We have three family-friendly events going on during October; Harvest Kick Off festival, Children's Day and Sheep Shearing Day.

The Harvest Kick Off festival features a rooster crowing contest on Saturday, Oct. 6, 10 a.m. and Sunday, October 7, at 1 p.m. We will also have homemade ice cream, the Farm Challenge scavenger hunt, vendors and picnic area available all day. You can download coupons and find out more information by clicking here.

On Children's Day, Monday, October 8, (Columbus Day), we will be celebrating National Children's Day with lamb races, feeding the 16 bottle calves, gathering eggs and harvesting corn the old fashion way. Click here to learn more.
Visiting the cows during Children's Day.

Annual Sheep Shearing Day is Saturday, October 13. We will be shearing the entire flock, skirting wool, washing out the lanolin, carding with the drum carder and felting a craft.
Click here for more information.


Children help pack the wool into a gunnysack for sending to the wool mill.

Farm activities for kids, crafts, and homemade ice cream are a few highlights at this year's Harvest Kick Off. Harvest Kick Off is held in conjunction with Spoon River Drive, and provides local craft and food vendors as well as a picnic area in the orchard and the Farm Challenge children's activity.
Harvest Kick Off is Oct. 1-2 from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.


Hula hooping with homemade hula hoops.


Checking out the double-scented soy candles.

We are contemplating what to do with our many bags of wool that are filling up the garage. Our sheep produce an average of 13 pounds of wool a year, which takes a lot of space. While the Benefits and Uses of Wool are many, the price for raw wool at the mill is around 75 cents per pound. This is not a number that makes me want to run to the mill. So, instead we are using our wool to make fire retardant comforters. The great thing or things, about wool, is that it is naturally flame resistant, doesn't harbor allergy-causing bacteria and it insulates against warm and cool temperatures. Basically, if there is ever a wildfire roaring through Peoria, go to the garage. If you're having a rough time with allergies, go to the garage. If you are overheating or freezing, go to the garage. If you want to learn more about it's resilience to static, wrinkling, odor and breaking, read Wool Uses and Benefits.

Here are a few interesting facts from Sheep USA.

• England's Empire of Wool – 1509-47 – caused King Henry VIII to take flocks of sheep from monasteries and give them to his friends. The unemployed shepherds were then unable to pay their bills and sent to prison. The unfair actions during the Empire of Wool incited immigration to the New World.
• King George III of England made a law prohibiting wool trade in the colonies. The punishment for trading wool was having your right hand cut off! Whew, I am so glad our judicial system supports keeping limbs!
• "Pop Goes The Weasel" is derived from the popping sound that the reel would make when a yardage of wool was spun.
• One more fact! Did you know sheep with black fleeces can get sun burnt? Notice the brown on the edges of this black lambs fleece.

Dairy offers a wide variety of nutrient rich products made from one of nature’s most perfect foods – milk. Milk is a complete food, providing all the needed nutrients for the baby mammal. Milk is high in calcium, protein, minerals and vitamins.

1.  Health Benefits of Milk

Drink milk and replenish your energy stores. One serving of milk contains the same amount of potassium as one banana. Potassium helps lower blood pressure and prevents muscle cramping and cardiovascular irregularity. Intense physical exercise can result in an adequate loss of potassium. Now nutritionists are recommending milk over sports drinks for athletes. According to a study by Colorado State Extension, one serving of milk can replenish the amount of potassium lost in 2 hours of exercise.

2. Health Benefits of Cheese

 Order extra cheese on your pizza and please both your taste buds and your waistline. Cheese is a great source for calcium and other nutrients. Calcium increases weight loss by breaking down body fat, specifically in around the waist.

3. Health Benefits of Yogurt

A fruit and yogurt parfait a day keeps the doctor away. Yogurt contains live bacteria, known as Probiotics. Probiotics help your body fight bad bacteria, fungi and viruses. One serving a day of yogurt can produce enough interferon in your body to prevent you from getting that awful winter flu.

4. Health Benefits of Ice Cream

I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream! And why do we scream for more Ice Cream? Because we want strong bones, strong teeth and a skinny waistline. One cup of ice cream is overflowing with 200 mg of calcium. Adult bodies demand an average of 1,200 mg of calcium a day, while children’s bodies need between 500 – 1,300 mg of calcium. Calcium is the queen of a plethora of health benefits, and what better way to consume it then by eating a bowl of ice cream.

5. Health Benefits of Butter

Jumpstart your morning with some buttered toast. Butter is rich in vitamin A, an essential for human health. Vitamin A helps growth, reproduction, bone density and the immune system. Moreover, 100 grams of butter supplies 895 grams of vitamin A. That is much more than you would get from margarine or just eating plain toast for breakfast.

 Chinese Scientists have successfully modified cows to produce human milk!

That means that one dairy cow can produce 85 pounds of milk, divide that by 8 (approx. 8 lbs per gallon) equals
almost 11 gallons of human breast milk per day. And according to Dairy Agenda, there are 200 cows successfully producing human milk. Of course, who knows if the genetic modification has hindered the productivity of the cows. They could very well be producing less milk. Perhaps this is the new alternative to feeding formula to newborns?

Professor Ning Li, the scientist who led the research and the director of the State Key Laboratory for AgroBiotechnology at the China Agricultural University, insisted that the genetically modified milk would be as safe to drink as milk from ordinary cows.

--Sydney Morning Herald

''The milk tastes stronger than normal milk,'' he said. ''Within 10 years, people will be able to pick up these products at the supermarket.''

Wow, what an amazing breakthrough! Although, as amazing as this is, I feel quite bewildered by the thought.

Here is the link to the complete article about Cows Producing Human Milk.

Radiation has been found in milk off the west coast, according to ABC News. Nonetheless, the radiation in the milk is 4,000 times less than the amount found in a banana’s radiation potassium…Hmm, and I just had a banana for breakfast.

"Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a minuscule amount compared to what people experience every day," FDA senior scientist Patricia Hansen said in a statement.

I honestly did not know there was so much radiation. So, what effect would a greater increase in milk radiation have on the cows? Aside from maybe growing extra tails.

Will their bodies react more since they don’t eat bananas and therefore are not used to radiation?

Like Patricia Hansen said, radiation is all around us. That means the grass will probably be fine, the cows will be fine and the milk will be fine and we can keep ordering extra cheese on our pizzas and drinking chocolate milk. And luckily for me, I can still have my banana for breakfast every morning.

 

Merry Christmas to everyone! An inch of snow fell over the weekend and right now – it is morning – the snow-covered ground is glowing beautifully outside!

We always say that life slows down during the winter season, but actually it just replaces itself and uses the same amount of energy to accomplish the same amount of work, only in different forms. Needless to say, this slight change in seasonal work helps us stay motivated and gives us deadlines to work by.

The weather and time of year do not only affect us, but also the animals. For example, right now our chickens are on strike – in a molt. This is their second molt – losing old feathers and growing new ones – this year, which means they are not laying an egg every day but once a week at the most.

Our chickens usually molt during the summer and then again in the fall. Right now they are slowly making a comeback.

Here is a picture of them this summer, notice how some of them have bald spots.

We keep them inside their hen house until late afternoon when they are done laying eggs and then let them out into the barnyard. Inside the hen house are nest boxes for them to lay eggs in. If we let them out earlier in the day, they either hide their eggs in self-made nests that are very well hidden, or randomly leave an egg wherever they are at the moment – driveway, horse pen etc.

We are very fortunate to have plenty of fresh eggs, as they are a complete food. This means, the egg which is the sole food for the little chick incorporates the needed protein, minerals and vitamins that our bodies  – and the little chick’s – need for growing and replenishing nutrients.

With that said, I am now going to indulge in an energy-boosting, muscle-building, vitamin fulfilling breakfast of eggs, toast and milk. Bring on the Day!

One of my favorite summer memories happened the last June and July before I left home for college. This memory is shared only between my parents, me and every ice cream shop in the Tri-County area.

It all began with a challenging list of 19 ice cream shops written on the back of an envelope. Thus, the Tri-County Ice Cream Tour was born. You’ve probably never heard of it because I made it up...The title that is.

The goal was for my parents and me to make my last summer at home incredibly delicious by trying ice cream at every privately owned ice cream parlor in the Tri-County area. I got the idea from Old Chicago’s World Beer Tour.

Convincing my parents to sponsor us –mom, dad and I – wasn’t that easy…But not that hard either – we all love ice cream. So after approximately eight hot summer weeks, 11 ice cream parlors and a generous donation by my parents, we completed part of the Tri-County Ice Cream Tour. While we indulged in a fair amount of cold creamy sweetness that summer, we also acquired an adequate amount of knowledge:

1. The best turtle sundae is at the little ice cream shop in Princeville
2. Eating ice cream is totally guilt free if you can cross it off your To Do List
3. Ice Cream tastes best when you are super hot, super tired and someone else is buying
4. Even though each shop had gazillions of adventurous flavors, we always ordered the same flavor
5. We were unaware before our commitment how many ice cream parlors there were in the area
6. We developed an interest and strong seriousness for the topic of ice cream ––– something we continue to converse about to this day
7. You can never…We will never get tired of eating ice cream
8. Ice Cream is a great way to bond with your family, even if 90 percent of the time is spent eating and the other 10 percent is wiping your mouth and hands
9. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we just might do it again
10. It's best to visit ice cream shops in groups with people who don't mind sharing

Even though we probably gained a few unneeded pounds from this delightfully fun summer challenge, we also created a wonderful memory.

This month – June – is National Dairy Month, which began as a marketing promotion before WWII for grocers to sell the surplus of milk that was produced by dairy cows during their peak month of milking – June.

The dairy promotion has gone by several different names but has always had the same goal – promote milk. So if you are wondering how you can keep this long tradition alive, simply enjoy dairy products by eating more of them.

You can also attend our Sunday Sundae on June 27 for a tour of the dairy facility and an ice cream sundae social.

And if you are wondering how to justify a super big bowl of ice cream or an extra glass of milk, keep this mind:

Three glasses of milk have the same amount of calcium as 21 cups of broccoli

Bring on the milk!