Saturday, August 22, 2009

Cute, Adorable, Friendly, WONDERFUL Kittens For Sale! by, Emily

As you all know, my cat had seven kittens. They are seven weeks today, and it's time to start finding them good homes. Five of the seven are still available, as one has been reserved, and I have sold one. Also, a lady is coming tomorrow to look at them and she's either getting Mocha or Cinnamon...so for now they are also not available...but I'll post a comment when she decides which one to get, so you know which ones are available. Also, when I wrote my post about the kittens being born, I said they were all boys. Well, a couple days ago, I just happened to be "re-checking" my kittens, and I realized Butternut is a girl. ...the only one! :) haha! Mocha is the littlest one of them all, and he looks fairly similar to Momma Kitty. I suppose if I had to say what color he is in one word, I'd say dark gray....but he also has quite a bit of tan and black and a little creamy white mixed in there too. ...but he's not spotted with those colors...he's more all gray, with some of those other colored hairs mixed in. SO, SO ADORABLE!!!!!! He is so, so, so cute! He is absolutely not, not, NOT a scaredy-cat at all. He's SUPER friendly, and comes running right up to me! He loves being held .....and is also really good with children. He loves to just sit on my lap, and loves being around people. Mocha tends to be a favorite with everyone who gets to meet him! Well, now we have Cinnamon and Spice, two dark orange kittens. They both have just a little white on their tummy, paws, and maybe a little-little on their faces...but not much. Spice is a little bigger than Cinnamon. He's an awfully playful little bugger....and he's so cute to watch! Of course he is also really friendly, and doesn't mind being held. He looks a lot to me like a miniature lion or something, he is ADORABLE! Cinnamon is much like Mocha. He just loves attention, and loves being held. Him and Mocha are normally the first kittens to get to me when I go out to the barn to milk in the morning. He is really, really cute, I love his beautiful dark orange color. I'm sure him and Spice will grow up to be big, beautiful tom cats. If your looking for a super cute, tame, friendly, and gentle kitten, Cinnamon will work great! Licorice is the kitten that was sold, so of course he's not available any more. :) Butternut is, as I said before, the only girl. She is light orange, which is actually very uncommon, as it is very rare for there to be female orange cats. Butternut is so cute, and she has the most white of any of the kittens. Her face has quite a bit of white on it, (not tons, though) as do her paws and tummy. Butternut has a very nice personality. She is rather mild, very gentle, and very sweet, but despite all that, she is playful. Butternut is a very pretty, dainty little kitten, and if you want a calm kitten, that is good with children, and that doesn't scratch, bite, hiss, or get wild, that would would be Butternut....great personality! Peanut and Butterscotch are also light orange, with little or none white markings. They are extremely playful, and when I pet them, the just purr, and purr, and PURR! They're really cute....really, REALLY cute!!!! They both have great....well....personalities, for lack of a better word! I'm selling them for $10.00 each, to good homes. If you would like to come see them, you are VERY welcome. Just call me (Emily) (320-275-0121), or post a comment. If you would like to get one, or have us reserve one for you, call me or post a comment! ...you won't regret it! :) (Note: all of our kittens are very healthy....the lady who bought Licorice was very surprised how healthy they are. Secondly, they are, or they will be, great mousers. I gave one of my other kittens to my friend once, and she told me that the kitten I gave her was their only kitten that would catch mice!) Meow!

Above we have Mocha, advertising for himself. :) This is Lady nursing Mocha (middle), Peanut, (right) and Butterscotch(left).





This is Lady nursing her kittens when they were just born. Doesn't she look relaxed?!?


This is Lady, the proud mother.

And here is Charlie, the Daddy of the kittens.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

My Boys!

My boys amaze me! They seem to have the most imaginative and creative minds. I suppose all boys are that way, I am just slightly biased. :) Being country boys, they seem to have an abundance of "tools" to work with. I would always cringe as I drove past those places in the country with big junk piles in the yard....what a mess! Now I am beginning to understand the need for junk, as even my BIG boy needs "tools" to work with.
As Mike was building our chicken plucker and scalder from scratch, he would often comment on how he wished we had bought an old farm site with a junk yard on it. Then he'd have scraps to work with. It suddenly dawned on me that those piles were useful. I just always thought they were an eye sore......city girl! :) Those resourceful old farmers were just hanging on to their junk because on a farm you need junk......as much as I hate to admit it. :)
Well, back to my boys being creative.... One day Emily and I were working in the house and we looked out the window and saw the three boys floating along in the slough on a car seat! "What in the world....!" Laughing hysterically, we went running outside to see what those crazy boys were up to!
Dad had given them the job of disking up the four wheeler trails, so they weren't so bumpy. Well, both Ben and Jonny wanted to ride with Brandon on his cool tractor, so Brandon, Mr. Creative himself, figured out how they could all ride.....comfortably! :)
Brandon strapped a bench seat from an old van to his tractor, and away they went...the three of them. Because the cattails were so tall, we could only see the van seat from the house. It looked as if they were happily flying along through the slough. (Brandon has been talking about making some sort of thing that can fly.)
I've learned to never underestimate the ability of young men to find a way to make things better, stronger, more efficient, or more comfortable! :)

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Housman Farms in the News

A few weeks ago one of our customers graciously forwarded our weekly email about "Friday on the Farm" to a reporter over at the local newspaper -- the Enterprise Dispatch. So Kristen Miller came out and got the farm tour and interviewed us for the paper. We are grateful for the free advertising, and expect that this Friday is going to be a busy one. To read the article, click here.
So for those of you who are new to the farm....Welcome! We look forward to meeting you!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Labor and Rewards!

Today we set out to conquer the garden.....well, at least some of it! The green beans are finally coming steadily, and so are the cucumbers. While Bran, Em, and I picked, Ben and Jonny ran after cabbage moths with their butterfly nets, eliminating them. They worked very hard, had too much fun :), but were quite successful! After spending an hour or so picking beans, cucumbers, peas, lettuce, carrots, cabbage, and peppers, we headed for the house to start processing. Brandon and Jonny washed and chopped all the carrots. Then Emily blanched them. We put 17 quarts of carrots in the freezer (about 1/3 of our goal for the year), and hardly made a dent in our carrot bed! Benjamin cut up the peppers, and we put those in the freezer. I cut up the cabbage, and got 3 gallons of sauerkraut started. Yum! When I am finished with this post, I am hoping to make some pickles, and tomorrow the peas and beans will get blanched. Whew!


For dinner we had our fresh lettuce, along with some of last years potatoes, and last but not least, one of Brandon's delicious turkey breasts. Sweet (or should I say savory) rewards! :)





Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Potatoes


Here I am washing potatoes in my outdoor sink. I found the sink at a garage sale (for $5.00), and Brandon built this really nice cart for it. It is wonderful for washing garden produce.
I am still working on using up all our potatoes from last year. They store so well in the root cellar.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Goat Gym

Here are some pictures of Ben and Jonny playing with the goats. As you can see, they built them a nice gymnasium! :)

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Blanching, Blanching, and MORE Blanching!

We like to put some of our garden produce in the freezer, and that requires blanching. Emily has become the "blanching queen" at our house. A couple years ago I taught her how to do it, and it was one of the best things I ever did. :)





In these pictures she is blanching broccoli, shell peas, snap peas, spinach, and beet greens. Yum!