Are You Too Stubborn to Fail?

I'm not much of a gambler but I always bet on us. A few months ago I was chatting with Dave at lunch about a homesteading IG reel. The gist was the homesteaders said there wasn't anything special about them, they just got started and one thing lead to the next and now they're self-sufficient. I mentioned that was how I thought of us. Just ordinary people that started slow and just expanded little by little. We're nothing special. Dave disagreed and said "well, I think you're wrong. We are the most stubborn people you'll ever meet and we refuse to quit. I think that's pretty special." He was right (don't tell him I said that...I'm on a 14 year streak of never being wrong 😉). My competitive spirit and our stubbornness has translated to resilient homesteading. We won't fail (at least not for long) because that means we won't have food and we would have to rely on others to meet our needs. I've personally had a week packed to the brim of too stubborn to quit. We got ourselves one spunky pony and I'm going to be digging deep for some resilience...and patience.

Horsin' Around...

Sparky, Sparky, Sparky. Chelsea's sweet, kind, loving, pony is a bit... naughty 😬 He and I have started to establish some level of respect but he is pushing the limits with Chels. We had very important conversations with our trainer before buying him. She was clear...if you want an easy pony, get a 25 year old, half-dead one. If you want a step-up horse that you'll have for a long time, get Sparky. I don't like most horses but I've fallen in love with this pony; however, I've got a lot to learn and Chelsea has a lot of growing to do. He's got tons of energy (think 900 lb new puppy) and he needs to be worked. He's going to do whatever he wants if we let him. It's customary to let a new horse settle in for a few days before you try to ride them. He arrived last Wednesday evening at the barn and we gave him until Monday to get in a routine. Chelsea spent that time grooming, feeding, and caring for him.

He stood patiently while I fumbled around with his halter and my awkward attempts trying on bridles for correct fit. Chelsea was able to clean his feet without much trouble by herself. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of trying to ride him fresh out of the stall first thing in the morning and he was a handful. After deciding he didn't need to listen to Chelsea whatsoever, we took a big step back and did some lead work instead to help establish some control. The next morning I woke up to a text with this...

I don't know what happened. I've spent a good bit of time with this pony and he doesn't seem like a "kick the door down" kinda guy but I can't say he didn't. It's possible he could have been scratching himself (which I've seen him do and is common with the breed) and the door broke because surprisingly he just stood nicely in his stall waiting for his morning feeding. Between that incident and his energy level, he is now on pasture board for a while. I'm also now paying someone to ride the energy out of him for a week so we can handle him easier. Part of the learning plan is for me to lope by the end of summer...so my next investments are a helmet and pony training bit. I'm too stubborn to let this pony go and with the help of our trainer (who deserves an award for dealing me this last week), she thinks the upfront challenges will be rewarded long term. We aren't afraid of hard work and Sparky is definitely going to make us work for it. It's a whole new world and I'm taking the crash course.

What's Growin' On?

Our gardens have taken some real punishment this past month. We've had the wettest spring since 1870 and if you've been following my previous posts you know about the hail drama. Remember my dried out potato starters I was worried about? I would say about 70% resulted in growth. I kept back a few whole potatoes from last season just in case and we are going to re-plant in the selective areas that didn't take. Overall, I can't complain because our seed potatoes were pretty shriveled up.

The broccoli and cabbage I started from seed got pretty spindly this year and I wasn't sure how transplanting would go but it has taken off quite nicely too. My elevated garden bed is a...mess. I shouldn't have bothered to sprout tomatoes or peppers indoors this year because last year's plants re-seeded and I have tomatoes and peppers coming out my wazoo. My cucumbers are growing nicely and I have a few carrots, spinach, and a tiny amount of lettuce that survived the storms.

Aside from learning to cowgirl, I need to go deal with my tomato and pepper invasion at some point.

Times a Cluckin

Can you believe our Cornish Cross chickens are 6 weeks old already? Where in the world did the time go??? They have been a beautiful (I mean, they're hideous but super plump so beauty is in the eye of the beholder) healthy, and resilient batch of birds. The last 10 days to butcher is always interesting to me. The amount of food they consume and amount of poop they make is just unbelievable given their size. They are extremely docile until feeding time and then they are ravenous beasts. They literally jump on the feeders before you can put them down and many times there will be birds pinned underneath it! Not gonna lie, it gets a little dicey. These birds are 6-7 lbs pounds each so when 20 are scrambling on top of a feeder it gets heavy fast.

I've worked on a slight of hand trick that seems to help. The best way I've found to lower in the feed troughs is to distract them with one by starting on one side (for me it's the right) of the tractor and slowly swinging it across to the other side (the left) while simultaneously setting down the second feeder on the right. I'm almost a Cornish magician at this point. Dave and I have spirited debates EVERY SINGLE BATCH about when is the right time to butcher. He likes to butcher at 6.5 weeks and I like to push it to 7.5 weeks. What's the difference in a week? With Cornish Cross chickens, it's wildly different. Go too long, they start to die of heart attacks and the meat will get tough. Butcher too young and you'll have tiny little birds with no meat. I like my birds BIG. I feed our entire family of five on 2 (sometimes 3) chicken breasts for dinner. If I have itty bitty birds I can't stretch our food as far. Our current broilers look pretty heavy bodied already but some of the females are on the smaller side so after some back and forth we landed on pushing butcher day to 7.5 weeks (gotta keep my 14 year streak alive 😂).

The next 2 weeks ahead are going to be very busy (Yinz won't bee-lieve what we are preparing for on the farm next) and I'll be sharing all the dirty deets with you! From processing chickens to riding spunky ponies, and everything inbetween...there's never a dull moment on Roberts Family Farm! See yinz next week!