grain that is freely offered.

Farmer Man hauled 5 gallon buckets full of just under 27 pounds of grain. We kept lids on them so the sprinkling rain would't get the feed wet.

We made a good team! I filled and the buckets with a scoop...there are 7 scoops per bucket and Tim hauled them to the final destination.  First was the feed bin in the pasture with the pigs. The little bin holds 360 pounds of grain.  Right now the pigs are eating about 70 pounds of grain per week. That will increase as the pigs get older.

Next stop was the barn to fill a couple of metal garbage cans to capacity. 

Finally, we backed the truck up to the little silo and began to fill it. You can see the small feeder at the end of the tailgate and this is where the pigs have unlimited access to eat grain. They are such smart animals that they learned in just a day how to lift the lid with their snouts to eat. These flaps keep the rain off of the grain.

We kept filling and dumping bucket after bucket and the sky continued to clear and even gave us the most beautiful puffy cloud blue sky combination!

At last the Farm work was done and 57 buckets full later, it started to sprinkle, then rain, then enormous winds blew. We were so lucky to have a little pocket of time to store the grain out of the rain! And the pigs are just as happy as ever!