Liberty Pastures

Well, it has come down to this…

2010-05-21T06:36:00.003-04:00

I have decided to cease writing posts on this blog. When I started this blog it was only supposed to be related to the happenings on the farm, but I cannot seem to avoid commenting on political and news stories. As previously posted, I gave in a while back and created Facebook and Twitter accounts; in short, all of my future social networking will not include a blog.

I have a Facebook page (Jacob Phillips) which will include my opinions/comments as well as miscellaneous activities of my personal life. I have a business Facebook page (Liberty Pastures) and Twitter page which will focus on our farm operation. As a note, you will need a account to view my Facebook pages, but you do not need an account to follow us on Twitter.

If you happen to be technically challenged [anybody over the age of 50, specifically my parents :-) ] or are intimidated by Facebook/Twitter, you don’t need to be; if you want assistance on getting it all set-up just let me know and I’ll walk you through it. You can even have the updates sent directly to your e-mail or cell phone.

- the Ag Commissioner I want

2010-05-18T06:32:00.001-04:00

Makes me want to move to Alabama so I can vote for this man. I would love to have a guy like this run for the Agricultural Commissioner in Indiana.

- secure the border

2010-05-17T06:47:00.000-04:00

I am disgusted at how our individual states are being forced to "battle" against the federal government, but I am more upset by the fact that so many states and the feds refuse to enforce their own laws. I don't understand how we have gotten to the point where it is wrong to defend ourselves, where we are not willing to stand for any real principals, and where men are so eager to point their finger without having done something so simple like read a 10 page bill. I spent most of my life in Southern California and I can assure you that despite all of California's other utterly stupid policies, the illegal immigration problem is a real problem. You do not want this to become a problem in your state, because it will bankrupt you too; in addition to causing your crime rate to rise.

- moving the chicks out

2010-05-07T14:19:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I took all of the chicks out of their brooder in the garage and moved them to the small chicken tractor. They are not down in the field with the rest of the birds; for now we are keeping them on the lawn next to the house. The birds are only 3 weeks old, so they will not be big enough to go down to the field for a a few more weeks, but I wanted to get them out into the fresh air and on the grass.

- some new goats

2010-05-04T05:49:00.001-04:00

Yesterday afternoon we had some new Spanish goats delivered. We purchased 2 pregnant nannies and 2 yearling does from Montgomery Farms in Northern Indiana. This breed was brought to the Americas several hundred years ago so they are considered more of a heritage breed - vice the Boers who were brought to the U.S. in 1993. It is our hope that this different breed will prove to be healthier mothers and more parasite resistant. They are nowhere near as friendly as our Boer goats, but we have enough pets; we simply want goats to thrive and reproduce well.

As you can see, they have not completely lost all of their winter coat.

- government style math?

2010-05-03T14:09:00.000-04:00

General Motors paid back its loan in full and ahead of schedule? Not exactly... Now that they are owned by the federal government, they are operating just like the federal government.

Hey, since GM is majority owned by the taxpayers, will I be getting a dividend check each quarter? If you buy a new GM vehicle you are simply supporting and enabling them in their road to ruin.

- lets go fly a kite

2010-04-30T23:14:00.001-04:00

- a family ride

2010-04-30T12:41:00.000-04:00

One of the many beauties of educating our children at home:

For PE (physical education) we don’t send them out to an asphalt lot to play dodge-ball; instead our whole family heads to the local mountain bike park. In this case we went to Wapahani Trail which is only about 5 miles from our home. The park is maintained by the city of Bloomington and has a total of 9 miles of trail. Most of these trails are a little too much for a family ride, but there is a 0.6 mile loop around the lake/pond that is fairly mellow. The children thoroughly enjoyed their time of exercise although I am hoping we can get them to the point where they can ride more than 6 laps.

- home on the range

2010-04-27T11:39:00.001-04:00

I have always said that it is a good thing any time I get paid to be around weapons or explosions. A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being the Range Safety Officer and Marksmanship Instructor for DET2, ELMACO while they were conducting their annual rifle qualifications at Camp Atterbury. Good Stuff.

- hunting

2010-04-26T22:28:00.000-04:00

I met a buddy and went turkey hunting for a couple hours this evening at another's buddy's farm. We saw a couple hens, but no toms to shoot. Oh well, a bad day hunting is better than a good day working.

- i gave in, big time

2010-04-24T21:45:00.001-04:00

Well, as the title states; I gave in... The Marine Corps motto is Semper Fidelis (Latin for Always Faithful) one of our "unofficial" mottos is Semper Gumby (always remain flexible and open to change).

Despite my consistent protests against them, I decided to go ahead and create a Twitter account and a Facebook page (you do need to have your own Titter/Facebook accounts). Sometimes I tweet/post a few times each day about the simple things that I am doing around the farm and sometimes I won't post anything for several days. Much like the blog, I hope that these additions will allow our family and friends to feel more connected and have a better idea of what we are doing. Oh yeah, I also hope it will bring in a few customers and keep us connected with our existing customers.

What can I say? I am a stubborn man, but I am not afraid to make changes when necessary. I also have to admit that I am having a little fun with the new pages, I look forward to hearing from some of you via Twitter or FB.

- mowing the lawn

2010-04-22T11:22:00.001-04:00

Last week, my son was tasked with mowing our lawn for the first time this season. The grass growth pretty much shuts around October and starts up again around April. He was glad for the break over the winter, but was also eager to get back to work.

When we moved to Indiana my son was given the responsibility of mowing and has thoroughly enjoyed it. I also have to admit that I thoroughly enjoy watching him, the sense of pride he emanates is a reward in itself.

- grass or grass?

2010-04-21T19:42:00.002-04:00

For those of you who happen to be lacking in street knowledge (not a bad thing), the first bag is full of Cannabis, Marijuana, Mary Jane, Mota, Grass etc… and it is not the tame low percentage THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) that Clinton smoked when he was younger; it is the modern version that is much more powerful, addictive, and destructive.

But I digress. The only bags of grass I dealt with when I was “the man” were the ones I got off of the knucklehead parolees I stopped. I never imagined I would be packing my own baggies of grass someday. The only difference is that I packed my baggies full of the various grasses from my pastures.

I took numerous samples from our property and cut them into 2-3 inch pieces then mixed them up and stuffed them into a quart size bag. After sitting in my freezer for a couple days, I mailed them off to Dairy One laboratory for a detailed analysis. In the next few days, I should know the exact mineral, protein, etc… of our forage.

As previously stated, I never even thought I would own goats – let alone be testing my grass to ensure my goats stay healthy. I love how my life has changed and am constantly excited about our new experiences.

- welfare cars from GM?

2010-04-20T07:29:00.000-04:00

"It's a beautiful car," the 38-year-old Detroit resident said. "I love it. When I get a job, I might get one."

That quote sort of sums it up doesn’t it? I am just disgusted, but not at all surprised that this “church” is encouraging its congregants to become strapped with a huge unneeded car loan. Rather than following the very clear biblical principals about not being indentured to a debtor, the wise “men of God” are promoting the idea of people (who don’t even have jobs) buying over-priced new cars. These knuckleheads actually brought lenders into the church building to make it easier for the people to apply for loans!!!

I am also trying to figure out why this GM dealer would waste their time letting unabashedly un-employed people drive them around… Is it because GM is now owned by the federal government? Maybe that will be the next big push – “everybody has the right to own a new car” or “it simply isn’t fair that some Americans have the money to own a new car and others don’t”.

While I don’t know all of the details, I feel pretty safe saying that the poor people of Detroit need to be taught to become self sufficient and self sustaining, not that it is ok to accumulate a bunch of debt – especially when you’re only income is welfare from the government. I guess I shouldn’t be so shocked when our citizens want to live in a manner that is similar to the government itself. “Just get it now and figure out how to pay for it later”.

Every time I read the news, I have to do a reality check because it seems like I am living in the Twilight Zone.

GM, church team up to convert sales

- don't tread on us

2010-04-19T09:36:00.000-04:00

According to a new poll, 4 out of 5 Americans do not trust big government… It should not matter if you are on the political left or right, none of us should place our faith in people who have made a career out of politics and do not live in the same reality that the rest of us do.

Ronald Reagan said it best, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

- blind Marine re-enlists

2010-04-15T08:05:00.003-04:00

My wife sent me this article and I could not help but shed a tear when I read it. All that I can say is that I am proud to wear the same uniform as this young man.

After all he's been through, the only real regret Marine Cpl. Matthew Bradford says he has now is not being able to return to combat duty in Iraq.

But Wednesday, Bradford, 23, made Marine Corps history, becoming the first blind double amputee to re-enlist. In keeping with service tradition, Bradford was honorably discharged and allowed to say a few words as a civilian before re-enlisting.

“Sign me up, sir!” he told Lt. Col. David Barnes, who administered the oath of enlistment, extending Bradford's military career by another four years. The outdoor re-enlistment ceremony was held a few hundred feet from the Center for the Intrepid, dedicated just 11 days after Bradford was seriously wounded in Iraq.

It was at the cutting-edge rehabilitation center, funded with $50 million in private contributions, that he began his arduous and painful journey in June 2007 to learn to walk again with prosthetic limbs. He'll soon leave Fort Sam Houston to work with other wounded Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C. At the Intrepid Center, he had memorized the number of steps it took to get wherever he was going in the third-floor physical therapy department. The center became his “comfort zone,” said his mother, Debbie Bradford.

“He's got to grow past it,” she said. “He knows he can always come back.” So with a brief ceremony, delayed by about 20 minutes after the post was on lockdown for a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, Bradford's new phase of duty began. He said he wants to stay in the Marines “for as long as I can.”

Bradford, who grew up in Winchester, Ky., and Dinwiddie, Va., had made up his mind that he was going to deploy as many times as the Marines wanted him to when he was hurt a few months into his first tour of Iraq. A rifleman, he was on patrol in Al Anbar province and trying to help clear an area of roadside bombs when one of them exploded right under him the afternoon of Jan. 18, 2007.

Bradford lost his eyesight, and he had a fractured right hand and fragmentation wounds to the lower abdominal area. But what he said he hated the most was losing his legs. He required amputations below the knee on the right leg and above the knee on the left. His physical therapist, Matt Parker, said Bradford put his complete trust in his rehabilitation team, at a time when the Intrepid Center was “extremely busy” with a first wave of severely wounded troops.

One of the first tasks was to use exercises to strengthen his trunk area. “Every day, he would show up faithfully at 1 o'clock, despite having a full belly after lunch,” Parker said. “He's done things most able-bodied people can't do.” During President George W. Bush's visit at the Intrepid Center in November 2007, Bradford caught the president's attention while climbing the center's 35-foot artificial rock wall. “Good man, isn't he?” Bush said, according to news reports.

Since then, Bradford has inspired others by riding his hand cycle, with directions called out to him, in the Marine Corps Marathon. Last year, he hiked 10 miles of desert terrain in the grueling Bataan Memorial Death March in White Sands, N.M. Bradford credited his years of playing football and basketball as a youth, and the never-give-up attitude of the Marine Corps, with preparing him for his recovery. He's learned to read Braille and works on a computer with the aid of special software. Friday, he received a promotion to corporal, based on leadership.

The prayers and support of strangers and friendships he's made also have helped, his mother said. “He just doesn't like the word ‘No,'” she said. “He's lost a lot, but he's gained a lot.” She said she was proud to see her son take his oath of service in 2005, despite her worries about his safety. Seeing him take the oath again Wednesday, after his long ordeal, was even more wrenching, she said. Bradford said he wants to focus his energy on others, now that he's come so far in his own recovery.

He said he hopes to help wounded Marines cope with anger, depression and other demons that can fester if there's not someone around to provide strong peer mentoring. “I'm paving the road for the rest of them who want to stay in but think they can't,” he said. “I'm ready to get back to work.” He did note one tinge of sadness — regret about having to say goodbye. “It's going to be hard to leave my friends,” he said.

Blind Marine re-enlists

By Scott Huddleston - Express-News

- corpse or Corps?

2010-04-05T09:25:00.002-04:00

The mainstream media did not really cover it much; certainly not like they would have if “W” had made the gaff, in fact most Americans probably never heard of this little incident in which our president showed what a buffoon he really is. Now that I think about it, most Americans have been so poorly educated that they would probably make the same mistake that Barry did. I guess you sort of have to feel sorry for Mr. Soetero, he doesn’t ever really know what he is saying; he just gets up there and reads from his teleprompters.

I know this story has been talked about before, but it obviously hits a nerve with me. Being a Marine, I would like to think my Commander-in-Chief would at least know the name of my military organization, but I guess that is simply to much to ask these days. Additionally, I want to know how a guy can graduate from an Ivy League school without know the difference between a corpse and a corps.

My father just e-mailed me this image… I love it. It should be a bit funny to all (unless you happen to be a Obama-maniac), but if you are a Marine or at least know of R. Lee Ermey it should be even more humorous because you can probably remember/imagine being talked to this way at some point.

- factory or farm eggs?

2010-04-03T13:56:00.002-04:00

I recently read a post from the Radical Chicken in which he was commenting on the CAFO “farm” featured in the spring edition if the Hoosier Farmer (the Indiana Farm Bureau’s magazine). He was speaking about the twisted economics involved with operating a CAFO.

I thought of another aspect to the article: I just thought it was disingenuous of the IFB to have the title From Farm to Table on the cover. When most people read that they automatically assume it is a “farm,” when in fact it is much more like a factory. I liken it to the egg cartons in the store that show a beautiful little image of a traditional barn with chicken roaming around outside; when in fact they are almost always raised in an enormous warehouse. When looking for some images on the web, I stumbled upon an old blog post from the Cheeseslave who addressed the same issue.

If you have any desire to eat healthier, or if you simply like to feel a little less guilty about the treatment of chickens, then you are most likely willing to spend an extra couple bucks and get the “cage free” eggs with the cute farm image on them. If you think your cage free eggs are coming from free roaming chickens on a farm you are severely mistaken. While there may be a few farms (like us) that are raising their chickens this way, the overwhelming majority of them are raised in a confined warehouse. They are fed nothing but genetically modified corn/soy, they live on a concrete floor, and will never see direct sun-light. They can be called “free range” or “cage free” because they are free to roam around the warehouse amongst the thousands of other chickens. Just for the record, we occasionally shop at Trader Joe's - I just want you to know what you are actually getting.

At Liberty Pastures, we are raising our (meat and egg) birds in a manner that you would expect when you hear “free range or cage free.” They do have access to an all natural chicken feed, but it is a supplement only; they spend the majority of their time roaming around our pasture. Their primary diet consists of grass, insects, seeds, and even the occasional vole. [Did you know chickens can hunt?]

If you live in Bloomington, please feel free to contact us for a brief farm tour or with any questions. If you do not live near us, I highly recommend you find a local farmer who is raising his poultry the way God intended or even keep a few hens of your own. Either way, if you are truly concerned about your health or if you really want to support the ethical treatment of animals then you need to buy eggs/meat from a farmer who is a real farmer, not a factory manager.

All natural, pasture raised eggs are available at Liberty Pastures on Wednesdays 3-7 and Saturdays 8-12. You may want to call (812 606-8783) in advance as our supply is limited.

- hamburger havoc

2010-04-01T00:12:00.000-04:00

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This got some publicity in the local news, but I cannot help but think that if the circumstances were slightly different it would have made big national headlines. Could you image if it were a meat loving man who went crazy and was cutting up vegetables and what if, to top it off, he was a "Christian" too? I can see the CNN title now CHRISTIAN CARNIVORE DECIMATES INNOCENT GREENERY. But in this situation it will only be talked about by normal people like you and me, because the mainstream media does not want you to know that the real nuts and terrorists are on their side of the spectrum.

- eggs, eggs, eggs

2010-03-29T05:48:00.001-04:00

I think it is time for us to actually start selling some eggs... want some?

Our eggs are free from anti-biotics, hormones, and by-product filler feed. They are laid by hens raised on pasture and allowed to express their "chicken-ness". We encourage you to come by and see for yourself how your food is being raised.

$3.50 per dozen // Contact us if interested: mail@lpfarm.org or (812) 606-8783

- barocky road ice cream

2010-03-28T23:38:00.001-04:00

In honor of the 44th President of the United States, Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream has introduced a new flavor: " Barocky Road ."

Barocky Road is a blend of half vanilla, half chocolate, and surrounded by nuts and flakes. The vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient. The nuts and flakes are all very bitter and hard to swallow.

The cost is $100.00 per scoop.

When purchased it will be presented to you in a large beautiful cone, but after you pay for it, the ice cream is taken away and given to the person in line behind you at no charge.

You are left with an empty wallet and no change, holding an empty cone with no hope of getting any ice cream.

Are you stimulated?

--thanks for sending this to me Jim --

- what else do I need to say?

2010-03-28T08:20:00.001-04:00

My wife sent me one of these, but I found them both at the Baltimore Sun and thought I'd share them. Another situation where I chuckle, then shake my head in sadness and dismay because they are both so true.

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Oh yeah, I know this is a bit degrading to sheep (sorry Larry), but we have become like a nation of sheep willing to follow the shepherd wherever he deems it best to take us; even if it is right off the edge of a cliff.

- a great man tried to warn us

2010-03-25T08:20:00.000-04:00

Just like so many others - he tried to warn us, but we have proven to be too stupid to heed their warnings. I said after the election, we deserve whatever evil/stupidity we get; we brought it upon ourselves. It is we who have allowed the brainwashing of our children in schools and the ever increasing dependency on the government. As the old Toyota slogan stated "You asked for it, You got it".

Reagan on Socialized Medicine from Douglas Phillips on Vimeo

- ducks

2010-03-25T00:45:00.002-04:00

Just when you thought we couldn't get any crazier, we go ahead and prove you wrong. A couple days ago I was on the way home from the airport and stopped at a “country store” for a few supplies; I decided to try something else new.

Yes they are very cute, but that had nothing to do with my decision to bring them home; I figured they would be fun to raise, but would taste good in few months. I had read that you could raise this particular breed (Pekin) alongside chickens, so I figured “why not give it a shot?” We’ll see how they work out; so far they are doing well and are providing some entertainment at the same time.

- enjoying the sun

2010-03-24T03:16:00.001-04:00

As you can see, we are not the only ones enjoying the warmer weather that has arrived. It is a fairly common sight to see Turkey Vultures perched around our property, but it is not often that they are this close to the house.

- twitter

2010-03-23T15:37:00.000-04:00

I finally gave in and jumped on the band wagon, one of them anyway. I created a Twitter account and am updating it regularly. As you will discover, I will "tweet" about each new blog post, but I will also send brief messages throughout the day simply telling what we are doing at Liberty Pastures.

I think it is great (especially for distant family members) who feel out of touch; if you want to know what we are doing all you need to do is create your own Twitter account and enter your e-mail or cell phone number; it is very simple. If you need help just give me a call and I will walk you through it.

- I am still holding out and refuse to join Facebook or Myspace :-)

- another tragedy

2010-03-23T11:28:00.000-04:00

I am sad to have to report that one of our kids has died. Liberty was the first kid that had survived birth on our farm, thus her name. For the past several weeks she has been completely healthy and strong. I checked on the animals this morning just after midnight and they were all fine, but when my children went down this morning they found Liberty dead. There are no apparent injuries and we are left wondering what went wrong; I am assuming that she was somehow smothered by her mother, but we will never know.

Raising goats in this manner (all natural/organic) is proving to be much more difficult than we could have possibly imagined. Our fatality rate so far is 52%; over the past year we have had 11 of our 21 goats die for various reasons. I am very disheartened and am seriously considering abandoning the idea of raising goats long term.

We are still grateful for God’s grace and we love the experiences we have had and continue to have, but I will miss the little one who was our first born at Liberty Pastures.

- national "gun care"

2010-03-23T08:32:00.001-04:00

My wife sent me a link to this post and I thought I'd share it with you. It would save more innocent lives than the new "health care plan" and would actually promote some constitutional rights rather than just trample them - the humor/sarcasm should be obvious. Just like Health Care, we are already covered... Are you?

My proposal is a modest one:

• Mandate for every American to purchase a gun or be provided one by their employer (children under the age of 26 can share a weapon with their parents)

• Tax credits to offset the cost of purchase (for those making less than $250,000 per year and everyone in Nebraska)

• For those that can't afford it, a grant or subsidy to purchase a weapon (union members can get two weapons subsidized before 2018)

• Funding for a series of community based gun dealers/clinics and firing ranges (especially in under-served urban and rural areas)

• Monthly ammunition benefit so that no one has to choose between feeding their kids, paying the rent, or buying a box of .38 special cartridges

Contact your representative today. The time to act is now.

Read the whole article at: the American Thinker - M Allen Fritsch

- free no more

2010-03-22T08:43:00.001-04:00

I have lost all faith in our government and the American people.

I simply do not understand how half of our nation can be in favor of this colossal mistake which is being called “reform”, but is nothing more than a giant step toward totalitarianism and ruin. How did we get to the point where we are being run by Statists and they are being supported by so many stupid (or ignorant) people?

This bill is not about health care – it is about government control over our lives. If it were about health, it would not include language involving the IRS, Student Loans, and different funding for different states. I know this “Health Care Bill” will become law; my only hope is that it will be struck down as being unconstitutional (because it is), but most of the people who will make those decisions place no value on the constitution anyway.

We were a great nation once… a beacon on a hill, but oh how the mighty fall. It started with FDR and the new deal; we took a giant leap towards socialism and all of those programs have been total failures. Since then we have been slowly sliding down-hill toward complete socialism; if this bill is allowed to become the law-of-the-land, it will catapult us toward complete totalitarianism and the ultimate destruction of our once great nation.

I will continue to fight, I will not go quietly, but I am saddened beyond description.

The United States of America is no longer the “land of the free”.

- buy buy American pie

2010-03-12T02:33:00.001-05:00

Another funny video that is sad, but true.

- custom wooden tote

2010-03-11T00:58:00.001-05:00

A while back I made a few very simple wooden totes to use around the farm, but I wanted something more exquisite. Since I can make functional, but not visually appealing, wood products I contacted my buddy (Jim) and told him of my idea. All it took was a simple sketch and a few e-mails and he was able to create a wonderful gift that I had sent to my brother for his birthday.

Jim, being the generous man he is, decided to surprise me with a custom tote as a gift for me. As you can see it is a work of art, yet at the same time it has proven to be durable and simply handy to have around. I initially intended to use it as a means of carrying miscellaneous hand tools around the property, but have opted to use it as the farm animal medical kit. I am sure he would love to make one for you; your imagination is the limit when it comes to having these types of custom creations made by Gathering Wood.

- funeral protestors

2010-03-10T06:39:00.001-05:00

Court to rule in military funeral protest case

By Mark Sherman - The Associated Press

Posted : Monday Mar 8, 2010 18:02:12 EST

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is entering an emotionally charged dispute between the grieving father of a Marine who died in Iraq and the anti-gay protesters who picket military funerals with inflammatory messages like “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

The court agreed Monday to consider whether the protesters’ message, no matter how provocative or upsetting, is protected by the First Amendment or limited by the competing privacy and religious rights of the mourners.

The justices will hear an appeal from a Marine’s father to reinstate a $5 million verdict against the protesters after they picketed outside his son’s funeral in Maryland four years ago. Members of a Kansas-based church have picketed military funerals to spread their belief that U.S. deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

I read this and simply thought - WHAT????!!!!!!

It is extremely upsetting for me to read about these types of things and know that this kind of stupidity is actually happening in America. Not only are these protesters some of the most evil, heartless, thoughtless, reckless people in our society, but they also perpetuate the image of all religious people being "wackos".

As to the protests themselves, if we cannot (or will not) protect the right of a family to bury their son in peace then we have truly lost ALL respect for those who protect and serve and we may as well call Castro or Kim Jung-il and give them the keys to the White House (if Barry hasn’t given it to them already).

- funny, but sad and true

2010-03-09T08:25:00.003-05:00

A dear friend sent me a link to another blog (Your Sacred Calling) where this video had been posted; I am sure it has been posted many places, but this was the first time I had seen it and I felt compelled to share it.

Victoria Jackson is a little annoying and should not be singing, but she is funny too. As my title states this video is funny, but extremely sad, frustrating, and true. Sometimes I feel like the only sane person who sees our nation being destroyed. Just for the record I was no huge fan of Bush either, but we are now on a fast track to becoming everything that our founding fathers were fighting against. Anyway, I can feel my blood-pressure rising so I must stop my rant for now.

- wasted hay

2010-03-07T23:44:00.000-05:00

We have always kept a manger full of hay inside the goat’s shelter as a supplement, but as winter approached and we ran out of pasture grass, hay became more of a staple. The goats waste a tremendous amount of hay; once it gets a little dirty they are done with it. As a result, we ended up with quite a lot of hay on the ground in the areas where the shelter had been. The grass should be growing again soon, but in the mean-time they are eating almost nothing but hay.

A few days ago I decided to try and make use of the “wasted” hay that had been left behind by the goats. I went around the fields, to the areas where the goat shelter had been stationed, and raked the hay into piles. I was not sure if my efforts would be worthwhile, but I discovered a wonderful mess of fermenting hay, goat urine, goat poop, and chicken poop.

You may be wondering how this mess could be so wonderful… Well, if you have a compost bin and do any gardening you should know how great this combination can be. As you can see below, I ended up with a lot of (already composting) waste hay and it wouldn’t all fit in our compost bin. The big consolidated pile should continue to compost and breakdown on its own; I will take away little bits as we need it.

- how much rock?

2010-03-06T16:16:00.001-05:00

So this week we had yet another first; we had a bunch of crushed rock delivered to our home for our driveway. Prior to living here our longest driveway was about 30 feet and all concrete. Our driveway is now about 800 feet long and is not paved.

When purchasing the home we knew there would be unexpected maintenance costs with the property, but I didn’t think about needing new rock every year for our driveway. Between the rain and snow the old crushed rock has almost completely been pushed down leaving a very muddy mess in spots. Before the Spring/Summer rains come, we decided to “bite the bullet” and have more rock dumped on the driveway. After several different quotes, I opted to just have one truck-load delivered and see how well it covered… To my dismay, I learned how relatively small 20 tons can be. Next month we’ll get another load or two. :-)

- what am I doing?

2010-03-05T12:47:00.002-05:00

I just had one of those moments where I asked myself "what am I doing?"

A little while ago, I brought home 20 more chicks; these are Cornish Cross birds that we will raise for meat. We also just had our second successful kid birth.

Our animal count is now: Cats - 3
Goats - 11
Chickens - 75

- country children having fun

2010-03-03T21:30:00.001-05:00

While I was hard at work, raking up hay, the children were having a blast by jumping into my collection.

As the sun was going down, they rode with me as we headed back to the house.

- little lady Liberty

2010-03-02T09:25:00.002-05:00

We have had several does deliver kids in the past month, but they have all either been still-born or died very shortly after delivery. None of those births had been witnessed, but we always found the dead kids in the morning.

Sunday night - as I do every night after the sun goes down - I went out to check on the animals and look for any potential predators; this night was a little different though. As I was walking near the barn I thought I heard something a little odd… it sounded a bit like a human baby.

When I looked in the barn I saw a new-born kid lying in the hay next to “Mama”. Mama was clearly not herself and I figured she had another kid to deliver. I notified my wife and children of the news, via radio, and they hurried to get dressed and come down to the barn. As they were approaching, Mama started to deliver her second kid and we all got to see as it came into the world. I cannot explain how excited we were to finally have living kids.

Ultimately, one of the kids did not survive through the night, but it has been 36 hours now and the doeling seems to be doing very well. As you can see, she has got to be one of the cutest little creatures I have ever seen. Since she is the first animal who has been born at Liberty Pastures, she was named “Liberty”.

We know she still has a long way to go and one goat doesn’t really do much for growing our flock, but she represents a victory over the odds and a much needed morale boost. Whatever the future holds for her, we praise God for the time we have with this beautiful little part of his creation.

If you want to come by and see “Liberty” or take a look at the rest of the goats and chickens, just let us know; we would love to have you visit.

- biological bias?

2010-03-02T08:41:00.003-05:00

I don't know what to say other than: Wow, have we really gone this far in our society? Are we really this morally corrupt? Like my last post, I cannot believe that this is even being discussed in a serious public forum.

'Biology-based' restrooms called 'discrimination'

'Schools therefore cannot segregate students based on sexual orientation'

"Schools cannot discriminate against sexual identity or gender identification. Schools therefore cannot segregate students based on sexual orientation and identity," commission legal counsel John Gause said at today's commission meeting, where he was unsuccessful in convincing the board to adopt immediately a set of recommendations.

The commission's vote was 4-1 to hold a public hearing on the adoption of guidelines that would allow biological males to play on girls' athletic teams and use girls' restrooms and locker rooms if they proclaim their gender identity is female.

Today's public meeting was held before a capacity crowd in the main meeting room of the Senator Hotel in Augusta, Maine. The crowd was divided evenly between opponents and supporters of the proposed guidelines for students who have gender identity issues.

Speaking in favor of the guidelines, Gause said they should be adopted because they are how the 2005 Human Rights Law should be interpreted.

"It's the commission's job to interpret the Human Rights Law, and in many cases the courts defer to the commission on the interpretation," he said.

- the bill of rights

2010-03-01T01:13:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that I simply don't understand why this is even an issue that has to be argued, but never the less it is a tremendously important case. The hearing will be about the 2nd amendment, but it has much larger implications. It will determine if all 50 states have to abide by the "Bill of Rights". Again, I cannot believe that this is being argued, but it may be good for us all; so many levels of government have trampled and ignored our founding documents - it many situations, it is as if they simply don't exist. Sad, but true... Our nation has progressed in several ways, but has degraded in many others. I will be hoping and praying for the proper outcome.

Supreme Court Guns Case Preview

February 28, 2010 - 5:33 PM | by: Lee Ross

The battle over the meaning of the Second Amendment returns to the Supreme Court Tuesday when the justices hear a case that is a follow-up to their historic ruling in 2008 that individuals have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. On Sunday, Fox's Shannon Bream spoke with a couple of key figures in the gun rights debate: lawyer Alan Gura and Dennis Henigan of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Gura argued and won D.C. v. Heller two years ago and will appear before the Court Tuesday.

Even though the Supreme Court ruled two years ago that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, that historic ruling overturning a Washington D.C. gun ban doesn't apply to the 50 states. On Tuesday, the justices will be asked to do just that. The legal term is called "incorporation" but all that means is extending the federal protections of the Bill of Rights--including the Second Amendment--to the states. The case challenges Chicago's restrictive gun law. Dozens of groups have added their voices to the case including the National Rifle Association and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence.

Gura represents Otis McDonald who is challenging the Chicago law. "Virtually the entire Bill of Rights has been applied against states and local governments. The Second Amendment is a normal part of the Bill of Rights. It protects a meaningful individual right which is very important to people in this country and throughout American history," Gura said.

Henigan says the case is Gura's to lose based on the premise that the same five judges who were part of the Heller majority will join together and carry the day in this case. But Henigan emphasizes another part of the Heller decision where he says "the Court implicitly recognized that there is still broad legislative authority to enact reasonable laws to reduce the risk from that right. And we hope the Court gives similar assurances in this case."     

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/28/supreme-court-guns-case-preview/

- egg mobile

2010-02-28T08:34:00.001-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I posted about another crazy project that I had began. Well, after a whole lot of work, it is finally finished. It actually still needs some tweaking; I am not very happy with the feeders I built inside, but it is in the field and working well. The enclosure is 13' long, 6' wide, & 5.5' tall in the middle (I couldn't make it any higher, because it had to fit out through my garage door.) I originally planned on have 3 roosting bars on each side, but realized I had room 4. As you can see I used 9 5-gallon buckets as nesting boxes in at the rear of the trailer. I wasn't sure how the chickens would like them, but in the beginning they jumped right in and have been depositing their eggs regularly. I figure my egg-mobile can comfortably fit 220 chickens, though I don't plan on putting any more than 50 right now; it will also house some turkeys and meat chickens.

- juvenile Red Tail

2010-02-15T01:23:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago, I killed an opossum that ventured too close to the house. Usually a carcass will not last more than a few days around here, but due to the cold weather and some snow it laid untouched for several weeks. Last week a full size, but juvenile, Red-Tailed Hawk decided to come down and check it out. Over a period of two days, the same raptor (I assume) spent more than 7 hours eating the carrion. only 30 feet from our window. At one point a mature Red-Tailed came, sat on the fence, and watched him for a while; it was like mom was checking on him. This is just another example of why we love living where we do; we have so many opportunities to watch God’s wonderful creation at work.

- a new project

2010-02-14T01:06:00.004-05:00

Anytime I start one of my crazy projects I always have pretty good blue-print in my head, but getting it to turn out correct is another story. A couple weeks ago I bought an old trailer and a few days ago I began another odd-ball project. I am not going to reveal what I am building, but it should be interesting to see how it develops.

- bantams

2010-02-13T08:38:00.001-05:00

Last week I was contacted by a lady who had commissioned me, in the past, to build her a chicken tractor. She informed me that she was moving and could not keep her chickens. When she asked if I would like to have the birds, I quickly accepted and picked them up a few days later.

In addition to the Barred Rock, Rhode Island Reds, and Black Star hens; we now have 3 beautiful (White Japanese Bantam?) hens who have settled in nicely. They will be our only white egg layers and, as you can see in the photo, their mature egg size is quite a bit smaller than the typical hen, but it is nice to have a little more variety on the farm. I'll include some photos of the birds in a future post.

- white-tailed visitors

2010-02-01T08:59:00.001-05:00

Deer are not exactly an unusual sight around our home, but they still cause us to stop and take notice when they get close to the house. When these two came within 50’ of the house we all simply stood and watched them as they ate a little grass and then moved on.

- the life cycle of our turkey

2010-01-27T21:05:00.004-05:00

Last summer we purchased 3 turkey poults; only two made it out of the brooder to the field, and only one made it to adulthood. While we enjoyed having her around, we never lost sight of her real purpose for being on the farm - food.

I had processed quite a few turkeys in the past, but I had never done it at our home... I knew our lack of proper processing equipment would make things a bit more challenging for us. I opted to skin her rather than scald and pluck; it went ok, but I hope I don't have to do it that way again. She turned out fine, but didn't look quite as nice and it took me much too long.

My wife opted to put her in the stock pot and let her simmer for about 6 hours. This method of cooking allows us to get EVERY scrap of meat off the bird and also makes great stock to be used in other meals.

I must admit that I miss her a little bit; it was always fun to see her come running (along side the goats) when I was moving them to new pasture. She followed us around sometimes, like a pet and was all-around entertaining, but she is in the freezer now and we are all looking forward to eating her.

It is hard to explain, but it is very gratifying to have raised an animal, taken care of it for its whole life, and then used it to provide for my family. Knowing exactly how it was cared for, what it was fed, and how it was processed. One of our goals for this year is to provide all of our own meat, which will be mostly chicken, with an occasional goat and turkey. I encourage you all to raise/grow your own food if possible; if not you should at least make an effort to find out how your food is being raised and processed - if you want you can come visit our farm and purchase some from us. :-)

After just arriving at Liberty Pastures

Running free in the field

Protecting the farm against a new "intruder"

Getting ready to "say goodbye"

Beginning to skin

Almost finished processing

The finished product in the stock pot

The 6 quarts of "stock" she produced for us

- way too much logic

2010-01-25T00:16:00.001-05:00

I just got this in an e-mail from my father and I thought I'd share it with you all. As I told him, it makes so much sense that even if it were to be formally introduced, it would NEVER get passed and ratified... It is nice to dream a little though. It would cross party lines and if it were added as an amendment, I think it would solve most of our nation's problems.

-- Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution --

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."

- game camera

2010-01-22T20:49:00.003-05:00

I broke down and purchased a cheap game camera. It is mounted in a water-tight case that mounts on a tree, has a motion activated camera that takes a burst of 3 photos or 9 seconds of video, has an infrared flash for darkness, and records moon phase and temperature. A few years ago this package would have cost a thousand dollars, technology is absolutely amazing!!!!

I bought it too late and missed dear season, but it is still interesting to see the activity throughout the day around our property. I got one fuzzy picture of what may be a coyote, I have seen a rabbit, and a whole lot of deer (no bucks yet). By the time dear season comes around next year, I should have their patterns down - in the mean time we will just enjoy seeing the activity of wildlife.

- my other career

2010-01-17T00:03:00.001-05:00

If you follow the blog or know anything about me you know that I a reservist in the Marine Corps. In addition to my required Marine Corps duties, I have taken to volunteering for many different opportunities, some of these take me around the country, but most of them involve military funeral details. I just thought I’d share a few pictures my life when I am not working in the fields.

- woodworking

2010-01-08T01:09:00.002-05:00

In my constant (and constantly unsuccessful) effort to get organized, I decided to make a little “tool box” to store my hoof trimming gear. It would also allow me to easily transport my stuff and not have to throw it into a 5 gallon bucket or milk crate on the back of the tractor.

I did not really have a plan (like most projects of mine), but I had a vision of what I wanted. I bought some sanded pine from Lowes and assembled a box that was 8” tall, 6” wide, and 14” long. I wanted to ensure that it was just large enough to hold my shears, file, knife, etc… The edges even got sanded/rounded to make splinters less likely. I also opted to make a little divider to hold my bottle of Iodine; that stuff makes a horrible mess if it spills.

Anyway, I was so happy with the way it turned out that I decided to make a few more. They are not as pretty or sturdy as my dear friend would make, but for my level of woodworking skill, they are perfect. I am sure that if you wanted a nice one with your family or farm name engraved on it, Jim could make you one; he can make just about anything. :-)

- indian winter

2010-01-07T01:40:00.002-05:00

I got this 3rd hand from a friend and loved it, so here you go...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's late fall, and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold, and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.   But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea . He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?'

'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,' the meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.   A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?'

'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'it's going to be a very cold winter.'

The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again. 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?'

'Absolutely,' the man replied.   'It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we've ever seen.'

'How can you be so sure?' the chief asked.

The weatherman replied, 'The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

{This is obviously a joke, but this is how they work sometimes, remember this whenever you get advice from a government official!}

- the ant and the grasshopper

2010-01-06T01:11:00.002-05:00

this was posted at the Rural Revolution, but I wanted to share it with you.

OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself.
_____________________________________________________________________

NEW VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.' ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight. Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Actretroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

- life and death

2010-01-05T09:10:00.001-05:00

In addition to our one indoor cat, we have two outdoor cats. We got Hank and Hunter to be "farm cats", to kill mice, moles, etc... The one thing we did not plan for was how the two mousers would affect our bird watching.

They do primarily catch mice and the like, but occasionally they will hunt at our bird feeders. We do our best to chase them away, but inevitably they do grab a bird once in a while. A couple days ago, I walked in to the garage and found an Oak Titmouse sitting on the floor. The two cats were only a few feet away keeping a close watch on their captor. The bird was not dead so I naturally scooped him up and chased the cats away. Despite any obvious wounds, I could tell that the bird was severely injured. He was alert, but sat calmly in my hands as I brought him into the house for the family to see.

I planned to shoot the bird and put it out of its misery, but after we all held it, I got a little attached and decided I couldn’t do it. I placed him in the brooder with our new chickens, hoping he would recover. It was not to be; I found him dead a few hours later. It was sad, but I think we were all grateful to hold and pet a beautiful little species that we have admired, but never been able to touch. Just another life and death experience at Liberty Pastures.

- green eggs

2010-01-04T18:51:00.004-05:00

In an effort to grow our farm we continue to buy chickens; our hope is to start selling eggs in the spring. We have always purchased breeds that are known to be prolific egg layers, but we recently decided to add a little variety instead. We purchased five, 14 week old Americanas (Araucanas) from another local farm. They don’t look much different from our one existing Black Star (Black Sex Link), but they should eventually look and lay very differently.

Their mature appearance is rather unusual for a chicken; their “cheek feathers” tend to sort of stick out and they have a longer beak causing them to look like a chicken with the head of a Hawk, or some other raptor that likes to eat chickens. In addition to their hawk-like head, they will lay smaller eggs that are blue/green in color. As with all animals at Liberty Pastures, they are in constant jeopardy and two died the first day we had them. We are not sure what happened, but my best guess would be that they accidentally got trampled by a goat. The three remaining birds are now in a brooder in our garage; I am not sure when they will go back outside, but for now they are safe and warm.

- snow

2010-01-03T01:38:00.002-05:00

It has snowed several times this fall/winter, but we finally had a snow storm in which it came down heavy and accumulated a little bit. It was a lot fun for the children to get outside and play in the snow. True to Indiana weather, it only stayed a few days, but it was nice while it lasted. We look forward to the next opportunity to go sledding.

- a deere in the snow

2010-01-02T08:11:00.001-05:00

I know she should be in a barn or a garage, but since that is not really an option for me, she gets to enjoy the snow. It amazes me how it fires right up no matter the weather. Good old fashioned American craftsmanship; true to their slogan "Nothing Runs Like a Deere". And I think she looks pretty too.

- new additions

2010-01-02T01:00:00.004-05:00

Last week I responded to an ad and purchased two more goats. These ones are different than our others; primarily because I bought them with the express intent of slaughtering them as soon as they hit the 1 year old mark. Despite knowing my plan, the children could not resist naming them; they came up with Bud and Temple, I refer to them as Dinner 1 and Dinner 2.

The white one is about 7 months old so he should be ready for me to butcher in the spring, the smaller one is only 4 months old so he has a way to go. It is a little sad, but amusing to watch them try to fit into the existing order of goats. As soon as they were placed in the paddock, the head butting began. It is their way of determining where they will rank in the “pecking order”. It was also very interesting to watch our turkey (yes, she is still alive) respond to the new-comers. She puffed up like a Tom and actually chased the new goats around the paddock. For days, she would run up to the new goats and “challenge” them with all sorts of interesting clucks and trills. She seems to have accepted them finally, but even today she was challenging them again.

The little goats were treated cruelly, by the older goats, for the first couple days, but every day they accept them a little more. As for Bud and Temple, I mean Dinner 1 & 2, I hope they enjoy their lives here at Liberty Pastures; at least until it is time for them to fulfill their purpose. :-)

- a new visitor

2010-01-01T11:30:00.003-05:00

I guess I need to start by saying Happy New Year. It amazes it me that it is now 2010; seems like we just passed the big 2000.

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple photos I just took. It is a beautifully clear morning with no wind and a brisk temp of 15 degrees. I happened to look out of our back window toward our creeks and saw a Great Blue Heron sitting adjacent to (what we call) Phillips Creek. The photos are not the best, but hopefully you get a good idea of what this magnificent bird looks like. We have seen them flying low along the water of the larger creek that acts as one of our property boundaries, but this is the first time we have seen one "on" our property. The first 3 pictures are from about 10 minutes ago, the bottom one is a stock photo in case you don’t know what they look like up close.

Great Blue Heron: The largest North American Heron, with a head-to-tail length of 36-55 in, a wingspan of 66-79 in, and a weight of 4.4-8 lbs, it is blue-gray overall, with black flight feathers, red-brown thighs, and a paired red-brown and black stripe up the flanks; the neck is rusty-gray, with black and white streaking down the front; the head is paler, with a nearly white face, and a pair of black plumes running from just above the eye to the back of the head. The feathers on the lower neck are long and plume-like; it also has plumes on the lower back at the start of the breeding season. The bill is dull yellowish, becoming orange briefly at the start of the breeding season, and the lower legs gray, also becoming orangey at the start of the breeding season. Immature birds are duller in color, with a dull blackish-gray crown, and the flank pattern only weakly defined; they have no plumes, and the bill is dull gray-yellow. (from Wikipedia)

- goat stand

2009-12-26T22:16:00.002-05:00

Recently I completed a project, one which I should have done many months ago. A goat stand is used for securing them so you can milk them or (in my case) work on their hooves, ear tags, etc…

I initially thought about buying one, but did not like the styles of the metal stands and after looking at the wooden ones, decided that I could build one.  I started by searching for goat stand images on the internet and simply used them for references.  I was able to look at many different designs and determine which features I wanted.

I opted to build the frame out of 2x4s, but used 1x8s for the floor and the neck locking boards.  My first set of neck locking boards proved to be inadequate for two reasons: I made the hole to big and the smaller goats were able to simply slip their heads through and escape.  I also made the sides too thin and our buck (Jimmy) was able to break them.  I re-fabricated the locking boards and they seem to be much more secure/sturdy now.

Aside from my children playing with it, today was the first time that I really put the stand to use.  I banded (form of castration) our new buckling while he was on the stand and it went fairly well.  Every goat (except Jimmy) had their turn on the stand for a quick exam and some hoof trimming; the turkey and chickens even seemed to enjoy “playing” on the new goat stand.

I am still not real happy with the locking mechanism I have (for locking the two neck boards together), but overall I am pleased with the way it turned out.

- Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T17:51:00.002-05:00

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

I also want to remind you of my Brothers who are away from their families right now. They may not have seen them for months and they may still have months to go before they are reunited. They are in the midst of battles that are very "unpopular", but they fight on none the less. They do not necessarily fight for their country; they certainly don't fight for their Commander in Chief. They fight because they are willing to risk their lives to defeat evil men and protect one another.

It seems that everybody "supports the troops" even though most are not willing to act on it. If you do not support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I would simply ask that you think of the men fighting for your right to disagree and at least acknowledge that they are the most selfless people in our society. If you do support the wars, please do not be afraid to express it. Either way, please support the men fighting and those who are willing to risk their lives for you. Please show it every time you meet somebody serving or a Veteran who has previously served.

I have included a short video of Oliver North (LtCol, USMC, Ret) speaking at an NRA dinner. Please take a moment to listen to what he has to say about those serving. His words about our military should transcend your political or ideological beliefs. I have also included a BLOG post written by Ben Stein about a recent trip to visit some Marines at a former home of mine, Camp Pendleton, California.

A Pre-Christmas Visit to Camp Pendleton

By Ben Stein on 12.14.09 @ 6:09AM

Thursday

Thursday, a dreary, cold day in Southern California . My pal Lisa Agustsson and I drove down the 405 Freeway to the 5, immense ten lane highways most of the way, to camp Pendleton, the major Marine Corps base on the West Coast. I had been invited to appear and meet and greet marines attached to a rocket artillery battalion about to deploy to Afghanistan.

We went through the guard gate, were met by a man in a huge truck, and escorted many miles inside the base to a large hangar like structure gaily hung with balloons and a cheery Santa Claus and many young men with mostly short hair, including some who were having a rock climbing competition as we pulled up.

The men were muscular and fit looking with no exceptions–lean, intense, alert. Most were in civilian clothes, even T shirts with rock group characters on them. There were pretty young wives, many with small children, many pregnant. I was greeted by several women from the huge Saddleback Church . They were the organizers of the event and they had invited my appearance. They could not have been more enthusiastic.

Glad hander that I am, I started immediately greeting as many men and women as wanted to greet me, which was pretty much all of them. I posed for pictures with them, asked them where they were from, told them of various connections I have or my wife has with their part of the world.

They were from small towns in Missouri, small towns in Wisconsin, small towns in Colorado, small towns in New Mexico, in Mississippi . There were also many from East L.A., happy to get away from the gangs, many from parts of New York City, even one young officer from Spring Valley, an extremely upscale part of Washington, DC. (“The Marine Corps attracts all kinds of people,” he said happily.)

They had the kinds of faces you used to see in Jimmy Stewart movies, all American faces, white, brown, black, Asian, but all smiling, all eager to do something for their country. They did not have the kind of conniving, weasel like faces I usually see around me in Beverly Hills . They looked like straight shooters, in a word. I guess they are, since every Marine is a rifleman.

I asked each of them if he would be deploying for Afghanistan soon. With only one or two exceptions, they all said they would, and usually said it as in, “I hope so, sir.” They said it like they meant it.

Several of them explained to me the rockets they would be firing. These were little devils that could go about fifty miles and hit a target within ten feet with a large explosive charge. They use satellites and drones and computers and I am glad it’s our side that has them and not the Taliban.

After about an hour, I went inside the hangar or whatever it was. Hundreds more Marines and their wives or girlfriends greeted me and told me how eager they were to be deployed–although the wives looked a bit less eager than the husbands. ( Later that night Lisa told me that a wife told her she could not sleep at night worrying about her husband.)

I gave a short little speech about how they were where the rubber meets the road in saving freedom and dignity. It may be agony for Mr Obama to decide what to do in Afghanistan, but it is these men and their families whose lives are on the line. I told them that we back at home sitting in chairs with our fat asses could not survive without them and that we thanked them, asked God’s blessing for them, prayed for them.

I talked to still more people, ate some turkey that a local church had prepared for this large group, and then, thoroughly chilled, went off into the night back to Los Angeles.

We had a driver so I slept most of the way back. But when I awakened near Long Beach, I saw immense waves of cars and their lights rushing towards me like a scene in a movie of a space ship rocketing towards a cluster of stars. There were thousands of cars, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. And in the rest of the nation, hundreds of millions more.

A whole nation. Three hundred million plus souls. All rushing around making a living, taking their kids to soccer games, buying groceries, getting and spending.

And in this little corner of Camp Pendleton were the men and women who make it all possible, about to go fight in a horrible place called Afghanistan . Not one of the men or women I spoke to tonight ever mentioned the stock market or real estate or the dollar or commodities or a stimulus package. Not one of them complained to me about anything. It was probably the longest time I have ever been in a crowd where not one person mentioned money. Maybe it’s because they know that what they do is beyond price. Back to sleep and then I awakened as we got close to home.

I passed many Christmas decorations as we got off the 405 and headed east on Santa Monica Boulevard . The thought came to my old head that I had just seen the best Christmas group I have ever seen: men and women who so love their fellow man that they are cheerfully and eagerly going off to risk their lives to save total strangers. These really are the peacemakers. These really are the blessed of the earth, the gifts from God. If we have any decency at all, these men and their families take our gratitude and our prayers with them with every step they take. Merry Christmas, Camp Pendleton, and all who serve to save.

- a gift of debt

2009-12-24T10:18:00.005-05:00

On this Eve of Christmas, I thought I would take a moment to point out the gift of debt that our federal government has blessed us with (I hope you sense my sarcasm). More importantly they have saddled my children, my unborn grandchildren, and great-grandchildren with debt that will probably never be paid back.

As if it were not bad enough, congress recently voted to increase our Debt Ceiling to $12.4 trillion. Most of us are disgusted by hearing that, but we have no real concept of how much money it really is. To give you a better idea what 12 trillion dollars is:

$12,400,000,000,000 that is what it looks like... It has way too many zeroes.

We are paying more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS in interest every day.

A $1 bill is approximately 6.125 inches long.... So if you laid $12.4 trillion on the ground, end to end it would stretch more than 1 billion miles long (1,198,705,808) or more than 48 thousand times around the earth or to the sun and back more than 6 times.

I also read this morning that California is $21 billion in debt and that "there are no easy solutions left". I have an easy solution; STOP SPENDING MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE!!!!! I know it is a wild idea, but one that most families and business owners understand. Maybe we need to elect businessmen and family men rather than actors and lawyers. As a nation (regardless of political party) we continue to elect the most unintelligent people on earth and I simply don't understand why. I wonder what it is going to take for us to wake up and realize that we need to do something very different. We need to elect "average guys" to run things. As long as we continue to elect the same fools, we will continue to run down the path of ruin.

- conservative, but socialist?

2009-12-23T09:19:00.005-05:00

How can the above title be true? How can a conservative be a socialist? I am not sure, I don't think you can be both so what do you call a self proclaimed conservative politician who takes hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies from the federal government?

Hypocrite is the first thing that comes to my mind. The second is that you cannot be a true conservative if you regularly take money from a social program, especially when you are making as much money as the average politician. One cannot make a career of fighting against government programs, but take money from one.

Despite my agreeing with many of Michelle Bachmann's views, I cannot support any person in office who lives with such a dual personality. Don't get me wrong, I am willing to send my tax money to help people who need it, but that is not the case for most large scale farmers and I doubt that Bachmann's family would be hurting without my tax money. In fact, any government employee who makes $174,000 per year (yes, that is what all of your "public servants" in congress make) should not get a dime from any other government program. I say this as my small farm continues to suck money from my family's savings. I will never accept handouts from the government, I never have. If our farm gets to the point where we cannot make money or sustain it on our own, we will change how we are farming or do something different all-together.

This article really highlights the problem with all of our politicians: Liberal and Conservative, Republican and Democrat. This article only points out the Republicans who are getting undeserved money, but I know that it is the norm in both parties. Politicians have turned into a permanent ruling class who literally think they are better than all of us "common folk". They believe they are entitled to all of their perks, pay, and benefits. While the average people argue about differences in political beliefs, the politicians continue to all act the same and trample on us. Our government has become what the founders fled and our "rulers" are not public servants; they exist for only one real purpose... to serve themselves.

-1,2,3,4, I love the Marine Corps

2009-12-21T13:17:00.003-05:00

This video is so motivating, it makes me want to join all over again!!! OOHRAHHH!!!!

- happy chickens?

2009-12-21T12:24:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that I don't know exactly what a "happy" bird looks like, but I am fairly confident that our birds are happy with their environment. While they may not be totally free range (more about that later) they have between 1000 and 6000 square feet of fresh pasture to roam every day. Along side our goats and turkey, the chickens are free to eat as much grass and as many insects as they like. I must say it is also somewhat entertaining to see they flock of birds come running when they know they are getting moved to new grass.

I know there is no scientific data (even if there was, I probably wouldn't trust it) to prove that happy birds produce better eggs, but I am convinced that happy chickens are more healthy and make healthier eggs. It is a win-win situation, they get to live more naturally and we get better food.

- managed intensive grazing

2009-12-14T18:08:00.003-05:00

We have been utilizing a rotational grazing method for about 6 months, but only recently did I “wake up” and decide to use an intensive grazing approach.

In the past the goats/chickens/turkeys had access to a section of pasture along with their shelter and I would move the whole paddock every day. This was a lot of work for my children and me, but I felt it was necessary to give them a large grass area and move their shelter daily. Aside from the hassle of moving the shelter every day, I was frustrated by the fact that they never seemed to eat the grass down very well. I was constantly faced with the dilemma of cutting the remaining grass (to stimulate growth) or to let it go.

About a month ago, it dawned on me that I needed to force the animals to eat more intensively. I achieved this by creating a much larger paddock and only moving the shelter every 3 days. I then use fencing to create a much smaller section within the larger paddock. Rather than moving the entire shelter/paddock set-up each day, I simply move the fence barrier in the larger paddock every 18 hours or so.

The smaller sections force the animals to eat all the greenery, not just the plants they like. Liken it to forcing your children to eating their broccoli with their dinner, not just their meat and potatoes. Not only is this newer system making better use of our land, but the animals all seem to be healthier too. I also find it interesting how the birds seem to be more "in-sync" with the goats. When I walk out to the paddock, they all start to go crazy; they know they are getting fresh pasture. When I move the fence, the birds come running along with the goats.

I took this picture just after moving the interior fence and giving them new grass. If you look at the photo, you can see the line in the grass to the right of the animals where the fence had been and they had eaten most of the greenery. You can also see the section to the left where they will be eating in the morning.

I guess if I were to be an intensive grazing purist, I would be moving their shelter every time I gave them new pasture, so that they were never on the same grass for more than a day. This seems to be a good balance for us right now, they eat fresh grass every 18 hours, but we don’t have to hook up the shelter to the tractor and drag it around every day.

- real men

2009-12-10T12:25:00.005-05:00

I couldn't have said it any better...

I guess the ad is working, it makes me want to go buy some Dockers.

- more "green" hypocrisy

2009-12-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

{If this doesn't say it all and convince you of the Global Warming scam and its hypocrisy then nothing will; you have bought it Hook, Line, & Sinker}

Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes...

On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world", which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200.

"We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report."

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfill the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish."
The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.

As well 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, the Danish capital will be blessed by the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah, Helena Christensen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles. A Republican US senator, Jim Inhofe, is jetting in at the head of an anti-climate-change "Truth Squad." The top hotels – all fully booked at £650 a night – are readying their Climate Convention menus of (no doubt sustainable) scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges.

At the takeaway pizza end of the spectrum, Copenhagen's clean pavements are starting to fill with slightly less well-scrubbed protesters from all over Europe. In the city's famous anarchist commune of Christiania this morning, among the hash dealers and heavily-graffitied walls, they started their two-week "Climate Bottom Meeting," complete with a "storytelling yurt" and a "funeral of the day" for various corrupt, "heatist" concepts such as "economic growth".

The Danish government is cunningly spending a million kroner (£120,000) to give the protesters Klima Forum, a "parallel conference" in the magnificent DGI-byen sports centre. The hope, officials admit, is that they will work off their youthful energies on the climbing wall, state-of-the-art swimming pools and bowling alley, Just in case, however, Denmark has taken delivery of its first-ever water-cannon – one of the newspapers is running a competition to suggest names for it – plus sweeping new police powers. The authorities have been proudly showing us their new temporary prison, 360 cages in a disused brewery, housing 4,000 detainees.

And this being Scandinavia, even the prostitutes are doing their bit for the planet. Outraged by a council postcard urging delegates to "be sustainable, don't buy sex," the local sex workers' union – they have unions here – has announced that all its 1,400 members will give free intercourse to anyone with a climate conference delegate's pass. The term "carbon dating" just took on an entirely new meaning.

At least the sex will be C02-neutral. According to the organizers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants' travel, will create a total of 41,000 tons of "carbon dioxide equivalent", equal to the amount produced over the same period by a city the size of Middlesbrough.

The temptation, then, is to dismiss the whole thing as a ridiculous circus. Many of the participants do not really need to be here. And far from "saving the world," the world's leaders have already agreed that this conference will not produce any kind of binding deal, merely an interim statement of intent.

Instead of swift and modest reductions in carbon – say, two per cent a year, starting next year – for which they could possibly be held accountable, the politicians will bandy around grandiose targets of 80-per-cent-plus by 2050, by which time few of the leaders at Copenhagen will even be alive, let alone still in office.
Even if they had agreed anything binding, past experience suggests that the participants would not, in fact, feel bound by it. Most countries – Britain excepted – are on course to break the modest pledges they made at the last major climate summit, in Kyoto.

And as the delegates meet, they do so under a shadow. For the first time, not just the methods but the entire purpose of the climate change agenda is being questioned. Leaked emails showing key scientists conspiring to fix data that undermined their case have boosted the sceptic lobby. Australia has voted down climate change laws. Last week's unusually strident attack by the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, on climate change "saboteurs" reflected real fear in government that momentum is slipping away from the cause.

In Copenhagen there was a humbler note among some delegates. "If we fail, one reason could be our overconfidence," said Simron Jit Singh, of the Institute of Social Ecology. "Because we are here, talking in a group of people who probably agree with each other, we can be blinded to the challenges of the other side. We feel that we are the good guys, the selfless saviors, and they are the bad guys."

As Mr Singh suggests, the interesting question is perhaps not whether the climate changers have got the science right – they probably have – but whether they have got the pitch right. Some campaigners' apocalyptic predictions and religious righteousness – funeral ceremonies for economic growth and the like – can be alienating, and may help explain why the wider public does not seem to share the urgency felt by those in Copenhagen this week.

In a rather perceptive recent comment, Mr. Miliband said it was vital to give people a positive vision of a low-carbon future. "If Martin Luther King had come along and said 'I have a nightmare,' people would not have followed him," he said.

Over the next two weeks, that positive vision may come not from the overheated rhetoric in the conference centre, but from Copenhagen itself. Limos apart, it is a city filled entirely with bicycles, stuffed with retrofitted, energy-efficient old buildings, and seems to embody the civilized pleasures of low-carbon living without any of the puritanism so beloved of British greens.

And inside the hall, not everything is looking bad. Even the sudden rush for limos may be a good sign. It means that more top people are coming, which means they scent something could be going right here.

The US, which rejected Kyoto, is on board now, albeit too tentatively for most delegates. President Obama's decision to stay later in Copenhagen may signal some sort of agreement between America and China: a necessity for any real global action, and something that could be presented as a "victory" for the talks.

The hot air this week will be massive, the whole proceedings eminently mockable, but it would be far too early to write off this conference as a failure.
from: Telegraph.co.uk

- flying pig?

2009-12-05T14:53:00.002-05:00

We don't own any pigs, but I can only imagine looking outside and seeing my goats doing something odd like this. This is just too funny.

-------This little piggy is more than happy to show the world two clean pairs of heels. At six weeks old, Scarlett the rare-breed porker has already mastered the art of trampolining. Owners Gwen and Steve Howell say the woolly Hungarian mangalitza enjoys the experience so much that their daughters Tara, 14, and Alex, eight, now have to wait their turn to play. Mr and Mrs Howell, both estate agents, have seven pet pigs on their farm in Shrewsbury. Scarlett's father Percy was the first to try the trampoline but is now so fat that he would probably break it.

The Howells told how they had been trying to replace Scarlet's father Percy as the family's resident bouncing pig, after the prize boar became too fat. The six-week-old piglet has since attracted hordes of visitors to the family home in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and the Howells are now planning on entering her, along with several other of their rare-breed pigs, into Britain's Got Talent.

Mrs Howell, 46, explained how they came across their pets' unlikely skill by chance. “We decided we would try and put our boar, Percy on the trampoline one day and he absolutely loved it. He is very tame and quite trainable. He was on there and just went for it and started jumping up and down, we couldn't believe it. It was hard to get him off. The only problem is Percy has piled on the pounds and is way to porky to put on the trampoline nowadays, so we tried to put Scarlet on there.”

“Whenever you pick a pig up they squeal really loudly. We picked her up and of course she screamed, but as soon as she was placed on the trampoline she stopped. She started sniffing around and started to walk on it then we put some food on there and she started feeling her feet. She has only been doing it for three days, for 45 minutes a time, but she loves it. The pigs seem to love the trampoline even more than our two daughters”
full article

- what has been in your chicken?

2009-12-04T16:22:00.003-05:00

Obviously the story below is not typical, nor is it something most of us have to worry about it, but I couldn't help but laugh. Not only did I find the story itself amusing; I also chuckled because none of us would ever eat this chicken. Most of you however, are perfectly willing to eat chicken (and other meat) that has been pumped full of Hormones, Anti-Biotics, and fed Pesticide laden food. I wonder if cocaine was made legal and the meat industry determined they could use it for productivity, if people would be ok with it being used to manufacture meat...

I know I am really making a stretch, but I hope you get my point.

---------------------------

STERLING, Va. - A close inspection by Customs and Border Protection officers at Dulles International Airport turned up something unexpected. Inside a fully-cooked chicken they found cocaine with an estimated street value of $4,300. The 60.4 grams (2.3 ounces) of coke was found inside two small, clear plastic bags inside the chicken's cavity.

Officers discovered the white powdery substance during a secondary inspection after a flight from El Salvador arrived shortly after midnight Saturday. It tested positive for cocaine. "CBP officers have seen many unique narcotics concealment methods, and they all present the same challenges to discover them. Our officers' inspection was very thorough and earned solid results," said Christopher Hess, Customs and Border Protection director for the Port of Washington.

The drugs and traveler, Wagner Mauricio Linares Aragon, 32, of Guatemala, were turned over to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police. Customs also issued a detainer for Linares Aragon.
(Copyright 2009 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

- processing turkey

2009-12-02T00:03:00.005-05:00

Last week my son and I went to our friend's home (Maple Valley Farm) to help them process the last of their turkeys. We were glad to help, but it was also an excellent learning opportunity for us.

The process began with inserting the turkey into the killing cone and slitting an artery in their throat. After the bird was dead, it was dunked in the scalder to make the feather plucking easier. After a few dunks in the hot water and getting plucked clean, it was time to do some more dirty work. I did the majority of the gutting and cleaning, but Justin insisted that he have a turn as well. It was amazing for me to see my [then] 9 year old son so eager to help in any way possible, even if it meant sticking his hand in a still warm turkey and pulling out its intestines. It was an excellent bonding time for father and son.

"green" hypocrisy

2009-11-30T19:19:00.003-05:00

...The supposedly green Barack Obama had a St Louis chef flown 850 miles just to make pizza at the White House...

Hypocrisy is the vice we find hardest to forgive, but it’s also the one we most enjoy discovering in others. And nothing piques our interest more than eco-hypocrisy as practiced by the “green” celebrities who have been spouting green virtue but spewing out hundreds of tons of carbon from their private jets or multiple holiday homes around the globe.

There was Sheryl Crow, who had called upon the public to refrain from using more than one square of toilet paper per visit (“except on those pesky occasions when two or three are required”) and who was leading a Stop Global Warming concert tour across America. It was revealed that while Crow traveled in a bio-diesel tour bus, her 30-person entourage followed in a fleet of 13 gas-guzzling vehicles.

John Travolta notoriously encouraged the British public to do its bit to fight global warming — after flying into London on one of his five, yes, five private jets (one of which is a Boeing 707). In 2006 his piloting hobby produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions, more than a hundred times the output of the average Briton, according to the Carbon Trust.

It is less well known that Tom Cruise — who has campaigned for the LA-based environmental group Earth Communications Office — also has an air fleet and a license to pilot his five planes, including a top-of-the-line customized Gulfstream jet he bought for his wife, Katie Holmes.

Harrison Ford, who is vice-chairman on the board of Conservation International, voices public-service messages for an environmental federation called EarthShare, and once shaved his chest hair to illustrate the effects of deforestation, is another hobby pilot. He once owned a Gulfstream but now makes do with a smaller Cessna Citation Sovereign eight-seater jet, four propeller planes and a helicopter.

Oprah Winfrey, who preaches eco-virtue from her TV pulpit, traveled in a 13-seat Gulfstream IV private jet for years — the preferred model for celebrities and the super-rich. (She has replaced it with a faster Bombardier Global Express.) The public first became aware of her private-jet habit when her plane had to make a forced landing in California in 2005; it was reminded of it this year after one of her stewardesses was fired for allegedly having sex with the pilot while Oprah and other passengers were asleep.

Jennifer Aniston told reporters that to save the Earth’s precious water resources she brushes her teeth while in the shower. But she also flew a hairdresser to Europe to accompany her on a recent publicity tour for the film Marley & Me.

There are endless other examples of hypocrisy by green politicos. David Cameron was once photographed virtuously riding his bike to the House of Commons, with his official car behind him, carrying his suit and briefcase. Ken Livingstone, who swore he would make London the world’s greenest city when he was mayor, made scores of arguably unnecessary flights to foreign destinations.

At the end of the film An Inconvenient Truth, the unbearably earnest former presidential candidate Al Gore asked his audience: “Are you ready to change the way you live?” His own huge Nashville mansion consumed over 20 times the electricity of an average American home. Indeed, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, it burnt twice as much power in the month of August 2006 than most American homes do in an entire year. Another inconvenient truth revealed that the former senator spent $500 a month just to heat the indoor swimming pool in his lavish domestic establishment. The 100ft houseboat he bought in 2008, on the other hand, was said to be powered by bio-diesel. Gore gave the usual response of the green celebrity caught not practicing what they preach. He said he made up for his consumption of electricity and production of carbon dioxide by buying carbon offsets — some from his own offset company.

The Copenhagen summit next week will generate vast quantities of hot air. It will see 16,500 people coming in from 192 countries. That amounts to 41,000 tons of carbon dioxide, roughly the same as the carbon emissions of Morocco in 2006. Also, the organizers will lay 900 kilometers of computer cable and 50,000 square miles of carpet. More than 200,000 meals will be served and visitors will drink 200,000 cups of coffee — at least that will be organic...

There is something annoying about the way “ordinary” people are being told they must give up their “addiction” to cheap travel, when no leading Hollywood star — not even Leonardo DiCaprio, who often flies commercial — can bring themselves to relinquish the private jet.

[me... While I completely disagree with the idea of man-made global warming, I can at least respect the people who are truly living their lives according to their publicly expressed beliefs. It seems however, that all of the people who get the public's attention are full of torro cacca and are the worst hypocrites in our society. As I have stated before, I believe in the Lord our God and that He created the earth and its creatures for us to use. That being said, I also believe that we need to be more responsible and respectful of the creation that God has given us. True conservatives and true liberals have more in common than most people think.]

taken from: Taking the private jet to Copenhagen (timesUKonline) see full article here

not supposed to be funny, but...

2009-11-26T11:57:00.009-05:00

I had to laugh when I watched this video. It made the news because NBC refused to allow it to air. I am sure that my response is not what PETA was hoping for, but I could not help it. Even if you think that PETA is nutty, you need to understand that if you bought a turkey from a store, it was most likely raised/treated just as this advertisement describes. What I don't understand is how their only answer to avoiding factory raised turkeys is to not eat turkey at all... like there is no other alternative.

I have a novel idea; how about turkeys that are raised naturally, allowed to forage on pasture, are not pumped full of hormones or anti-biotics, and are slaughtered in a clean, humane manner. Oh wait; we are already doing that at Liberty Pastures.

I also find it interesting that I am agreeing with PETA on anything, but we have very different foundations for our reasoning. They think that animals are as valuable (or more so) than humans, whereas we think that animals were created by God for our use, but that we still have a duty to treat them respectfully. We also believe that Happy Animals make better food. :-)

a beautiful view

2009-11-23T00:06:00.003-05:00

A beautiful sunrise, the view from our front porch at Liberty Pastures.

this says it all

2009-11-20T08:27:00.001-05:00

My wife sent this to me and I had to laugh. In all seriousness, it is a sad, but true statement of what our country has become. Guys like me do not have the liberty to act and think as our Founding Fathers intended while our enemies basically have the liberty to shoot us, blow us up, and then have excuses made for their actions.

http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=e8547cf5de95497f8221e8cffc056202&w=550.0

moooving cattle

2009-11-17T21:20:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I got a call from my buddy at Maple Valley Farm; Larry asked me to come over and help him "sort" his new cattle. I have been around cattle, but have never worked with them or really done anything other than look at them. Despite my lack of experience, I figured that if he was asking for my help then he probably really needed help and I would see what I could do.

I have to admit that I was sort of hoping he would call me and tell me it was off due to the rain, but that didn't happen and I arrived ready for work this morning at 0900. I am glad that it did not get postponed and that he allowed me to assist him in the adventure because I learned quite a lot (this is not the first time I have gained experience with something new by helping Larry and I doubt it will be the last) and I always enjoy spending time with my friend.

The task was seemingly simple; to sort the two young male calves from the herd of larger females. The task was further complicated by Larry's desire to avoid stressing the cattle; a philosophy with which I agree, but makes working with animals a bit more difficult and stressful for us. It was not easy, but we got the two little guys separated and into their own paddock. Next came the real hard part; we needed to get the herd of ladies out of their new paddock, down the hill and to the back of the property where the sheep were (about a ½ mile away). This too was not easy, but we eventually got them where Larry wanted them.

All-in-all, I would have to say that I enjoyed it a bit and learned that while there are some similarities when herding different animals there are some BIG differences too. Who knows maybe we will end up with some cattle of our own in the future.

one less goat on the farm

2009-11-07T07:59:00.001-05:00

For several months now, Loppy has not been "right". The children named her Loppy due to her being lopsided; one of her ears was longer than the other. She was not a particularly friendly goat, nor did she look real good, but never-the-less she was a part of our family and she had a special place in our hearts mainly due to our sympathy for her. Despite her seemingly normal goat activities, she had scours (goat diarrhea) for over a month. We initially tried all types of natural supplements to nurse her back to health, but finally gave up after spending a bunch of money with no effect. After one of my recent trips I came home to find Loppy pooping normal for a change; I thanked the Lord and assumed she was finally getting healthy, but she never seemed to gain weight and always just looked sickly.

She ate and drank just as much as the other goats, she moved around just fine, but she obviously still had some problems. Just before I left again on Wednesday the children and I moved the goats to fresh pasture, as we began the process, we saw that Loppy was lying down. That in itself would not be a problem, but I noticed the dominant doe, Blanchet (and yes every goat has a name), head butting her. The goats hit each other fairly regularly, but Loppy was on her side and Blanchet seemed to be trying to make her roll over. As we prepared the new paddocks for the goats, I continued to monitor Loppy who laid on her side for almost an hour; I noticed her trying to get up at times and other times she just laid there with her eyes closed. I knew this was a very bad sign and I knew what I had to do.

We moved the goats to their new field and took down the old fencing, all the while Loppy laid on her side with her legs sort of sticking up in the air. I have no problem killing things, but I hate to see animals suffer and I told my children what I had to do. They both knew what I was going to say before I said it, but my daughter took the news real hard and cried quite a lot. I asked them if they wanted to go inside while I killed Loppy; my son was sad, but opted to continue working while my daughter headed for the house. Just as we finished this conversation we saw Loppy up and walking around like nothing ever happened. There was a ray of hope at the apparent reprieve of execution, but I knew it was only a matter of time and I felt I needed to continue with my original plan.

One thing we decided, from day one, was that our animals would be raised on all natural foods, without any anti-biotics, growth hormones, de-wormers, etc... We knew this would make raising the animals more difficult, but it just was not an option for us. We also had to accept the fact that we may have a higher mortality rate with our animals than other farmers might have, but I never really thought about me having to kill them. I guess I figured they would get sick and quickly die on their own. Our first goat death (due to illness) occurred about two months ago while I was away for 4 weeks. Fern (not sure where she got that name) got sick soon after I left and struggled for a couple weeks. Eventually my wife and children found her dead and had to deal with the carcass; I felt bad at the time knowing that Fern was dying and not being home to put her out of her misery. We have come a long way, but I cannot expect my wife to put a gun to a goat’s head nor am I willing to spend $100+ for a veterinarian to euthanize a $50 goat.

Anyway, as I previously stated, I knew that Loppy needed to be put down; my thoughts were confirmed when she was again unable to stand up later. I got the leash, loaded her onto the rear platform on my tractor, and hauled her down to the lower pasture near the creek where my wife had dumped Fern after she died. This area is far enough away from the house and our animals that I have no concerns about the Coyotes, Vultures and other scavengers that would be coming back around. I felt like an executioner leading her to the execution room, only she had no idea what was going on.

After I shot her, I sat there and watched life leave her body. I didn't cry or feel that type of loss, but I didn't feel real good either. I had hard time as I drove back up toward the house and met with my daughter, who came to me and hugged me as she cried. I cannot imagine what she felt and thought as she heard the gun shots. I confirmed with her that she understood why I had done it and that she was not angry with me. She was sad for a while, but a few hours later she was laughing and running around like nothing had happened.

As I type this I wonder if I will ever be able to kill an animal like that without feeling some remorse... I hope not. I have hunted turkeys, slaughtered chickens, shot rabbits and had no problems with any of it, but having to kill an animal out of mercy is quite a bit different; the act seems to add a type of human quality to it that makes it more difficult. I am also fascinated by the fact that I was more effected by my dead goat (and my daughter’s pet chicken that I had to kill) than all of the dead humans that I have seen.

I didn't intend to turn this post into a morbid look into my psyche, but I guess part of the reason I have this blog is to simply get my thoughts out of my head sometimes. My family has learned a lot about life in the past year since we moved here; not all of it has been easy, but I know that it has all been good and it has given us all a greater appreciation for the lives we have been blessed with.

growing up

2009-11-03T15:28:00.005-05:00

Both of my children have asked (in the past) to drive the tractor, but I have always thought that they were just too young to drive a 5,750 lb machine that would drive right through the house if you let it. Perhaps because I have been gone so much lately and am feeling more emotional than normal or perhaps because I really felt they could handle it, I decided to let them give it a shot.

I had my son drive first; I stood on the 3 point hitch behind him as I explained how the clutch and gear shift worked along with the dual brakes and the gas lever. I was a little nervous as I allowed him to put it into gear and release the clutch, but he did well and it went fairly smoothly. The tractor was in 2nd gear so it wouldn't go very fast and I jumped down and walked along side my son as he drove the tractor all by himself. As I watched him headed down the driveway, I couldn't help but get a little emotional as I thought of my little boy transforming into a young man. His smile, look of confidence, and overall sense of accomplishment made the whole experience one I will never forget.

I also allowed my daughter to drive and she did equally well behind the wheel, but for some reason I did not have the same reaction. She enjoyed herself, but did not seem to have that "boys driving big machinery" grin on her face; I guess that is a good thing. Before I know it they will both be doing real work with the tractor rather than just driving it for fun. Both of them have already asked if they can run the bush-hog and/or drive it around the drive way... they seem to think it is like a very large go-cart. :-)

a great concert

2009-11-02T09:22:00.008-05:00

As previously advertised, we had a small concert at our home yesterday. Despite the possibilities, the weather was absolutely wonderful and it was a perfect November day to fellowship and worship outside. I had hoped for a larger crowd, but we were blessed to have approximately 35 people join us and they all seemed to truly enjoy the time together.

Nathan George and his brother Benjamin showed up a few hours early, shared a meal with us, and spent some time simply sitting around getting acquainted; they then performed for about an hour. It was truly awesome to have Nathan and Benjamin come to our home and bless us with their music. It is my hope that we can have more concerts in the future and we would love to have Nathan join us again next fall. You can see more about the concert at my wife's blog.

click here to view the web album or the slideshow.

the look of a terrorist?

2009-11-01T08:27:00.004-05:00

Ok, well here I go again with another post that has absolutely nothing to do with farming or our life on the farm... (I wrote this while sitting in the airport on Friday and am publishing it this morning)

To the left is the Official Photo I had taken a couple days ago; I am wearing the same uniform as I am traveling today. I am sitting in the airport in New Orleans waiting to catch my flight home and I am stewing about the ridiculous process I just went through with TSA and airport "security". I know that we need to be more secure and I am all for having a screening processes, but the system we have now is a complete joke.

I correctly guessed that my uniform would set off the metal detector, but I was not anticipating having to stand in the glass cubicle for 10 minutes waiting for the schlub from TSA to come over and further scrutinize me via a full "pat-down". As I stood there watching people walk by, who would fit a terrorist profile if we had the fortitude to do what was necessary rather than what was politically correct, I began to grow very angry. Watching the overweight, sloppy TSA screeners walk around with their ghetto tattoos I grew more angry... I found myself wondering what they actually had to go through to get their security clearance and what made them "qualified" to screen me.

I have had a security clearance through the Marine Corps for the past 17 years and have been in some of the most secure locations in our nation. As a former police officer, I have the right to carry a firearm anywhere in our nation and I know that I have had several more thorough background-checks than the TSA screeners. I have spent my whole adult life as someone who has been willing to run toward gunfire and risk my life to protect people, but when it come to traveling at the airport I am treated as if I am more untrustworthy than the average person.

I am constantly frustrated that I walk around on a daily basis as a Sheepdog willing to protect the Sheep of society from the Wolves; when I get on an airplane, I am forced to give up my status as a protector and become just another potential victim. In addition to having to take my shoes off, I am regularly pulled aside at the gate to be "randomly" screened again. My Marine Corps dog tags, official orders, official passport, I.D. card mean absolutely nothing to the people who went from flipping burgers to being in charge of our nations security with air-travel.

I simply don’t understand why we (as a society) are unwilling to be effective rather than politically correct. I also do not understand why the FAA, TSA, FBI, or any of the lettered agencies do not offer a course for people like me that would allow us to travel as a protector rather than a potential victim. I would be willing to pay to get another background check and put myself through an air marshal academy, but that would simply be too logical for those bureaucrats running things.

Oh well, I guess I should be accustomed to this by now, but I hope I never get complacent and accept the stupidity of the world. For those of you that know me, you can count on me to protect you whenever we are together, unless we are flying... then I will still attempt to protect you, but I will have to use the plastic spoon I got from the stewardess rather my gun or knife.

Semper Fidelis

Applebee's & Veteran's Day

2009-10-26T23:48:00.003-04:00

Well, I guess I was kidding myself in thinking that I could have a blog that was dedicated only to our farm and our new mid-western lifestyle. I still intend to keep my original focus, but my convictions will force me to occasionally comment on other topics which will probably have to do with the military in some regard.

This evening, I read an article at Military.com which I felt warranted further promotion... Veteran's Eat Free at Applebee's: First I must admit that I am not a huge fan of this restaurant, but their apparent support of our nations warriors compelled me to let you know of their corporate patriotism. While I think that our veterans should get regular discounts at all establishments (instead of students and senior citizens who have done nothing to earn them) I love to see any type of outward support of those who are mostly forgotten in our society.

Provided that veterans can prove their honorable service, Applebee's will allow them to choose from one of 6 specific dinner entrees (my choice would be the Fiesta Lime Chicken) available for free on November 11th (Veteran's Day).

To the "suits" at Applebee's, I would simply like to say "thank you" and Semper Fidelis.

a little cleaning up

2009-10-24T20:17:00.006-04:00

Due to the upcoming concert I am being forced to deal with a few items around the house. I keep the property fairly neat, but I am a procrastinator by nature and there is always something left unfinished.

In this case it happened to be the old goat/chicken shelter and the canopy which was destroyed when it blew away. I moved them both behind the house, next to the shed and they have been sitting in a heap for several weeks now. They were out of the way just enough to allow me to forget about them.

Yesterday, I decided that they needed to go. Naturally I grabbed my favorite helper (along with several saws and hammers) and headed out to finally take care of the mess. My son seems to enjoy doing any type work when he is working along with me and I love having him by my side. He is also starting to get to the point where he is old enough and strong enough to actually accomplish tasks with little supervision; which makes him much more of an asset when it comes to getting work done. In addition to his physical value, I love seeing the look of satisfaction on his face when he completes his "mission" on his own.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon we got it all broken up, stacked on the trailer, and parked it for our run to the dump the next day (Saturday). This afternoon after we finished moving the goats/chickens and dealing with several other small tasks, we headed off to the dump... only to get there and discover that it had closed 30 minutes before we arrived. After all of that, it is now back in our driveway and sitting again. At least the delay is not completely my fault this time.

how far I've come

2009-10-23T09:07:00.009-04:00

As we hit the one year anniversary of moving to our new home (also our 12th wedding anniversary) I have been reflecting on how much my life has changed since fleeing southern California and starting a new life in southern Indiana. I thought I'd go through a list of things that I never thought I would be doing:

     Riding my old farm tractor instead of my police motorcycle
     Watching my son drive our riding mower and cutting our grass by himself
     I had to cut the head off of my daughter's "pet" chicken
     Working on my 1962 John Deere
     Raising my own chickens/eggs
     Raising my own goats
     Breeding goats for the purpose of meat
     Raising turkeys (well only one now that the other two died)
   Planning to slaughter the remaining turkey myself, for Thanksgiving dinner
     Going out to check on my animals at midnight... in the rain
   Shooting pistols with my wife in our backyard
     I had to instruct my wife, over the phone, how to dispose of a dead goat (I was away with USMC)

Last night we went to a friends house for dinner and in the course of our conversation he asked me if I was glad we had moved to Indiana. I will tell you the same thing that I told him: I have never regretted our decision; I know we did the right thing. I think that we would have been joyful and content in many places, but I love where we ended up and I am grateful that the Lord led us here.

As previously stated, I never would have imagined that I would be living on a small farm in the mid-west and rasing goats, but I have to say that I love it and I am curious to see what I end up doing over the next year.

I'm back

2009-10-19T18:35:00.005-04:00

You may have been wondering why I have not posted in a couple of weeks, well I had a good reason. I do have another job which requires me to leave the farm on occasion. You can read more about my career as a reservist in the United States Marine Corps at www.usmcphillips.com/biography.html

Anyway, I spent the past 15 days attending the Combat Marksmanship Trainer program at Weapons Training Battalion / Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. This happened to be a high intensity course which only granted one day off out of 15 and working long hours. A short day consisted of waking up at 4am, getting on the buses at 5:00, drawing our weapons from the armory by 5:30 and being seated in the classroom by 6:45. On a good day we would spend the next 12 hours in class and get back to our living quarters by 7pm. Our longest day started at 4am and did not see us released until 11pm. After our 20 hour day of lectures and shooting, we then had to study for an exam and a presentation we had the next day before getting a few hours of sleep and getting up again at 4am.

We "lived" in 60 year old Quonset huts which had no heat, but did have mice running around on the dirt covered floors. Fortunately we did have running water and while it was not 100% cold, it certainly was not hot either. We had one large shower room with 15 heads for everyone to use and the toilets had dividers between them, but no doors. Nothing causes men to "bond" like talking to the guys walking by as you sit on the toilet and then stripping down and showering together. Anyone who supports homosexuals in the military needs to live in this environment for a week or so and then come talk to me about their political views, but I digress... It got down to 51 degrees in our hut; that coupled with the early mornings made it very difficult to get out of the sleeping bag in the morning. We ate MREs most of the time, but got the luxury of eating powdered eggs and greasy hash-browns a few mornings; needless to say, I really missed my wife's home cooking.

We also spent quite a lot of time shooting on the KD (known distance) range for pistol and rifle as well as the 3 different (tables 2-4) combat courses. Despite shooting in the pouring rain and hurricane force winds, I qualified as and Expert (top of the three tiers in the USMC) with both the pistol and rifle.

All-in-all, it was a great course and I am now certified as a Combat Marksmanship Instructor... ooh-rah!! I have always said that it is great anytime I get paid to shoot or simply be around weapons.

a stud for the ladies

2009-10-01T08:32:00.004-04:00

We have been hoping to move our small farm operation forward, in order to do that we need to get our does pregnant. It is funny how that works, if you plan to actually make any money at raising meat goats, you need to have kids to raise.

We have eight does, but two of them are a little young still and one has been sick for a few weeks; that leaves us with five does that are able to breed. Ideally they would each have twins and we would end up with our eight does, plus 10 kids running around in March. We are not sure if we are going to sell the kids at 3 months old (sort of like veal) or raise them and sell them as much larger yearlings. Before we get to any of that we need to get our ladies pregnant and there are two basic ways to go about that: artificial insemination and the old fashioned way.

I have learned a lot about animals and I am doing a lot of things that I never thought I would, but I just cannot bring myself to artificially inseminate a goat. Besides, it only has a 60% success rate which is simply unacceptable for me. We decided that we needed to either rent a buck or buy one. Both options have benefits, but we were open to either one; the real problem we had was trying to find what we wanted.

Boer goats are not exactly rare, but they are not real common either. We needed to find a buck that was 1.5 - 3 years old, of large stature, a proven breeder, with a good demeanor, and under $400. Oh yeah, we also needed the seller to deliver him as we do not have a truck or trailer and I didn't want to borrow from our friend again. After searching all over southern and central Indiana we ended up finding one that was only 10 miles from our home. He is a year & a half old and weighs 150-175lbs. His registered name is Painted Wizard, but that simply will not work for us. My daughter has taken to calling him Mr. Red, while my wife and son are calling him Jimmy. Hopefully, we will come to an agreement soon.

He is in rut, but the does are not in estrus at this point. Hopefully, they will all sync up soon and we can begin to make some real progress on the farm. :-)

canopy no more

2009-09-28T09:02:00.004-04:00

After several days of non-stop rain, I woke up to a perfectly clear sky this morning. It is a beautiful sunny day, but it was fairly windy last night. As you have seen in in the previous post, I have been using our sun canopy as a make-shift garage for my tractor... As I was admiring the sunrise this morning, I noticed that something was missing.

As you can see from the photo, the canopy is not covering the tractor any more; I found it about 50 yards away. The thin metal cross members are all bent and twisted. Unfortunately, it does not look like I will be able to salvage it. Oh well, I guess I need to make some sort of real garage/car port for it at some point.

keep it simple stupid

2009-09-28T00:01:00.008-04:00

When I was teenager, I had things such as lawn mowers and motorcycles to maintain and repair. I was never a mechanical genius, but I was able to take care of most issues. When a simple gas engine doesn't run, you pretty much check two things: fuel and spark. There are several components that deliver those to the engine, but spark and fuel (+ air) are the items you need for the motor to run.

The easiest way to check if you had spark was to disconnect one of the wires from the spark plug and hold it about a half an inch away from the end of the plug and crank the motor. If the ignition system was working properly a beautiful bright blue arc ("small lightning" as my son put it) would appear between the spark lug and the end of the wire. The list of potential problems is long, but at least you know if you need to work on the ignition system or not.

Well, I spent many of my adult years in very technical occupations and I learned to use handy things such as a volt meter. So when my tractor mysteriously stopped running a few days ago I immediately verified that fuel was getting to the carburetor and moved to the other side to check the ignition system. This is where I started to create problems for myself. I reverted back to the old days and immediately pulled a wire off of one of the spark plugs, to check for power. Rather than doing it the old simple way and just checking for a spark, I thought to myself "I will go get my meter and check the ignition system with that." That is just what I did. I placed the positive meter lead on the end of the spark plug cable as I cranked the motor and I had power. I then thought to myself "Great now what? It has fuel and spark, it should be running."

I started to take things apart that I then had trouble putting back together properly; things were getting worse rather than better. I proceeded to "beat my head against a wall" for the next couple days, even swallowing my pride and attempting to get a mechanic to come out and fix my piece of junk tractor that I had only owned for a couple months. I would have taken it to a mechanic, but my 5,000 pound paper weight was too heavy for my little trailer and even if I did have a trailer that would carry it; how was I going to get it up onto the trailer? Oh and I forgot to mention, it rained every day so I had to put up a sunshade which helped, but was not meant to keep water out. Needless to say, I was not a very "happy camper". All the while my loving wife and children tried to help by offering advice such as: "Did you check to see if it has gas dad?" Very sweet, but it was just adding to my frustration.

Anyway, I eventually decided to do the old "spark" test and determined that the power was getting from the coil to the distributor, but not through the distributor cap out to the spark plugs. If I held the coil cable about a half inch from the cap it sparked just fine and the tractor fired up, but as soon as I plugged in the cable, the tractor died. I am still not real sure what was wrong with the distributor cap, but I dove 3 hours round trip to a John Deere dealership and got a new cap. Once I got home and put the new cap on, the tractor fired right up and is running like a champ. I also don't understand why my volt meter showed I was getting power, but I wasn't getting the spark I needed. If I had kept it simple on day 1 and done the basic spark test rather than using my fancy meter, I would have solved the whole problem a lot sooner and would have saved me a lot of time and stress.

One of the best phrases I have learned in the Marine Corps is K.I.S.S. - Keep it Simple Stupid. In other words, you are stupid if you unneccesarily complicate things. I thought it was beneath me to troubleshoot an engine the way I learned when I was 12 years old, because I have since been educated and have more technical knowledge. Oh well, live and learn... by the way, I no longer think my tractor is a piece of junk; since it is running again I LOVE IT!!!!

rainy night, full house

2009-09-27T00:47:00.002-04:00

It has been raining (seemingly) non-stop for the past 3 days. Our goats typically spend their evenings out in the pasture, but on nights like this they take full advantage of their mobile shelter. The shelter is 128 square feet; there are 13 hens, 1 rooster, 2 turkeys, and 8 goats. There is plenty of room for everybody, but they are not all accustomed to being so close together. If you look closely, you can see one of the hens attempting to roost on one of the goats in the foreground. It will be interesting to see how they all do once it starts snowing again in a few months.

our first hay

2009-09-26T00:27:00.003-04:00

Over the past year, I have had many days where I had to stop and think to myself "ok, now I am a farmer" - Today was another one of those days. In order to prepare for the many cold/wet months ahead, I bought my first load of hay. It was only 25 bales, a very small load by most farm standards, but hey we have to start somewhere.

It has pretty much been raining for the past 48 hours. I had been praying that it would let up for my hay run this morning; it did... sort of. The bottom line is that the hay got a little wet and I got very wet, not too bad. I have also decided that the hay hooks I recently bought are worth their weight in gold.

Rather than getting the "good hay" which typically consists mainly of Alfalfa, I opted to buy some "junk hay" that was a mix of Alfalfa, Timothy, Orchard, and Clover. I figured it would be best to attempt to mimic the natural variety that goats prefer; I hope the goats will be happy with their winter meals.

concert on the pasture

2009-09-23T09:45:00.011-04:00

We are pleased to announce that we will be having a free concert here at Liberty Pastures, on Sunday November 1st. Nathan Clark George's performance will start at 2:00pm and run 45 minutes to an hour. We recently discovered his music and he has quickly become a family favorite. We hope you will join us for an afternoon of fellowship and music.

All are invited, we simply ask that you visit our website and RSVP so we know you will be coming. Please arrive between 1:00 and 1:30; the concert will begin promptly at 2:00.

Visit the Liberty Pastures concert page to RSVP and to listen to Nathan's music

NATHAN CLARK GEORGE seamlessly blends contemporary folk, AC and finger-style guitar work into one.  He possesses a unique gift that mesmerizes his multi-generational audiences.  With five projects on the shelves, NATHAN CLARK GEORGE is no newcomer to the field of music.  His self-written/composed songs have illuminated stages across the nation, bringing a view to the reality of God in everyday lives.  His latest project, “Rise in the Darkness” has received critical acclaim.  Along with being nominated for the above award, this cd has also been chosen as a 2007 finalist in the Contemporary Christian category by the Independent Music Awards! “In my 10 years working with thousands of independent artists, there are very few who maintain the level of commitment, pursuit of excellence, and passion of mission as Nathan Clark George. Nathan is truly an indie success story!”,states Keith Mohr, President, IndieHeaven.  With a strong regional and national fan base, NATHAN CLARK GEORGE has won over many with his talent.  The listener hears an honesty that flows through his lyrical content.  NATHAN CLARK GEORGE is the epitome of a true family man, many times taking his wife and five children on the journey along with him.

Nathan's Homepage

watering system

2009-09-19T15:23:00.001-04:00

We have two barns on our property; one is approximately 100 years old and the other is much newer, but neither of them have power or water. When we decided to start raising animals I knew I had to provide them water, but I was not sure how to go about doing so. I figured the best way would be to run a water line from the house to the barns...

In order to get a water line out to the barn, I was going to have to rent a trencher which was going to be quite expensive, plus I had to separately rent a trailer to haul the trencher. Now for those of you who may be thinking "why not dig it by hand?" Well, the trench would have to be at least 32" deep to ensure that it would not freeze in the winter and it was going to have to be about 700 feet long. If I was still in my 20's and not all banged up then maybe I would tackle that by hand, but it was simply not an option for me at this point. Between the trencher and pipe, I figured I needed to come up with another idea.

I opted to go with a 30 gallon plastic tank that would be mounted to a small trailer and pulled behind the riding mower. The animals only use about 15 gallons of water each day so this has worked out fairly well for us. I would like to get a larger tank, fill it up once a week and leave it in the pasture, but the system we have now allows my children to fill up the tank, drive down to the animals, and take care of it all by themselves.

I guess for now we will just stick with the adage of, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

our basic operation

2009-09-18T23:57:00.004-04:00

I thought I would take some time and explain what our operation looks like and how it functions on a daily basis. As I have stated before, our goats started out living in our small barn which had a large fenced area attached to it. They were almost 100% grain/corn fed before we owned them so we had to go through a weaning and transition process. Our ultimate goal was to go to the opposite extreme and raise 100% grass fed goats. I think I must clarify that statement a little bit because goats are not grazers, in other words, they don't want to eat 100% grass like cattle would. They are browsers and foragers; they enjoy clover, weed and leafy types of plants and bushes.

Liberty Pastures consists of 10 acres, most of which is open and is broken up into 3 different fenced pastures. One of those areas is a perfect grass area which is ideal for horses or cattle, we have neither so it does not get used. The other two pastures (approx 6 acres) have an excellent mixture of various weeds, shrubs, and grass. I plan to plant some more clover and a few other plants, in hopes of providing a greater diversity and mineral content for our animals.

Early on we decided that we wanted to rotate our animals on a regular basis, based on the Joel Salatin model; this meant I had to build a mobile shelter for our goats. We started out with a wooden 8'x8' structure on 12" pneumatic casters. I later added the chicken hutch to this structure, but more about that another time. For various reasons, I decided to build a different shelter that would be more suitable for the future of our animals.

The goats, chickens, and turkeys live surrounded by an electrified mesh fence (of course the birds can go over and through it at their leisure) and have the mobile structure for shelter. They start their "cycle" in a paddock which is approximately 1800 square feet. For each of the next two days, I add an equivalent size to the paddock without moving the shelter. On the 4th day, I move the shelter to fresh land and the cycle starts over. This system allows the goats to have fresh vegetation each day, and keeps them from eating on areas they have defecated on, but minimizes the labor for my family and me.

As our flock grows I anticipate having to use a more fencing and a larger paddocks, but we will deal with that as it becomes necessary. I also hope to add a couple Dexter cattle to the mix at some point, but I am not sure how that will develop.

More about our operation to follow...

unexpected work on the farm

2009-09-16T09:19:00.002-04:00

We had plans to expand Liberty Pastures in the next few months; we hoped to add a breeding buck, a bunch of laying hens and a bunch of meat chickens. Everything is being put on hold due to some unforeseen expenses in our home. Last month we noticed some dark staining on the wood paneling in our son's bedroom. It appeared to be water, which was a very bad sign as there are no water lines in the area. I had to assume it was coming through the basement wall.

Upon further inspection (which means I ripped off all the wood paneling, drywall, and insulation) it became very obvious that water was coming through the basement wall and it seems like it has been doing it for quite a long time. We have learned that our home warranty will not cover any of the damage, nor will our homeowner's insurance, nor will the warranty for the sealant on the exterior of the wall. We have no idea what the total expense will be, I am not even sure how I am going to determine where the leak is.

For now, my son is keeping a good attitude about being banished from his room. In fact, he and his sister seem to be enjoying this time as they have been sleeping in their sleeping bags in the open area of the basement. The past two nights were spent in the tent next to our garden.

We are also having to deal with several large repairs at our rental property back in California. It is all very frustrating, but we know we are being provided for and it will all work out in the long run... I just hope that is soon. :)

A climbing goat is a happy goat

2009-09-11T15:26:00.004-04:00

Boer goats are not known for their agility and climbing ability as most goats are, but they still like to climb things. Before we started rotating them into different pasture every day they lived in a paddock attached to our small barn. I found an old concrete collar, one that appeared to be part of a utility "man-hole" below the street. Anyway, it was only about 32 inches high and 36 inches in diameter, but I mounted a piece of plywood on one end and it made a perfect little platform for them to climb on. Once we took them out of the barn and started moving them daily, they lost their climbing toy. I if tipped it over I could roll it, but it has got to weight over a hundred pounds and I had no desire to push it around my fields.

I had been looking around for an old wooden spool (used for holding large cables), but have not been able to find any. I figured one of the spools would be perfect for climbing, but light enough to move around with the shelter. I happened to be talking to the former owner of our home who happens to be building a new home just down the road from us. He also happens to own a large construction company which focuses on underground utility work - using large cable on wooden spools. I asked him if he had any lying around that I could buy and he said "No, but I have a few you can have for free if you want." As it turns out, they simply scrap the spools once they have used the cable. I went by his office a couple days ago and picked up two different spools: one very large wooden one and a smaller one made of plastic and cardboard.

Needless to say it didn't take very long for the goats to become accustomed to their new toys. They frequently sleep on them or just stand there looking around at the world. Rudy (the rooster) also seems to enjoy being up higher as do my children when they go down to play with... I mean take care of the animals.

Goat & Chicken Shelter Update

2009-09-10T00:05:00.006-04:00

Well, despite my excellent craftsmanship and brilliant ingenuity [sarcasm], I had to swallow my pride and rebuild the roof on the goat/chicken shelter. The green-house style roof was acting like... well it was acting like a green-house. The interior of the shelter was extremely humid and water droplets were constantly falling. Additionally, all of the flying insect that wandered into the shelter, flew up and simply got stuck. The plastic sheeting had no venting on the top and trapped all the bugs. The chickens didn't mind, but the goats basically refused to go inside and I don't blame them. There were thousands of flies and gnats just buzzing around inside. I gave it a couple days to see if the insect infestation would falter, but it never seemed to get any better. I cut a couple vents in the side of it, but all the bugs wanted to do was go up and the vents were pretty much useless.

I opted to rip off the plastic sheeting and install corrugated plastic panels, much like what I used on the previous goat shelter. I also decided to create a vent, at the peak of the roof, which ran the length of the shelter. It took an entire day; I did not finish until the sun had gone down and it was completely dark, but I am pleased with the results. The best part is that I have no more flying insect issues and the goats seem to love the shelter now.

The chickens made the new shelter "home" and appeared completely indifferent to the bugs or the roof construction. The first day they all went over to the now empty spot in the field where the old shelter had been and laid all of their eggs in a pile in the grass. When I worked on the roof, I pulled the shelter out of the field and back up to the garage. This really messed with the little pea brains of the chickens. They kept going back and forth between the shelter (by the house) and the pasture. We ended up having eggs laid all over the place: several scattered around the lawn, one on the patio, one in the shelter, and a couple down by the goats. With the shelter back in place, they are all laying in the nesting boxes again, as I had hoped, and are much more content overall.

My next project will be to cut in a couple doors so the children can access water, food, and eggs from outside the shelter. I am just looking forward to being done with this thing... I hope it lasts longer than the last one.

my Deere

2009-09-09T13:50:00.006-04:00

A little over a month ago, we decided to get serious and buy a tractor. Prior to this we had been using our riding lawn mower for everything. Not only did it frequently get stuck, but we were destroying it. The tractor was the first big purchase I had made in my life where I opted to spend less than I could afford. It has always been the opposite; just another sign of our new lifestyle.

Anyway, I bought a 1964 John Deere 1010 RUS. Originally, it was the "budget" version of the 1010 line: it sold for $300 less because it came with a metal pan seat and no tachometer on the dash. Ironically enough, I paid about the same amount for it in 2009 that it would have sold for in 1964 and thankfully somebody had upgraded the seat at some point. The tractor has been absolutely wonderful to have around, it is only a 36hp gas motor, but it is truly amazing what the proper gearing, some serious torque, and 5000lbs of iron and steel can accomplish. Lifting, mowing, and pulling are now simple tasks versus the struggles we had before with the little Craftsman riding mower.

Oh, and I was told by a friend that I am now a real farmer because I "went green" and bought a Deere. :)

As you can see, I am not the only one enjoying the new tractor.

Turkeys Making New Friends

2009-09-08T00:01:00.008-04:00

A couple of months ago we adopted a pair of young sibling kittens for the purpose of rodent control around the farm. We were a little concerned that they wouldn't last, but they have fit right in and have been earning their keep ever since. Hank and Hunter routinely kill mice, gophers, and rabbits (adults and babies). Of course they usually leave a bloody carcass in the garage for me to clean up, but I am glad to have them around. The cats have however put a damper on the bird watching on our back deck, as the bird feeder seems to just make it too easy for the cats to catch Blue Jays and Mourning Doves.

Several weeks ago, I allowed our two young turkeys to roam around on the lawn and had to be very careful because Hank and Hunter made it very clear that they wanted the turkeys for dinner. Yesterday, I brought the turkeys out again and turned them loose for a little while. I kept a close eye on the cats, but things have changed now that the turkeys are close to the size of a small chicken.

The turkeys had no idea that the cats were predators and actually seemed oblivious to the cat's very existence. The cats on the other hand were very curious and followed the turkeys around for more than 20 minutes. At first Hank and Hunter were in "stalking" mode, but quickly decided that it was not a good idea. As the smaller turkey walked near Hunter, he acted like he was going to strike, but instead turned and ran away. Hank just casually accepted the turkeys and lay still as they walked around him.

I am just glad to see everybody getting along for now.

Rudy the Rooster

2009-09-07T00:01:00.003-04:00

In the spring we plan to grow our farm significantly; I hope to have 20+ goats, 20+ laying chickens, 50+ meat chickens, and 10 turkeys. At this point we have 9 chickens, 8 goats, 3 cats, and 2 turkeys. Relative to our former life, in which our "livestock" consisted of just one indoor cat, it seems like we have a full blown farming operation. We are however, still small enough that our children have named all of our animals and can actually tell them apart.

All of our current animals are sort of like pets, even the turkeys we plan to eat this Fall! I thought I would start a little series in which I introduce some of our "pets".

Rudy the Rhode Island Red Rooster:

Rudy was part our initial farm expansion; we bought a group of mature Red Island Red hens who came with Rudy as their "leader". Despite all of the rooster horror stories we have heard from our friends, Rudy has been incredibly docile and proven to be a great asset to the farm. I cannot image the chaos that might be if the hens did not have him around. He is our only outdoor animal that will not "produce" anything for us, but he certainly has an important role in the lives of our hens; they will follow him anywhere. Additionally, I do have to say that he is a magnificent looking bird. Dare I say that he is beautiful?

A New Shelter and a Green Goat

2009-09-06T10:28:00.019-04:00

We have had goats for quite a while now and they have seemed fairly happy in their portable shelter, but due to repeated damage (mostly from me, not the goats) it was time to build a new one. I decided to abandon the style that I had used before and go with a basic structure that was made of something other than wood. Wood is great, but it is bulky, heavy and not very flexible when you accidentally run into it with your tractor. I opted to go with a miracle of modern science - plastic

2" PVC was what I bought for the basic frame; it has a large enough diameter to be rigid, but no so big that it loses its flexibility and light weight. For the walls, I needed to stick with something that would stand-up to the rigors of goat hooves and horns so it was back to good old plywood. I did use the thinnest plywood I could buy; I am hoping that it lasts. I used 1/2" pipe to make a hoop house/green house style roof and covered it with 4mil plastic sheeting.

Once it was all built I enlisted the help of my two favorite helpers in order to get it painted a shade of green that would blend with my pasture grass. I must admit that I didn't want it to stand out too much, but the paint serves a greater purpose in that it seals the wood and prevents it from warping. I am fairly pleased with how it turned out, hopefully it functions well. One of the many things I did not think about was the fact that curious goats like to rub against things and do not mix well with wet paint. I guess I should be glad that we only have one green goat.