It's been 100+ degrees every day for as long as we can remember. The city is praying for rain, crops have failed, energy usage has spiked, and the atmosphere in the afternoon is, well, oppressive. I was talking to a worker at the Homestead General Store the other day (which is just a few miles from our house) and he said, "You're lucky you don't have to buy hay. It's $100 a bale." I asked him how much a bale of hay is normally, he replied, "$40." Yikes.

Being closer to the land these days, we feel the drought acutely, but not nearly like the professional farmers and ranchers around here. Driving through the neighborhood we can see crops that have been shredded and used for hay, because the vegetables simply died on the vine; dried up gardens; and empty watermelon stands (the sandy soil around here produces arguably the finest watermelon in Texas, much like the soil in Cuba produces the perfect tobacco for cigars). Brandi and I buy grass-fed beef from a farmer a few miles up the highway from us. I was talking to him the other day and the aged cattle man said, "I can't remember the last time it's been this bad. The grass simply is not growing."

Pray for rain, because this is serious, and it's going to touch all of our lives to some extent.

Abigail made a pillowcase yesterday. She's quite the happy seamstress.

We hosted Sam and Jennifer and their children, a family of eight, for dinner last night, and we actually successfully (and comfortably!) fit 10 people around our table and four at the adjacent bar. So a dinner for 14 went off without a hitch.

It was a fun-filled evening as we have plenty in common with this homeschooling family. They're older than we are by maybe 10 to 15 years, and that makes it even easier because their older kids are really good about working with the smaller ones. All of their kids are also pleasant to be around, and completely in love with our kids (and vice versa!). Their three-year-old girl loves two-year-old Evangeline; she calls Eve her baby and always wants to hug her and kiss her and, well, treat her like a baby. Sometimes it's a little too much attention for Eve, as we discovered when she let the older gal know with a two-handed shove. We forced them to work out their differences like adults. ;-)

After dinner we all went outside (by that time it was pleasant outside); the kids ran around the property like maniacs, jumped on the trampoline, chased chickens, collected eggs, enjoyed our 16 ducks hanging out in the Duck Yard, and had an all out good time. (I even think our enormous dog jumped on Sam at one point.) Brandi engaged Jennifer in deep conversation while I eventually challenged Sam and his oldest boy to games of chess on our picnic table.

Alas, the kids were pretty petered out by the time their friends rolled away. It was a good night.

I really will start updating this blog religiously. The primary good I see in this blog is it acts as a journalistic time capsule, and hopefully my children and grandchildren will cherish reading these words one day. So I'll keep writing. :-)

Here's what's up ...

I have a very brief post up at Community Chickens.

It's been an oven here in Waco. Hot. Hot. Hot. The garden is struggling, but the animals seem to be thriving. We really need consistent rain.

We're in Houston right now for my sister's birthday. Brandi, Eve, and I will be back on the farm Sunday night, while the older kids will stay for a few more days.

I'm going to go cool off now!

I did a quick post on bantam chickens at Community Cluckers. Check it out.

We're running a couple of weeks late, but we finally got some plants in the ground today. I borrowed a friend's tiller yesterday and tilled up our garden, so the soil was nice and fluffy today. Our soil is very sandy, so by the time I got done with the tiller the garden looked like a beach.

Here's Brandi, at the beach working in the garden.


A bird's eye view (don't be frightened by the fake owl). The structure behind Brandi is the barn.


This a bonus shot of the field behind our barn. You can't really tell from the photo, but it's looking pretty bushy and ready to be shredded with a tractor. Time to call our neighbor who does that stuff for us. One of these days we're going to fence it off and put some goats out there, and maybe a calf.


That's it! We've still got some more planting to do, and the kids have their own little special stuff they want to plant, so hopefully we'll have some more photos on the way.

For the first time ever at our little farm, we slaughtered animals (in this case, chickens) without the help of an expert. We did have a friend, Eva Marie, volunteer to help us, but she knew nothing about slaughtering animals, so this time around Brandi and I were the "experts."

I warned Eva (who I actually call "Ave Maria"), that we didn't have much of a clue as to what we were doing, but we were pretty certain we'd be able to figure it out. We've killed birds for meat exactly four times in the past, but it's always been under the tutelage of a bird killing guru. Not so this time.

On a lighter note, we actually had some eggs hatch today -- of all days, the day of the slaughter! -- so we were looking at the full circle of life, from "newborn" chicks to chickens that were about to fulfill their destiny.

One of the new ones.


Death row.


A chicken meeting its maker.


Brandi and Ave Maria watching a chicken die. (Brandi can't bring herself to watch, actually.)


A few processing photos.




A bonus shot of our broody duck hen. Her ducklings ought to hatch in about three weeks.

We're still alive! I've been a slacker on here, obviously, but we have much going on at our little homestead. I hope to post a proper update soon. In the meantime I'll just say we're gearing up for spring. We're contemplating slaughtering a few roosters pretty soon and tilling our garden for planting. We've got three broody birds right now (two bantam chickens and one duck hen), so we should see anywhere from 20 to 30 baby birds hatch pretty soon. :-)

Evangeline is so beautiful it's almost ridiculous:


Things are going well enough around here. We're in the throes of winter, and we're burning through a fair amount of wood to heat our house.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that a "hen" we bought from a lady a few months ago actually grew up to be a rooster. I was agitated because extra roosters are pretty much worthless around a farm. You really only want one rooster for every dozen hens or so, and we already have a rooster! As it turns out, we now have three roosters (four if you count the bantam rooster). Hold on ... we actually have eight flippin' roosters because four of them are still not yet full grown chicks.

Once all of the chick roosters grow up, they're all dead. We'll kill them all (except for our original rooster) and use them for chicken soup. Killing and processing birds is officially no longer a big deal for us. It takes a bit of preparation, but it's definitely worth the time and effort.

Speaking of killing, there's this squirrel that's been eluding me for weeks now. I've seen the little rascal go into our chimney on more than one occasion, and by the time I get my bb gun from the house ... he's gone like Houdini. Squirrels are a big time pest around here. They eat the chicken feed we throw out; they chew on wires; and they get into all sorts of things like chimneys and crevices around the property. I can't stand those little fluffy-tailed rats. I'm glad there are no ordinances against killing squirrels in the country.

I love you!

I've been swamped at work, so not much time for posting these days.

Things are going well at the farm. Last year around this time our chickens were only giving us, on average, one egg per day. This year we tried a new (to us) strategery [sic] by leaving a light on in the barn to extend their "daylight hours." It's worked! We're getting maybe 4 or 5 eggs a day these days. It also helps that we have four more new laying hens. Come spring time we'll probably get a dozen eggs a day. Yay!

We still don't use 70 percent of our land. It's just there, looking pretty. That sort of annoys me, but it's nice to know that one day we'll fence it off and start by putting some meat and dairy goats on it. They say goats are a poor man's cow. :-) We have actually eaten goat burgers and goat fajita burritos -- and we liked them! We also like goat milk. So it'll be a start ... maybe this spring? We'll see.

So for your viewing pleasure, here's an early morning shot of our two young duck hens:



And here's one of the photos from our Christmas card session (this shot was taken by Brandi; she did a great job!):

I had to go up on our roof today to work on our chimney. After I finished, I realized how beautiful our back yard is from such a bird's eye view. We've always appreciated the beauty of the landscape around our place, but seeing it all from such a high vantage point was pure, unfamiliar delight. I didn't have my camera with me so I whipped out my cell phone and snapped the following photo. Our property line extends back toward the tree line, and the hayfield on the right (which we're in love with) belongs to our neighbor. The field is unoccupied; he lives about half an hour away and shows up a few times a year to harvest the hay. When he's around working the field it's quite a thing to behold, believe it or not. Anyway, you can also see our barn on the left and our dog standing next to the barn. That white building is our shop.



Here's a bonus shot of Brandi working our winter garden. I love her Country Mama look with her boots and jeans. ;-)

I'm in McAllen right now where I just wrapped up shooting the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. I've shot this meeting every year for the past 12 years. It's a good change of pace from the stuff I normally shoot every year, and they're always some nice people to be around.

Here are a few photos I like. A gal taking someone's blood pressure (I like how the smile on the poster behind her matches the smile on her face); some guy cutting cheese; and some ex-homeless guy singing a solo. Enjoy!

I posted something new over at Community Cluckers. It's all about how we brought these gals into the world.

- We successfully hatched seven chicks that were "incubated" by our broody duck mama. Yes, our duck hatched chicken eggs. Brandi said Abigail is quite the chick mommy now. (More on this later.)

- On Halloween trick-or-treaters drive from house to house in our neighborhood, since it would take forever to walk. Guess they'll do anything for candy.

- Our remaining two duck hens (from the ones we hatched back in June) are getting used to flying around the property.

- Duck tastes like dark meat chicken. For real.

- I hope to heat the house this winter using nothing but wood. Last winter I think we heated the house with 80 percent wood, 10 percent gas, and 10 percent electric. Hopefully we can conquer that 20 percent this year. We'll see.

Some of you bumpkins out there might be familiar with Mother Earth News and Grit magazine. Shortly after Brandi and I became hillbillies (in May of '09), we had our rural neighbors driving up to our little farm in their golf carts giving us handfuls of old homesteading magazines including Mother and Grit. We were hooked from the get go!

Now I've been honored to be accepted as a regular blogger for Community Chickens, an online magazine from the publishers of the aforementioned publications. The blog is called Community Cluckers. Feel free to check out my first contribution, For Love Of Poultry.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

I've been gearing up for winter. I've been cutting firewood, collecting kindling, and thinking about getting our chimney cleaned. :-) Last year we felt winter like never before, but it was nice being so in-touch with the rhythms of nature. (Our wood-burning stove is worth its weight in gold!) I can't believe summer is long gone.

Brandi said her and the kids went for a walk today and nine-year-old Daniel pointed to a sweeping field and said, "Look at that beautiful field! I'm so glad we live in the country."

That made me very happy. Our little farm and our entire beautiful rural neighborhood are like an endless kingdom to our little imaginative children.

Bouncer gives Brandi "the caring paw," as we like to call it:


Brandi holding Bouncer's neck:

Here's a photo of Brandi learning how to gut a duck. That guy who's with her was our volunteer helper who was learning how to process ducks right along with us. He knew a wee bit more than we did, and that made him very helpful.



Here's a bonus photo of the truck someone in my church gave me. Yes, it was given to me. I'm very thankful.