Innholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2017 i Farm and Ranch Living

I raise rabbit breeds, and one Friday night we had a rabbit go missing from her cage with six 1-week-old kits still in her nest box. I set up a live trap and left the babies in the cage but hadn’t caught her by morning, so I brought the kits inside to hand-feed them. Remi, our border collie/Australian shepherd mix, had puppies just a few days after the kits were born. She accepted the baby rabbits as if they were her own and took over the feeding for me. The mother rabbit never came back, but five of the six kits survived. We still have one, another is now a house pet, and one is a grand champion 4-H show rabbit for a little girl in North Dakota!…

From the seat of his tractor, Greg Schifer can see it all. He and his wife, Verna, own and operate Cornerview Farm, a beautiful 2,100 acres of corn and soybeans in the heart of Ohio. “We strive to grow the best crops possible,” Greg says. “Planting is more than just putting seeds in the ground. Stewardship of the land requires an understanding of soil content, soil condition, weed control and proper planting techniques.” Paul Harvey could have been talking about the Schifers in his famous speech from the national FFA convention in 1978, when he said, “God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God made a farmer.” Greg was just an upstart himself in 1978, but he and Verna have been the primary…

Our big red barn has always been an important part of our family’s life. Over the years, our three children spent many hours building forts in the haymow, playing hide-and-seek, and jumping into piles of hay. Angels were surely guarding our kids, cousins and friends from falling down the hay chutes and injuring themselves. What joy the kids had searching for new kittens hidden by Mama Cat or feeding newborn calves that sucked on their chubby little fingers. The 500-pound steers raised in that barn became pets and were proudly displayed at the county fairs. Our children now lead their own lives, but the cycle continues on the farm. Our five grandchildren are welcomed home to our big red barn to enjoy the same pleasures and adventures. Grampa Bryan proudly…

On a warm, sunny spring day in Bluffton, South Carolina, I pulled on my rubber boots and climbed aboard a boat for a lesson in off-bottom oyster farming. As I rode to the farm with part of the May River Oyster Co. team, I was delighted to spot dolphins, bonnethead sharks and stingrays swimming in the crystal clear water and a lone osprey soaring overhead. When I decided to visit the low-country region, I knew little about oysters except that they taste delicious. I grew up in the landlocked Midwest, surrounded by corn and soybeans, not Spanish moss and Spartina grass. But for my fellow passengers, the co-owners of May River Oyster Co., this pleasurable boat ride was just another day’s work. Brad and Olivia Young have full-time day jobs—she…

Our 1954 Allis-Chalmers WD45 tractor taught me a lot while I was growing up in central Indiana, but the most important lesson might have been that good things require time and patience. I fondly recall sitting on the toolbox on the left fender while my dad patiently paced the orange workhorse back and forth across the field, turning rows of hard ground into rich black soil. Allis, as we called the tractor, taught me that springtime brings special pleasures to farm kids. Feeling the contrast between hot hard-packed soil and the cool, silky earth that was underground just minutes before is a unique privilege that farm kids get to experience. The turned ground was a gift from the slowly turning wheels of our Allis-Chalmers tractor. Even our family dog benefited…

We got the idea to put a basketball hoop in our hayloft after we visited Mennonite family friends of ours one New Year’s Day. There was no television at our friends’ house, but they did have a basketball hoop in the barn that kept everyone entertained. The following Valentine’s Day we bought our first hoop, and put it in the barn. Basketball is a big deal here in Indiana. Before the barn hoop, our children would play using a tiny plastic goal in their bedroom. The kids’ game would shake the whole house as they bounced off the walls. It was a big relief for me when the basketball hoop moved into the barn. The kids, their friends and our family shot hoops in that hayloft through the cold and…

The Best of Both Worlds When my sister sent me a Farm & Ranch Living subscription, I had wondered why. She lives on a dairy farm in South Dakota, but I live in the city. Over the past few months, I’ve enjoyed many of the articles about farm life but none so much as “Our Front Porch” by Kerry Taylor in October/November. It took me back to my childhood, when my parents and my nine siblings used to sit on the porch and do everything from chatting to breaking beans. We lived a mile and a half outside town, and the woods and ponds behind our house were our playgrounds. I was in tears when I got to the end of the story, thinking about all the wonderful times we…

The Bounty of Winter I love the rugged beauty of winter and the culmination of all the work of the other three seasons. The flowers you dried in spring now grace the top of your piano, chilly mornings are perked up with a cup of tea from the mint and raspberry leaves you dried this past summer, and guests are treated to sweet cider and pumpkin bread from the apples and squash you picked in autumn. GRACE HANS WOODBURN, OREGON A Helping Hand Our 2-year-old daughter, Georgia, loves to help feed and play with all the animals on our farm. Georgia’s specialty is throwing feed to the chickens and keeping the other animals away so the hens can enjoy their food. She also loves giving the goats their…

This past winter our farm was brimming with “bottle babies.” The extreme cold brought us three bottle-fed lambs that needed a little extra nurturing: Lightning, Rex and Cutie (short for Clementine). This trio of white fluff balls had a lot of character, chasing each other in the barn, sliding around the corners, and hopping and jumping off bales of hay. Once chore time started, they would follow us around trying to “help” until they got their milk. When Lightning was big enough, we entered him in the showmanship competition at the annual junior livestock show. One morning during the show, I sat in a chair next to Lightning’s pen, munching on an exceptionally good cinnamon bun and sipping hot chocolate from a nearby bakery. Before I could finish my cinnamon…

An abandoned farm that had just gone on the market captivated my husband, Bob, while he was on an evening drive in 1998. The land contained a brick silo sticking up into the sky as an exclamation point on the farm’s silence. Bob wondered what could be done with the vacant homestead, especially the silo. He was so drawn to the spirit of the property and its 100-year-old cottonwood trees that he made an offer and purchased the farm that night. Bob soon discovered that this abandoned property was steeped in history—the original building dated back to 1897 and was used as a home; the silo was built in 1932 and stored silage for the farm’s dairy cows. From the day he bought the farm, Bob, a general contractor by…

Although my dad, Dan Mullholand, was still farming in his 70s, you could see he missed his passion of more than 30 years—working on tractors. After the last repair shop that Dad worked at closed, my older brother Kevin and I decided to start restoring International Harvesters with Dad, hoping to see the old twinkle back in his eyes. We started out with a 1256, and eventually moved on to Super MTA, 350 diesel and 1026 Hydro restorations, but Dad was holding out for one more. It took two years of searching, but we finally found a 1972 International 1468 in the classifieds of the International enthusiast magazine, and the tractor was just a little over an hour away. When we got to the farm, we walked anxiously to the…

At the end of a cold, dreary and somewhat housebound winter, I’m ever watchful for the first glimpse of an early spring. Oh, how it thrills my heart to spy the first snowbirds at my feeders after their long winter vacation in warmer southern climates, or the tiny tinge of red tulips and yellow daffodils bravely poking their curious heads out through a lingering blanket of late winter snow. The delicate new buds promise fragrant blooms throughout our farm. What I miss most, though, during the frigid, frosty, frozen months of winter is my close connection to the soil and what it provides—whether it is garden-fresh vegetables, sun-ripened fruits, or an array of brilliant flowers brightening my country landscape. As strange as it may sound, I need the feel of…

“These cattle egrets moved from a neighbor's dairy cows to another neighbor's sheep," says Richard Cronberg of Wildomar, California. “The sheep didn't seem to mind at all." “This was our Easter Sunday,” says Eric Mickelson of Oklee, Minnesota. “I was carrying a calf to the barn so she could be penned up with her mom to bond.” “Llamas will sit during transport, unlike horses and cows, so ours were delivered in a Chevy Astro minivan," says Jenna Hammerich of Oxford, Iowa. “We have a blueberry farm, so we named them after the Blues Brothers—Jake and Elwood."…

1 Austin Beard wanted to check out the baby goats and thought this one looked like a Holstein calf. “The two kids look so cute together,” says his grandmother Sally Beard of Tillsonburg, Ontario. 2 “My grandson Cole spends as much time as possible with his baby goat,” says Cole’s grandmother Faye Kyle of Eunice, Missouri. “As you can see, the goat is getting a tight hug.” 3 Pyper Braun is starting early on her grandparents’ farm. Here she is at 7 months old holding a baby fainting goat, says grandma Karol Shellenbarger of Hale, Michigan.…

I liked being in trucks that had a layer of dirt covering the dashboard and had the smell of hard work. You know what’s funny to me about Vic Mizzy’s lyrics to the Green Acres theme song? Instead of “Green Acres is the place to be / Farm living is the life for me,” I used to sing the other verse: “New York is where I’d rather stay / I get allergic smelling hay.” Don’t get me wrong—I am still crazy about New York City. I fondly recall Sunday morning rides on the subway all the way up from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side to get a bag of Zabar’s coffee. The smell of Zabar’s roast would fill the subway car and my nostrils the whole ride home. I’ll…

I’ve experienced the blood, sweat and tears that go into putting a meal on the table three times a day. I was born a farmer’s daughter. At age 5, I helped my father farm 300 acres we didn’t own. At 6, I was fighting off roosters and bottle-feeding calves that were as big as me. When I was 7, I had my first driving lesson on a lawn mower. By the next year, I upgraded to the tractor and hay rake, and the year after that was backing up wagons, pulling haybines, and baling hay. By the time I was 10, I trekked into the forest with my father and older brothers to gather firewood for the winter. I spent the evenings as my father’s assistant, working on tractors in…

For as long as I can remember, I have had a passion for grain trucks. Whether it has been a dump box or an unload auger, it catches my attention. So when I decided to restore our worn-out 1981 International with a bulk feed delivery body, I took on the project with excitement. The truck is still in use for bulk feed deliveries. It has a two-compartment, 8-ton Jakel feed body. By today’s standards, an 8-ton capacity is small, and a full load of protein feed may last only two weeks for a dairy farm with 120 cows. In its day, however, this truck was an innovative machine. Farmers were hauling feed home in 100-pound bags with pickup trucks when Mom and Dad bought their feed mill in 1980. My…

As a resident of Nevada’s high desert, my favorite season is winter. By the time March is here, the Midwest and the East Coast can count on another few weeks blanketed with snow, and folks in the South can predict sunshine and rely on temperatures hovering around the 70s. The high desert’s appeal is in Mother Nature’s unpredictability. Monday’s sunshine can bring Tuesday’s showers. Wednesday morning’s snow flurries can grow into 8inches of fluffy powder by lunch. The occasional snowstorm gives us desert dwellers a little extra exercise by making us shovel our driveways and walkways. We have to be quick, though, because if theafternoon surprises us with a heat wave, any melted snow will surely produce a personal ice rink when overnight temperatures dip back down below 20 degrees.…

Every picture tells a story, and since our first issue in 1978, the authentic snapshots filling our pages have spun a rich tale of lives spent loving the land. Babies playing in the barnyard. Granddads taking tykes on tractor rides. Farm animals clowning for the camera. Over almost four decades, we’ve been honored to share glimpses into the daily experiences of families living the farm and ranch life. We’re celebrating our 40th anniversary in 2018. In honor of that milestone, we’re catching up with some of the folks who have appeared in our pages throughout the years. Let us know if you or your family were part of Farm & Ranch Living’s past. You might just see yourself in a future issue of the magazine! August/September 1981 HORSING AROUND Sisters…