promotion

    Sarah has promoted me to head blogger.  I am not sure if it is a promotion, title to make me feel more needed, or merely a way for Sarah to simplify her life. 
   Since her last post, she has a full time off farm job. She also has PYO pumpkin patch set to open this weekend.  Matt is back in school and Tina is back in school.  Me...busier than ever on the farm.  Papa Weaver continues to grow. Our deliveries are becoming more and more demanding.  Thank heaven for "Lucy", our
gps unit.  She always gets me home.  I am currently driving about 600 miles per week making deliveries and moving pigs.  
   Pace on the farm is picking up.  Spring planted crops are nearing maturity.  We are checking machines getting ready for harvest.  Lots of baby pigs are being born.
    Bernie was a friend of mine who I met at a very young age.  He  worked for my father and later for me.  He was more than an employee.  He was a man was who became part of our family as I grew. I learned from him. I laughed with him.  I grew to respect him.
   During the later years of his life, diabetes had taken a toll.  His kidneys had stopped working and he had last both of his legs.  During a visit, I asked him how he was doing..  With so much of his life gone,  his response surprised me.  " I am having a good day.  My feet hit the floor this morning".   Meaning, he was alive. 

That's the right outlook.  If your feet "hit the floor", every day is a good day.

Oh, the wonders of cell phones. When they work.

Cell phones are a marvelous thing.  When you aren't desperately trying to get ahold of someone planting corn in a no cab tractor, or someone who is cutting hay where there is very little to no cell phone service.  Came over to Harrisonburg today to pick up meat, and happened to find a hole in the radiator.  I was frantically trying to call everyone I could think of, but knew that Dad was planting corn, and very unlikely to hear his phone in his pocket (or possibly in the truck) and knew that Matt was out cutting hay on another farm that has very horrible cell phone reception.  Luckily, Mom answered the phone, went and got Dad, and they are currently on their way here.  That's why I decided it was a fantastic time for a blog update!

Life is still busy on the farm- the way it will be until November.  Dad is busy planting corn, and replanting a field that did not come up, or a plant came up here and there, and no one has any idea really why.  Matt has started hay season.  He's the one that stays super busy in the hay field from first thing in the morning until close to dark.  He normally cuts the hay, and then bales it.  Either Dad or I end up raking it into windrows so that the baler can then pick it up.  

I have four sows having babies this week- three are supposed to have babies tomorrow, and then one Friday.  Sows have an average of an 114 day gestation period- how long they are pregnant- but ours have been going a little longer, normally around 117 days.  We still want to move them over with plenty of time so that they are all in the farrowing room, and can have heat lamps put out to keep the babies warm!

My pumpkins are being planted either late this week, or first thing next week!  I'm super excited!

New recipes and Pictures!

Also, please go check out the new pictures and recipes on the Facebook page!  (www.facebook.com/papaweaver)!  I have uploaded lots of pictures from the farm this spring!

Planting Corn, Soybeans, and Rain

So I know that it has been a really long time since the last blog post- completely my fault!  We have been busy on the farm since it is prime planting time, planting corn and soybeans, working ground, and still taking care of pigs and cows.  We have babies being born right now, even though they were all supposed to be through last week!  We try not to induce labor unless they are REALLY overdue, because most of the time we just let nature do its thing.

Matt came home last week, so he is back to helping out on the farm.  Right now, we are dealing with major amounts of rain and thunderstorms.  Good for the corn and soybeans, but not so good at getting other things done on the farm.  Luckily we have just about all of our corn in the ground, and all the soybeans planted.  We have to wait until it dries up some to finish planting corn on the river bottoms. 

Matt and Dad are out working on a cow who had some problems after she had a baby last week, hopefully they are staying dry in this weather!

April Already?!?!

Time sure has flown by since the last time that I had a chance to blog about the farm!  During March, it seems like all of a sudden time starts to speed up on the farm!  The slow days of winter all of a sudden seem to fade away as it starts getting warmer and the days stay lighter longer. 

We are busy getting ready to start planting corn in a few weeks!  I can't believe it is already that time again!  We want to plant earlier than normal this year so that we can start harvesting the corn earlier, just in case corn gets low.  With corn prices at the super high prices that they are now, it's not much fun having to buy corn if we run out!  I have been busy bush hogging old corn stalks, getting ready to start plowing any fields that need to be plowed before Dad starts planting.  Right now, he's even still out on the farm!  He is out spreading manure on our pasture fields, getting our manure spreaders ready to go into high gear this week!  We use the hog manure from our hog barns as fertilizer on our fields.  It is our way of being eco-friendly, and recycling all the nutrients that we have!  It is much better for us and the fields to be able to do this, instead of having to use commercial fertilizer.  We have to wait until this time of year to spread the manure, because it is against the law to spread when the ground is frozen.  Since Dad got the newer spreader, we now have two that we can use to spread.  According to him, tomorrow (if it isn't raining) he and I are both going to be on spreaders out in the fields! 

I am super happy that is is getting warmer outside- I can bring my 4-wheeler back out!  This is my favorite time of year, when I can take my 4-wheeler and just go for rides on the farm.  Tonight before I came home, I went down next to the river with my 4-wheeler just to ride and see what I could find.  There were lots of gorgeous purple flowers that I have never seen before that were everywhere down by the river!

I am getting ready to start ordering all my seeds for my projects this year!  I have a wishlist of all of the pumpkin seeds that I want, and the flower seeds that I am going to grow to sell at Farmer's Markets.  I am super excited to think about my pumpkin patch; even if I do have two more months before I can start planting them!

New Recipe and Combine Shopping!

I just put a new recipe on the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/papaweaver).  It's a new recipe that Mom made the other night for dinner that was absolutely delicious!  It was a pork tenderloin that she cut up, fried, and then made a sauce with blueberries to go on it.  I'm not the biggest blueberry fan, but I thought it was amazing! 
Dad and I have been pretty busy this week, but the most exciting thing that we did yesterday was go look at a combine that is going to be for sale next week!  Dad's afraid that it might be a little out of our price range, but it's going to be at an auction in Fauquier County next Saturday.  It was much newer and bigger than the one that we had previously, and I really liked it.  Dad was also looking at a manure spreader that he thinks might go in his price range, and I want a wagon that I can use to carry people in for my pumpkin patch. 
Everything just keeps getting greener and growing on the farm.  All of our wheat and barley is growing.  We had one field of wheat that got planted late, and it just came up this week!  Everything else has been out of the ground for over a month, and we thought that that field just wasn't going to come up.  Even the wheat that got planted on the same day in a different strip in the same field was up!  It was pretty strange, but at least it is up and growing now!  I guess it just needed those warm temperatures last weekend to give it the final kick that it needed to pop up!
Since it's supposed to be around 80 degrees today, I went down to the barn and have all the doors wide open to get some fresh air in for the baby pigs.  They certaintly seemed to appreciate it!  This afternoon I have to go back down and move two sows to our farrowing room that are supposed to have babies this weekend!  I don't think they will though, I imagine it's going to be the first of next week before they actually do!

Dry Out!

It's a beautiful day outside- so nice after all the rain we have gotten in the past week!  Dad said that we ended up getting over 5 inches all together between the two systems that came through.  The Rapidan River goes through the bottom edge of our property, and down on the river bottom the river had gotten out when we went down on Friday morning and looked.  When I was down yesterday, the river had gone back down a little bit so there wasn't all that water in the field.  There is still water standing in the low spots in the fields where we planted our barley and wheat, but that should be gone in the next few days.  With these warm temperatures and those five inches of rain, the barley and wheat and all the rest of the grass is going to jump up!  It's so nice to see the pastures be green again after being brown all winter.
We have been on a major "spring cleaning" event in some of our barns- just getting everything all cleaned up and walls washed and after our woodstove has been burning all winter.  It's so nice to see it after it gets cleaned- looks like an entirely different place!
Last week Dad, Matt, and I started building a pen in the field next to our house to catch our herd of cows here.  We were able to get most of the posts dug- Dad used old electric poles from the electric company that are cut up after they came through and replaced electric poles a few years ago.  Then he uses old guardrail as the sides of the pens.  We have two other lots that are already made like that- they work GREAT.  We don't have to worry about boards rotting or getting broken like we do in our pens that are made out of wood!  I had to empty out the holes after we dug them to get all the loose dirt out, and then I had to "tamp" the dirt down- pack it in really tightly around the post so that they don't move.  My arms and shoulders hurt really badly the next day- great upper arm workout!
We sold the first of our beef at the Farmer's Market in Spotsylvania  yesterday, and were really pleasantly surprised by the response of all of our customers that came by.  We are really hoping that everyone enjoys it, and keeps coming back for more.  We had barbeque made out of a chuck roast on Friday night, hamburgers yesterday for lunch, and then Mom, Dad, and Matt had steaks last night.  I was really upset I missed the steaks- Dad said they were excellent.   I did have some of the hamburger patties yesterday at lunch time with bacon, they were DELICIOUS.  I love hamburgers, but I think these were some of the best I have ever eaten!
I already have been talking to Quail Cove Farms about getting them some beef to sell, but with the way that it is selling right now, it might be a while before we have any extra!  We have already gone through so much of it that Dad is already getting ready to schedule a time to take another animal over so that we can get some more beef back!