.jpg)
Where did December go? Or 2011, for that matter. Even though the days seem to fly by, this is down time of the farm. We're down to a few pigs, laying hens and cattle. The days are much shorter so Kurt's in the house pretty early in the evening and we all get to hang out together more. It's also a time of year to work on those projects that get shoved aside during the busier, longer days. For me that means some deep cleaning and crafting - this is the winter the basement storage room is beat into submission and Anna gets a baby book. For Kurt, it means construction begins on corrals here at the house. I swear he has gone through reams of paper, sketching plans and figuring costs. Kurt teases me about my need to plan but I've seen the time and energy he's put into these corrals.
Extra time means more time for food preparation and savoring our meals. We have eaten well this holiday season. Earlier in the month we enjoyed a rib roast, my favorite cut EVER, at the Dale Family Farms Christmas Party. I had a friend ask about this: "Oh, I didn't realize you had a company Christmas party now." Sheepishly, I had to admit we didn't have a "real" party - it was just a semi-formal meal for the 5 of us where we spent a little time reflecting on the year. For clarity's sake, semi-formal at our house means everyone under 10 had all their clothes on for the entire meal. For dinner Christmas evening, we enjoyed a pork tenderloin. Oh my! My new favorite cut of pork!
Another highlight of the Christmas season for us was Santa Claus Day. For those of you residing in less rural areas, Santa Claus Day is where Santa comes to town, usually on the back of a fire truck - no malls out here for kids to go see Santa. There are also sack and 3-legged races for the kids. Everyone under 12 gets a bag of treats with a piece of fruit, peanuts and candy. Another highlight is that Santa Claus Day almost always includes a few carnival rides from Dodge - the "infamous" tubs and a carousel. Kurt remembers back in the day, there used to even be a greased pig contest. Good times! Even though the day was chilly, our girls had a grand time racing around town. Kurt was in charge for several hours while I spent time cozy inside working a booth at the bazaar. We finished up the day with a bowl of soup and a piece of pie.
December has also been good to us in the moisture department. We're no longer exceptionally dry but are now only extremely dry . . . . go figure. We could always use more moisture but the rains we've had since October have been great for the winter wheat, one of our staple forages in the winter. Kurt's much more optimistic about grazing possibilities this spring. However, he continues to remind me that we must be mindful of our native pastures which will take several years to recover. I have vowed to not complain about the mud and am working hard to be thankful every time I sweep up a mess.
I have been busy restocking my soap supplies. I still have several bars of Lavender, Rosemary Mint, and Honey Oatmeal. I've also played with making 1 ounce sampler bars. Over the holidays, I ordered a few new scents: Vanilla Select (a more true vanilla than the Tahitian Vanilla), Dutch Clover, Green English Tweed, Ocean Rain and Bay Rum. A few are more masculine. I intend to have these made and cured by the end of January. I'll also be making another batch of shampoo bars and trying my hand at a shaving soap for Kurt.
By the end of the month, we also expect to have our on-line store up and running. It will be linked to our website and we will offer our soaps, jerky, beef sticks and summer sausage for purchase on-line. We are more than willing to ship these nonperishable items. Frozen meats though will continue to be delivered or picked up on the farm. We've explored shipping our frozen products but it cost prohibitive and moves us away from our ideal of knowing your farmer.
I'd like to remind you that we are equipped to receive payments using PayPal. If this option is more convenient for you, let me know when you place your order. I can email your invoice along with the payment link. There will be a 3% service charger for this service to cover the PayPal transaction fee.
As I write, I'm pretty sure my mom is at home resting after a week of the Dales. Not only did my mom come for a short visit at Christmas, she also took each of the girls for 1-2 nights for special grandma time.
The Christmas season is coming to a close for many of you. At our house though, Christmas-time signals the beginning of the birthday season. Natalie is 7 today (12/30) and the other two will both have birthday s in the next 3 weeks. By this time next month, we will have 11, 7, and 4-year-old girls. All three are very excited about being another year older, although some are a little more cool about it than others.
How do you spend time with your significant other? Here on the farm, we load up and go visiting - not neighbors or family but livestock. Two weeks before Christmas, Kurt and I took a little day trip to check on our cow herd which is wintering in Chase County. It was a tough decision to move them off the farm but it's much more economical to move the cows than hauling in hay. We spent close to an hour with the herd and the ladies are being well cared for. Kurt spent time checking out each cow and watching her walk. Apparently you can tell a lot about a cow's overall health from watching the way she moves. He was pleased with their overall condition and looks forward to bringing them home in a few months. Here's a bit of trivia for you. Know how to check to see if a cow is getting enough protein in her diet? Test the pH of her urine - bet you didn't see that one coming. In case you're wondering how one does that, in case you ever need to perform this feat yourself. You must wait for the cow to pee and then test the wet grass in the area with a pH strip. Waiting for a cow to pee while sitting out in the cold is an awful lot like waiting for a toddler/preschooler when they're potty training - only you can't bribe the cow with M-n-M's. We had to do this not once but 3 times to get a good sample! Twenty years ago I NEVER would have guessed this would become an activity that wouldn't even cause me to raise an eyebrow.
I'm on the road again next week. This time to bring home pork (more bacon!!), jerky and summer sausage - just in time for your Super Bowl parties. I'll be through Greensburg, Pratt, McPherson and Lindsborg if you'd like to place an order. We'll also be in Wichita and Dodge later this month - I'll send out separate emails for those trips.
A few more informational items:
*We have a few pre-cut quarters still available. Holler if you're interested. Once these are gone, we won't have quarters, halves, wholes until late April. We do still have plenty of cuts in stock.
*Kurt will be taking the last of our hogs to the processor the beginning of February. We still have some halves available. Let me know ASAP if you are interested.
Family updates:
Anna: This almost 4-year-old had a big, big first this month. She stayed with my mom all by herself - no momma, no sisters and no hiding under a blanket! She had a great time and cried on the way home because Grandma wasn't coming with us.
Natalie: Between Christmas and her birthday, Natalie is an artistic, crafting fool. She's been making jewelry, drawing, scrapbooking and loving it all!
Allison: Basketball season started this week and Allison's been shooting baskets and watching college ball on TV. She was out the door this morning to shoot baskets but I think that was as much about escaping her sisters as it was shooting baskets. She's also enjoyed testing and refining the homemade zip line. Kurt and I gave the girls for Christmas. By next month, I should be able to describe the finished project. Hopefully, my storytelling will NOT involve any ER trips!
Kurt has been enjoying some extra time with family - both here at the house and by taking helpers on errands with him. He's also trying to figure out where/how to install the fire pit I surprised him with for Christmas. Those that make it out to the Customer Appreciation Dinner in 2012 will get to enjoy it with us. I also think he's been reading up on how to do some cowboy cooking.
Me: I'm sure I could give you a laundry list of what I've been up to but that wouldn't be very interesting and I don't have any great stories to tell on myself. Unless you want to hear about the bear in out front yard. Christmas afternoon I had the house to myself. I looked out the front door and saw the hind end of some animal being chased by the dog. The hide was a dark red and all I could think of was BEAR! BEAR? It's at this point, I need to insert how our oldest was up at 11:30 pm Christmas Eve ready to open gifts. She went back to sleep and everyone was up between 4 and 4:30. Soooo . . . .I was just a bit sleep deprived and had NOT had too much egg nog as someone else suggested. After just a moment, I realized it was a pig in the front yard. Thankfully, it put itself back inside the fence and we didn't have a pig rodeo that afternoon.
I do also have to tell you that I have discovered a new favorite TV show. Kurt and I really don't watch much TV - mostly news and sports. Not much seems worth our time now that "24" is off the air but this show makes me laugh out loud repeatedly during a half hour episode. I mean where else can you hear lines like "I feel like an inverse tangent function approaching an asymptote." And yes, I do realize that by sharing this sentiment, I have revealed what a colossal math nerd I can be.
One more story for the month and I'll call it a night. This holiday season we've played a lot of cards - mostly Crazy Eights, Slap Jack and a new one, I Doubt It (aka, Liar, Liar or BS). I'm anxious to start playing Hearts or Pitch but we've got to start somewhere. Anna's done a great job BUT let me tell you playing with an almost 4-year-old adds an entirely new dimension to card playing - especially when she's on your team and likes to share with everyone what's in your hand. OR draws so many cards she can't hold them so she lays them out on the table. Then yells at you for looking at her cards. The best one though is how she plays Slap Jack. Anna loves the jacks but is a little fuzzy on the rest of the rules. She has to slap the jacks and keep them for herself. She'll let you have the rest of the cards as long as she can keep the jacks in her pile. Her sisters struggle with this - do they make her play "right" or keep all the cards for themselves and duke it out at the end.
May your new year be filled with love and laughter.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
November 30, 2011
It sounds a bit cliche', but our November was full of turkeys. Everyone of them found a table for the holiday, though. Well, except for a few who may have escaped and joined the wild turkey flock roaming the countryside. We're not sure if the very white turkeys running with the wild ones belong to us or a neighbor. Kurt figures if they are tough enough to run with the big boys, he's not going to try and re-domesticate them. Honestly, I don't see them surviving much longer. White tends to stand out on a very dead, brown landscape. Almost like they are advertising a free turkey dinner to all the predators in the neighborhood.
I was surprised by the number of turkey inquiries I received less than 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. The earlier you reserve your turkey, the more likely you are to get one for Thanksgiving.
The longer we raise turkeys, the smarter we seem to get. You might say our turkey IQ that first year was somewhere around 60-65. Three years later, we've learned to keep the turkeys off the porch at night and how to scald them without displacing all the water in the scald tank. If I had to self-assess, I'd say our turkey IQ might be nearing 100. . . . there's still so much to figure out.
Watched the weather this morning and Comanche County is sill exceptional. Go us! Oh wait, the weather people meant we're still suffering from exceptional drought. Thankfully, we've received 2.5-3 inches since our customer appreciation dinner but it's still dry and it will take a few years for the grass to fully recover from the stress of this summer. The winter wheat and cool season grasses are growing slowly and it's nice to see a little green. I've made Kurt promise that he won't complain in a month or two if we end up with record snowfall.
We were overwhelmed by the response to our summer sausage - it flew off the shelves! It will be back in stock by the end of the year - just in time for college bowl games and your Super Bowl parties. These ship nicely if you're interested. Also perfect for football entertaining; our all beef brats and beer brats. For those who are a little braver, we also offer a hot link - Kurt tells me they're addictive. I wouldn't know. My first bite produced tears! Or. . . I have some beautiful slabs of ribs if you want to go all out in your entertaining.
A couple of months ago, I officially took over our website. My mom created our site several years ago and updated it as needed. We decided it was time for me to take over and she assured me that it wasn't much different than Microsoft Publisher, a program I always seem to struggle with. I've dinked a little with easy changes. While Mom was here over Thanksgiving, we sat down and went over how to move and add items. Guess what? It's all coordinate graphs - MATH, something I understand! I'm all over this now! If you get a chance in the next month, check the site out. We'll be changing some family pics as well as adding directions to the farm, etc.
I was humbled when after placing an order for gift certificates, a customer wrote "So tired of buying gifts that really, probably don't matter, but I KNOW this one will be much appreciated and used."
Besides gift certificates (for any amount), DFF has several other gift ideas that matter:
*Soap - I have Wake-Up Rosemary, Lavender and Honey Oatmeal in stock. So excited! Before Christmas, I should have Fresh Linen, Vanilla and Unscented in stock as well. Maybe if I get brave enough, I'll share a picture of me in my soap-making gear. It's not quite as scary as the picture I put up on Facebook of me bundled up to do turkeys!
*Samplers - We offer a Grilling Sampler, Country Comfort Sampler, Steak Sampler and the Best of the Farm. Check out our price page to see what all these include.
*Beef Quarters - Kurt and I had a few quarters processed and stored last month - a great family gift!
*Beef sticks and beef jerky are great stocking stuffers!
I'm about to make the people at Krehbiel's chuckle again. I'm going to make Kurt ask for the tallow off the beef he's taking up next week. I know you're thinking, "Andi, what will you do with that tallow?" I'm going to give container candles a shot, of course! I have no desire to go into full-time candle production and will leave scenting them to the professionals but I am curious to see what we can do with our animal byproducts.
Looking for that perfect holiday meal? We have a variety of steaks in stock; sirloin, t-bone, ribeyes, and my favorite, fillets. We also have several lovely pork tenderloins. Or, if you're feeding a larger crowd, we have chicken or beef bones for stock or stew meat - all perfect for great soups!
Kurt will be taking hogs to McPherson next week. Please let me know SOON if you'd like to reserve a half or whole hog. We have just a few left.
I will be through Wichita, Pratt and Greensburg on December 22nd and Dodge on the 12th and 20th if you'd like to place an order for the holidays.
Family updates:
We enjoyed Thanksgiving at home and it was nice to just take it easy after the busyness of turkey wrangling. My mom was able to come for a longer visit and the girls took turns competing for her attention. I can't count the number of times I heard, "Grandma, watch this!" Numerous rounds of Cray Eights and Slap Jack were played and Anna is turning into quite a competitor. However, I don't think she fully understands that the objective of Slap Jack is to get all the cards. When she would slap the jack, she would keep the jack and let her opponent take the rest of the cards in the pile. Oh, and she gets really mad if you happen to slap one of her jacks! Her sisters struggled with deciding if they wanted to enforce the rules with their 3-year-old sister or have fun. Fun usually won out - usually.
The other highlight of our vacation was a trip to the movies. First, it needs to be said we've NEVER been to the movies as a family outside of the county. This was a big, big deal. So, what, you might ask, was worthy of a trip? "The Muppets," of course! If you have any good memories of the Muppets as a child, GO SEE THIS ONE! We all laughed out loud. I must confess Anna covered her ears a few times and claimed I was laughing too loud. Good, clean, family fun. The only downer of the night was that Anna left Cow in the theater. The manager was amazing though. We couldn't go back and look for Cow because the next showing had already started. I did get a phone call after we got home and the manager let me know Cow had been found and would be placed in the mail on Monday morning. Anna's sisters were very empathetic and were generous enough to share their favorite stuffed animals with her while we awaited Cow's return. The celebration was grand when Cow showed up in a box Wednesday morning. Cow and Anna danced and danced.
Allison was great help at the Coldwater Bazaar and she'll get to go again next year. To be honest, I took Allison mostly for back-up - another body to man the table if I needed a bathroom break. She really stepped up though. She helped unload the car, set our table up, made sure displays stayed well-stocked and even made a few sales when I did have to take a break. So proud of her!
Poor Miss Natalie has been a sickie some this month. Actually, everyone in the house has had the stomach bug that's going around - except me!! Natalie was the only one to get sent home from school though. Poor kid was pretty green when I picked her up. She and Anna were both troopers the day even though they were both sick. It helped that we set up an infirmary in the living room - complete with mattresses and TV. Went they weren't getting sick, they thought they were really living the life! In fact, I think the matresses (and TV) stayed out there for 3 days!
Thankfully, Kurt didn't get hit (again) with the flu and the girls were better after Nat and Anna were sick. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to enjoy his early Christmas gift - a trip to Olathe to see his brothers and a Chiefs game. Unfortunately, it was one of the games the Chiefs forgot to show up at. Natalie spent a good part of the game scanning the crowd for her daddy. I assured her it was a good thing Dad didn't make an appearance on TV.
My November has been full of turkeys, soap and prayer although not necessarily in that order. My soap was such a hit at the Coldwater Bazaar that I've been scrambling to make more for Christmas orders and gifts - the soap takes 2-3 weeks to cure so I gotta get on that one! Turkeys - I got to help dress and package turkeys 4-5 days this month. The work doesn't stop there though. It's my job to arrange transportation, etc for all of them. And prayer - there's been regular family and personal prayers but we have also started a Moms in Touch group that I'm so excited about. Several moms and myself spend time each week praying for our kids, their teachers and the schools.
In the busyness of this holiday season, may you find the peace that only the Prince of Peace can offer,
Andi
I was surprised by the number of turkey inquiries I received less than 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. The earlier you reserve your turkey, the more likely you are to get one for Thanksgiving.
The longer we raise turkeys, the smarter we seem to get. You might say our turkey IQ that first year was somewhere around 60-65. Three years later, we've learned to keep the turkeys off the porch at night and how to scald them without displacing all the water in the scald tank. If I had to self-assess, I'd say our turkey IQ might be nearing 100. . . . there's still so much to figure out.
Watched the weather this morning and Comanche County is sill exceptional. Go us! Oh wait, the weather people meant we're still suffering from exceptional drought. Thankfully, we've received 2.5-3 inches since our customer appreciation dinner but it's still dry and it will take a few years for the grass to fully recover from the stress of this summer. The winter wheat and cool season grasses are growing slowly and it's nice to see a little green. I've made Kurt promise that he won't complain in a month or two if we end up with record snowfall.
We were overwhelmed by the response to our summer sausage - it flew off the shelves! It will be back in stock by the end of the year - just in time for college bowl games and your Super Bowl parties. These ship nicely if you're interested. Also perfect for football entertaining; our all beef brats and beer brats. For those who are a little braver, we also offer a hot link - Kurt tells me they're addictive. I wouldn't know. My first bite produced tears! Or. . . I have some beautiful slabs of ribs if you want to go all out in your entertaining.
A couple of months ago, I officially took over our website. My mom created our site several years ago and updated it as needed. We decided it was time for me to take over and she assured me that it wasn't much different than Microsoft Publisher, a program I always seem to struggle with. I've dinked a little with easy changes. While Mom was here over Thanksgiving, we sat down and went over how to move and add items. Guess what? It's all coordinate graphs - MATH, something I understand! I'm all over this now! If you get a chance in the next month, check the site out. We'll be changing some family pics as well as adding directions to the farm, etc.
I was humbled when after placing an order for gift certificates, a customer wrote "So tired of buying gifts that really, probably don't matter, but I KNOW this one will be much appreciated and used."
Besides gift certificates (for any amount), DFF has several other gift ideas that matter:
*Soap - I have Wake-Up Rosemary, Lavender and Honey Oatmeal in stock. So excited! Before Christmas, I should have Fresh Linen, Vanilla and Unscented in stock as well. Maybe if I get brave enough, I'll share a picture of me in my soap-making gear. It's not quite as scary as the picture I put up on Facebook of me bundled up to do turkeys!
*Samplers - We offer a Grilling Sampler, Country Comfort Sampler, Steak Sampler and the Best of the Farm. Check out our price page to see what all these include.
*Beef Quarters - Kurt and I had a few quarters processed and stored last month - a great family gift!
*Beef sticks and beef jerky are great stocking stuffers!
I'm about to make the people at Krehbiel's chuckle again. I'm going to make Kurt ask for the tallow off the beef he's taking up next week. I know you're thinking, "Andi, what will you do with that tallow?" I'm going to give container candles a shot, of course! I have no desire to go into full-time candle production and will leave scenting them to the professionals but I am curious to see what we can do with our animal byproducts.
Looking for that perfect holiday meal? We have a variety of steaks in stock; sirloin, t-bone, ribeyes, and my favorite, fillets. We also have several lovely pork tenderloins. Or, if you're feeding a larger crowd, we have chicken or beef bones for stock or stew meat - all perfect for great soups!
Kurt will be taking hogs to McPherson next week. Please let me know SOON if you'd like to reserve a half or whole hog. We have just a few left.
I will be through Wichita, Pratt and Greensburg on December 22nd and Dodge on the 12th and 20th if you'd like to place an order for the holidays.
Family updates:
We enjoyed Thanksgiving at home and it was nice to just take it easy after the busyness of turkey wrangling. My mom was able to come for a longer visit and the girls took turns competing for her attention. I can't count the number of times I heard, "Grandma, watch this!" Numerous rounds of Cray Eights and Slap Jack were played and Anna is turning into quite a competitor. However, I don't think she fully understands that the objective of Slap Jack is to get all the cards. When she would slap the jack, she would keep the jack and let her opponent take the rest of the cards in the pile. Oh, and she gets really mad if you happen to slap one of her jacks! Her sisters struggled with deciding if they wanted to enforce the rules with their 3-year-old sister or have fun. Fun usually won out - usually.
The other highlight of our vacation was a trip to the movies. First, it needs to be said we've NEVER been to the movies as a family outside of the county. This was a big, big deal. So, what, you might ask, was worthy of a trip? "The Muppets," of course! If you have any good memories of the Muppets as a child, GO SEE THIS ONE! We all laughed out loud. I must confess Anna covered her ears a few times and claimed I was laughing too loud. Good, clean, family fun. The only downer of the night was that Anna left Cow in the theater. The manager was amazing though. We couldn't go back and look for Cow because the next showing had already started. I did get a phone call after we got home and the manager let me know Cow had been found and would be placed in the mail on Monday morning. Anna's sisters were very empathetic and were generous enough to share their favorite stuffed animals with her while we awaited Cow's return. The celebration was grand when Cow showed up in a box Wednesday morning. Cow and Anna danced and danced.
Allison was great help at the Coldwater Bazaar and she'll get to go again next year. To be honest, I took Allison mostly for back-up - another body to man the table if I needed a bathroom break. She really stepped up though. She helped unload the car, set our table up, made sure displays stayed well-stocked and even made a few sales when I did have to take a break. So proud of her!
Poor Miss Natalie has been a sickie some this month. Actually, everyone in the house has had the stomach bug that's going around - except me!! Natalie was the only one to get sent home from school though. Poor kid was pretty green when I picked her up. She and Anna were both troopers the day even though they were both sick. It helped that we set up an infirmary in the living room - complete with mattresses and TV. Went they weren't getting sick, they thought they were really living the life! In fact, I think the matresses (and TV) stayed out there for 3 days!
Thankfully, Kurt didn't get hit (again) with the flu and the girls were better after Nat and Anna were sick. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to enjoy his early Christmas gift - a trip to Olathe to see his brothers and a Chiefs game. Unfortunately, it was one of the games the Chiefs forgot to show up at. Natalie spent a good part of the game scanning the crowd for her daddy. I assured her it was a good thing Dad didn't make an appearance on TV.
My November has been full of turkeys, soap and prayer although not necessarily in that order. My soap was such a hit at the Coldwater Bazaar that I've been scrambling to make more for Christmas orders and gifts - the soap takes 2-3 weeks to cure so I gotta get on that one! Turkeys - I got to help dress and package turkeys 4-5 days this month. The work doesn't stop there though. It's my job to arrange transportation, etc for all of them. And prayer - there's been regular family and personal prayers but we have also started a Moms in Touch group that I'm so excited about. Several moms and myself spend time each week praying for our kids, their teachers and the schools.
In the busyness of this holiday season, may you find the peace that only the Prince of Peace can offer,
Andi
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)