The End

Robin calved!  It was a bit of a surprise because she was about 3 weeks early.  She had the calf without problem, in fact we didn't even know she had calved until my dad happened to see the baby while filling water tanks. 

It's a sweet little roan bull.

This seems to be the summer of roan.

Here he is with his Momma, Robin.

And here is Robin enjoying a well deserved Momma snack!

While I was on the calf kick, I decided to take some other pics of the babies.

This is Cali, Moonie's baby.  She's a little over 2 weeks old and still as cute as ever.

And here's Big Roan.  At a month and half old he's getting... well bigger! 

All the rest of the calves were hiding out in the barn doing things that little calves do... probably scheming on their next big adventure... so that's all the baby pics I got.

Robin's little guy marks the last calf for this year and brings the grand total to 15.  We've never had so many calves before but then again, we've never had so many cows.  We are to the point of getting so many little red fuzz balls running around, it's often hard to tell which calf belongs to which cow as they get older.  So next year I've decided we are going to have to start ear tagging our calves. 

Soon, if we ever get a break from the heat, we will hopefully be bringing some of the older calves home to wean from their mothers.

The End!

Throwin G's On This Blog

Hello all!  I have exciting news... Today, current page views for Green Acres blog have surpassed 1,000!

Holy cow, happy dance, and jump up and down excitedly.

When I started, not quite 2 months ago, I had no expectations what so ever.  I couldn't imagine Green Acres bloggin' to be that enjoyable to anyone and had no clue who would really want to read about any of this. 

But you people are amazing!

It blows my mind that I've actually had 1,000 people click on my links and read what I've wrote.  Kind of horrifying, but in the most spectacular way!

I'll keep posting as long as ya'll keep reading.  I'm trying to maintain a steady 3-4 posts a week which is surprisingly much easier than I thought it would be.  Who knew how much actually went on at Nacke Farms?!

A side note:
Most of you have been commenting on Facebook about my posts which is totally awesome and fine.  But feel free to also do some comment lovin' on the blog itself.  It's nice to hear some feedback and ideas.  And I'll take requests if there is anything you have questions about.

Another side note:
You can follow my blog by putting in your email address in that little box on the right side of the page.  Then you get nifty little emails when I post.  Then again, I totally understand the horror that is weeding through pointless emails and spam.  So no pressure there either!

All just friendly suggestions from an extremely happy blogger!

(If my happiness was proportional to the amount of exclamation marks in this post alone, it would not be enough to capture how truly excited I am!!!)

Here's to the next 1,000! :)

Beef, It's Whats For Dinner!

One of the greatest benefits of raising your own cattle is the never ending supply of beef in your freezer. 

This weekend Arren and I picked up our half of beef from the local butcher and put it in our brand new used freezer.

I'll admit, for someone who took a meats class in college, I had no clue what I was doing when telling the lady behind the counter what kind of cuts and how much I wanted.  But she was super helpful and got an A+ for her knowledge of cuts of beef and what each one could be used for, as well as putting up with my constant sputter of uhhs and umms.

A ton of what we got was made into ground beef or hamburger patties. 

I don't know why, but I thought there would be more steaks.  But then again, one calf can only produce so many.  I take for granted how easy it is to just throw a couple steaks on the grill and not have to pay for them at the grocery store.

We also got some ribs.  My parents usually have the ribs made into ground beef so here's hoping they are decent to cook with.  I don't like grilling ribs, they fall off the bone too easily and seem to dry out way too fast.  I've made them before by throwing them in a crock pot on low with some BBQ sauce and holy cow (no pun intended), those babies were delicious!

Of course we've got roasts coming out the wazoo.  Arm Roasts, chuck roasts, rump roasts, sirloin roasts...  I've never made Italian beef but I'm a big fan of my mom's, so this very novice chef is going to have to try it out.  Of course, you can't go wrong with a good old fashioned roast with potatoes thrown in.  And I'm also thinking some shredded beef BBQ is in our near feasting future!

Grab Your Cane Pole, I'll Grab the Worms, We're Going Fishin!



This may be a little late in coming, but I'd like to pay homage to the late Andy Griffith who passed away last week.  Most folks would think I'm too young to remember Mayberry or Aunt Bea.  But when I was younger my dad made sure that I got my share of TV Land and the shows that he loved growing up.

I was never the biggest fan of Andy Griffith.  The show seemed too slow paced, too hokey, and too goody-goody for my taste as a kid.  It didn't have the laughs of All in the Family or The Honeymooners.  And it just seemed too annoyingly prefect in an imperfect world.

But as I grow older, I find myself wishing we could return to those slower and somewhat hokier days.  When your dads and moms were sirs and mams and there was always some little bit of gossip traveling around the town.  Where your neighbors knew who you were and would see to it that you never had any troubles.  And where problems didn't seem quite so big or negativity so strong.

So for those reasons, I thank Andy Griffith for giving us a taste of the Mayberry life.  A glimpse into an ever vanishing world being consumed by technology and fast paced growth where America is trying desperately to hold onto it's legacy of greatness.

So take some time out of your busy schedule today, kick back on the front porch, pop open a cold bottle of coke and watch the world go by as you reminisce about the good ole Mayberry days.

So Long Porch... (Well Half Of It Anyways)

Only on the second hottest day of the year (the hottest being the day that followed) would my dad decided to start on the front porch project.

I arrive around noon to find this...

Dad decided to go all out and rip the whole left half of the front off.  Then, realizing that the post in the middle was now the only thing keeping the roof from falling in, decided that was a good demo start!

Game plan: finish rebuilding the left half of the porch then move onto the right.

This works for multiple reasons, 1 the porch roof doesn't fall in, 2 the porch still has somewhat of a rain gaurd in case we get a monsoon (yeah right), 3 we have a little more shade from that hot summer sun, and 4 we won't have to actually move the deep freezer off the porch, just switch sides.

My dad had also managed to rip up a short little square of the floor.  We decided that since that corner cabinet is not coming out, we will be leaving those floor boards (that run under the cabinet) above that little square.  But those really aren't in too bad of shape for being as old as they are.

We moved onto more floor demo.  The odd method of cutting all those little foot sections out can be explained in the picture below...

That icky looking front board holding the whole front of the porch up was rotting from years of rain and wear and tear.  So it also needed to be cut out and replaced.

Here it is completely removed and already looking better.  My dad and I then realized we had no suitable 2x6's on the property to undertake the huge job that is supporting the front of the porch.  So, we gratefully took a quick (air-conditioned) trip to the near by lumber yard and stopped for a sandwich.  Because who can work on an empty tummy?

Fast forward to full, happy tummies an hour or so later and this is the result!  The front support is looking much better.  My dad said he will have to add mortar to where that huge gap is between the new boards and the foundation.

Here is a close up of more floor demo.  We had to take apart the threshold under the door so we could remove the old floor boards, but it will look much more porch chic when it's finished.

Then it was onto the actual floor laying which went much faster than any of the demo.  Those are tounge and groove boards just like the orignals.  Well sort of like the oringinals...

Apparently 3 inch lumber in current days is somewhat smaller than 3 inch lumber from long ago.  The only thing I can figure is someone lost a few quarters of an inch off their tape measure somewhere along the way and now you pay much more for less.

This caused some mismatching which, from the picture above, is hard to tell but if you look closely where the short boards become long, you'll notice we had to splice the longer board.

But no worries, the mismatching will be less noticeable when it's all painted the same color.

So that is it so far folks!  I'll be sure to keep ya updated.  It's looking to be a long haul project.  Here are a few of the things we need to finish short term

• Add about 4 more floor boards and cut all them to length to complete the left side of the floor.

• Add a 1x6 to the front support board and then mortar in the cracks.

• Start building the left wall.  This includes installing the new door.

• Once the left side is somewhat complete we can then move onto the right side and repeat!

Hopefully the next days of work on the porch will be cooler and a lot less sweaty/grimy!

p.s. To all those worried that I'm taking a picture in my car, I was actually not in drive...  Safety first :)

4th of July

Happy 4th of July!

Last night I decided to go all Martha Stewart (minus the jail time) and makes some festive Red, White and Blue cup cakes.  I liberally used this recipe from The Pioneer Woman (she has some awesome food!).  I use the term liberally because her recipe calls for making an actual angle food cake.  Well, for all of us baking novices (me) who do not have the required equipment (a cake pan), I dumbed down the recipe quite a bit.  :)

I started with a box of angle food cake mix.  You know the kind Betty Crocker makes.  Yeah I'm a cheater!  All I had to do was add water, throw it into the mixer and wallah, angle food cake batter.  Then I grabbed my only cup cake tray I own, plopped some of the batter into cup cake liners, and threw them babies into the oven for 13-15 minutes.

Silly me forgot to take any picture of the above happenings, but here is the end result!

You have to be careful because the cake is super light and airy so it's pretty easy to squash some getting them out of the pan.

I mixed me up a little strawberry jello.

And then put frozen strawberries into the hot Jello mix.  At first I was a little worried because my frozen strawberries were... well very frozen... but after about 10 minutes of stirring, breaking the giant frozen chuck o' fruit up, and waiting, it defrosted pretty nicely.

While I was waiting for my berries to defrost, I cut the middles out of the baby cakes.  I used a sharp knife and made a circle around the outside ring and then dug the middle out.  I saved the tops and just threw them back into the cupcakes for now.

I took each cupcake middle and filled it with the berry and Jello mix.

 Then took the part I had cut off, shmoosh it down a bit, and stuck it back on top.

I stuck all of them in the fridge.  I'll admit, at this point I was worried that the Jello was going to make the inside of the cups all soggy so that's why I did the fridge part right away.  I'm not sure if this is a key step or not.

While the baby cakes were chillin', I made my own homemade whipped cream.  This is probably the most domestic thing I have done to date!  Sure you can go out and buy some Ready Wip, but I had to try it once, and I have to say it was pretty easy.

I threw my cream in the mixer with some sugar and beat it (beat it good) on high for a couple of minutes.  Because I had never done this before I grew worried after about a minute.  My cream wasn't getting any thicker.  So I rushed back to the The Pioneers Woman's site and double checked I wasn't missing a key step.

That's when I read these words... "Don't give up on your cream"... so back to the mixer it was!  This time after another minute it was beginning to thicken up and after 2-3 minutes it was perfect!  And it tasted just like the real thing... boo yah!

I took the cakes out of the fridge and iced them.  You can never had enough whipped cream, so of course I used every last bit I had made.

 Then because I needed some blue with my red and white, I topped each one with some blueberries and plopped them back in the fridge to continue to chill.

The real test came this morning though...

Now, I don't want to toot my own horn, but I have to say it was scrumdidleyumpcious!  The Jello berry mix had set up perfectly in the centers, the cake was so fluffy and the whip cream... well hello it's whip cream!

So would I suggest this recipe to fellow readers... uhhh yes!

Here's the recipe in a more condensed form.

Cupcakes:
1 Box of Betty Crocker Angle Food Cake Mix

Filling:
1 package (3 oz.) of strawberry Jello
1 package (1 lb.) of frozen strawberries

Icing:
1 pint of heavy whipping cream
2.5 tablespoons of sugar



Back on track to the 4th.  I hope you all have great Wednesday off.  I decided to capitalize on the opportunity and take Thursday and Friday off as well, so this will be my last post for the week.  No worries, I'll be back next week in full bloggin' force! 

The Operation

I thought y'all might like some inside scoop into the cow/calf operation we have going on at Nacke Farms.

All of our cows are registered purebred shorthorn.  I'm not biased at all when I say shorthorn is easily the superior breed of cattle. ;)  Their hair color can range in color from red, red and white, all white, to roan.  Our bull and most of our cows are red or red and white, although we do have a couple roan cows and three roan babies this year.

Every spring we are lucky enough to get to transport our cows out to a huge pasture with a creek running through it.  A farmer, who is friends with my dad, lets us keep our cattle at his place which is a win-win for everyone.  He gets to keep his pasture grass nice and short and we get free grass for our cows all summer long.  The cows stay there until the middle of fall, when it starts getting cold.  Then we bring them home to Nacke farms to overwinter in our warm barns and fill up on grain and hay.

I visited the cows one night on my way home and snapped up some happy pics of happy cows.  It's a very picturesque place, especially when you arrive there at dusk!

Onto the operation!

I'll start with the cows (aka the baby makers).  We currently have 14 cows in our herd ranging in ages from 3-11 years old.  Most were shown at county fairs by me when I was younger.  Some we raised from calves and kept back in the herd as replacement heifers (different sires of course) and some we bought at sales as bred heifers and cows.

So far this year all cows except one have calved.  We lost one calf due to what we think was trauma from it being stepped on. (sad face)  But as my dad says, when you have livestock you're going to loose one every now and then.  We had one set of twins a couple of months ago, so currently we are 13 for 14.  Having twins in cattle is much like having twins in humans.  It's rare, but it happens, especially when the cow's family is genetically known to have a predisposition for twins.  Last year was the year of the twins, we had 3 different sets, two of which came from maternal half sisters. 

Then there is Mo, our bull.  He's 4 years old and pretty laid back.  Not much gets him excited besides a bucket of grain and the occasional cow in heat.  You do have to be a little more watchful of bulls.  Never turn your back on even the tamest because you never know when they might get the inkling to play toss the human.  And that is a game you will never win!

We do not AI (artificially inseminate) any of our cattle.  AIing is very common in the cattle industry, in fact it's strange for a small heard owner, such as ourselves, not to.  But AIing takes a lot of time, extra money, and you have to monitor your herd very closely to know when your cattle are going to be in heat.  All reasons we leave it to the very capable Mo to get the job done!

We also run a small feed lot.  Most of our calves join the feeder group when they are around 5 to 6 months of age and weaned off their Mama's.  There they will stay, eating all the grain their heart desires for approximately another year.  It's a pretty sweet gig if your a cow.  Once they are fed out and fattned up we then either sell them to a comercial buyer at the local sale barn or take them to the local butcher shop to fill friends, family, or our own freezers. 

We keep allmost all of our calves from the time they are born until it's time to go to market.  Everyone always asks (in a concerned tone), "isn't it hard to eat the calves you raised?".  If you start thinking about it too much it can be, but growing up on a farm I've learned that this is the way of life.  They get the life of luxury for a year and a half so that we can eat some tasty steaks.  While that might be barbaric to some, I'm reminded of that awesome father son chat in the Lion King!  It's the circle of life.