Grape Jelly

Christopher & Paige were oh so kind to give us some grapes.  (If I ever see another laundry basket full of grapes it will be too soon!)  So, I made grape jelly.  I have a niece & nephew who have won great ribbons making grape jelly for 4-H so I thought I must have some of the same genetic talent! 

I decided to photograph and blog about the good, the bad and the broken rules...  

Wash grapes and remove them from the clusters.

Ready to cook before juicing.

I boiled them in a little bit of water until the skins broke open.

I then put them in cheese cloth and squeezed out the juice.  I dislike this step as I usually end up burning my hands.  I juiced another day and used a Sauce Master as shown here:   

I did not cook the grapes first with this.  The only trouble I found with this method was that I got pulp.  So I just ran the "juice" from this through the cheesecloth (over a large bowl) to strain out the pulp.  I used a product SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin to gel it up. 

Cook the juice and SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin on the stove top.  Later adding sugar and cooking some more.  I just follow the recipe in the SURE-JELL package.  Then pour the hot liquid into jars and seal with canning lids and rings.

Here is the breaking rules part....  I cheated and just turned the jars upside down.  It is now 12 hours later and they all sealed.  However, USDA states they should have had a boiling water bath as that is a more safe perservation method.

We have sampled some and it is quite tasty.  We will likely share some as Christmas gifts and much of it we will enjoy ourselves!

Linked to:  Farm Photo Friday,  Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop, Rural Thursday Blog Hop

Yellow wild flowers

One benefit of traveling around for harvest is that I get out on some prairie trails and find new photography subjects.  This week it happens to be flowers.  Our Fotos by Friends group this week is looking for photos with sun or moon light.  I tried to snap a few photos of flowers with the sun shining through them.  I took a few others too as the sun (and the flexibility of my body) don't always cooperate!!

Sunlit Wild Sunflower

Butter-and-eggs  or  Yellow Toadflax

 Prairie Tickseed  or  Stiff Tickseed

Linking to:  Fresh from the Farm Linky Party

Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop

Sunday Stills

Nature Walk

My little photo group on Facebook , Fotos by Friends, had a theme of spiderwebs this week so it was time to go for a walk. (Heaven forbid I take photos of the webs in the house!!)

I found a couple of spiderwebs:

This is in the corner of a grain bin that two of my guys were emptying out,

so it had a bit of grain dust on it to help it show up nicely.

But while looking for other things to "shoot", I noticed some wild sunflowers.  As I got closer I noticed a honey bee on it.  The bonus:  a lacewing!

The bee about has it's Pollen Buckets full.

There are so many titles one could use for this one, but I will let you use your imagination! 

(Perhaps in the Comment section)

Linking to:  Farm Photo Friday

The case of the missing calf ... OR ... How to be dumber than a cow/calf pair

Yesterday was somewhat stressful.  We knew that Paige's cow had calved but could not find the little black (or black white face) calf.  You see, Momma (aka 63W) has been enjoying getting out of her pasture and grazing around the feedlot.  So, it was my job to try to find the calf.  Here is a bit of a pictoral story about my afternoon...

This is 63W.  She is out standing in the field (no pun intended).  So I rode 4 wheeler around that area a bit looking for the calf.  No luck...

The steers in the feedlot sure wondered what I was doing!

Nature's Carpet

I needed to walk through the tree grove to see if this cow had tucked her baby into a hiding place.  While walking I saw moss on trees (it looked like Nature's carpet!).  But no calf...

Lady bug on a branch

I found a lady bug crawling on a branch.  She didn't mind having her photo taken.  (This photo is supposed to "lay down" but it automatically "stood up" when I imported it. *shrug*)  Still no baby 63W.  I had better keep looking....

Here is another escape artist - and friend of 63W.  She does not have a calf yet.  She was in the trees by the feedlot which is not the pasture either.  No calf with her, so I kept looking....

Grass carpet

The grass is greening up.  This is a bit of a problem as the cows are tempted when they see green grass!  No wonder they want out.  They don't have to share with the whole herd if they break out!  Lucky for me, the grass is short.  The calf can't hide in short grass.  Well, I give up.  I can't find this calf.  So, I guess I was out-smarted by a cow/calf pair!!  I will have to look again later.

On my way home, I found this newborn calf (in the pasture where it belonged).  It was just trying to figure out how to stand.  Those legs are quite wobbly. It doesn't help that mom keeps trying to clean (lick off the after-birth) the calf.  When she licks the calf, the calf stumbles.  But, after only a few trys, the calf stablized and made it to his destination - food!!  It is thanks to doing this blog that I took the time to watch and learn this.  I have lived on a farm/ranch all of my life and had never taken the time to watch these first few minutes of life.   Usually when I found a new calf, I would just make sure the cow "mothered" (cleaning & loving) the calf and then I would leave.  I looked at the pair today and they are doing just fine.

Today on my home from town I found the 63W pair together.  YAHH!!  Plus, there were two more cows with them (including the one that is pictured above).  When Brett helped me get them in he snapped a photo of the pair so you can see that all is well.  From this location, we just had to put them through the gate so they could join all of their friends in the pasture (in the background).  I hope they all stay in now!

Linking up to:  Farmgirl Friday & Friday Fences

A busy day at the ranch

We had quite a busy afternoon here today.  We had nearly 20 calves to tag.  I have previously written about that. We need to weigh each of the calves that we will register with the American Hereford Association.  Sometimes we do this in the barn on the scale in there; however, today it was easier to use this portable scale.  We hang it in a tree.  It has a place for the calf and we can read the weight and record it in our calving book. 

The calf only "hangs" there for a few seconds while we get the reading then someone puts him back down and he can run to mom.

Here are some of the pairs that we worked with today.  You can see we have Herefords (red with white face) and black with white face.  There are also some all black ones and a few tan colored calves.

After all of that work, Lori (white) & Pandora(black) enjoyed going for a little swim.  Pandora loves the water.  Lori just wants to be popular!!  They had a muskrat with them for a while but it quickly swam away.  Then, it was back home to do chores for the evening.

Linking to:  Farm Photo Friday and Farmgirl Friday blog hop

What we do after a calf is born - - Part 2

Besides recording the birth in our calving book, we need to take identify the calf.
(You are welcome to click on any photo to see it larger and with better detail.)

First we have to catch the calf.  One person holds the calf and another person does all of the identification work on the animal.

Each purebred calf gets a tattoo in each year.  First Mark applies green liquid tattoo ink to the inside of each ear. See Mom sticking her nose into our business?  Lucky for us this cow was nice.  Sometimes they are crabby and mean to the humans.

One ear gets 'RH' and the other ear gets a number.  The tattoo number matches the number the animal will have in adulthood.  We also tattoo each female (heifer) calf that we might keep to join our herd. 

After he had given the tattoo, he applies a second coat of the tattoo ink.

Every calf gets an ear tag. On this tag is a letter (for the year 2012 the letter is 'Z') and number (# of cow/mom) and sometimes the name of the bull (dad).  We use different color ear tags to represent different owners.  (Sorry it is sideways, I don't know why it loaded this way.)

We also give two vaccination shots at birth. 

If it is a bull calf but we don't intend to sell him that way, we castrate him.  We do this with a rubber castration band.  The steer (castrated bull) will gain weight better than a bull. 

When we are done Mom gets to make sure her baby is just fine.

Shared with:  Farmgirl Friday blog hop , Farm Photo Friday