Innholdsfortegnelse for April - May 2017 i Farm and Ranch Living

1 “Grandpa Lee assists 17-month-old Grace as she bottle-feeds our newborn donkey,” says grandmother Janice Teinert of La Grange, Texas. “The three of them together created such a sweet moment.” 2 “Our 2-year-old grandson Gray is on his way to help feed the bottle calves,” says grandfather Dickson Sistare of Lancaster, South Carolina. “He spends all of his time at the barn.” 3 “Our grandson loves playing with the baby goats,” says Sandra Weber of Mohnton, Pennsylvania. Carter finally got a chance to feed one on a recent trip to a friend’s farm.…

Paradise Farm is located in Sand Lake Coulee, on the bluffs along the Mississippi River in La Crosse County, Wisconsin. It was once a dairy farm, part of 165 mostly wooded acres. The farm sits in its own valley, surrounded on three sides by forested hills; after you drive the curvy road to reach the property, it seems untouched by time. The Hanson family—my family—has lived here on Paradise Farm for several generations. I own the farm with my three siblings, Eric Hanson, Signe Thompson and Sigurd Hanson. Ericlives on the land, and he has taken great care of the place. He keeps the paint fresh, puts on new roofs and more. He takes such pride in how lovely the farm looks. The farm has many buildings that you don’t…

Polyculture farming may sound like something new, but if you’ve ever grown a “three sisters garden”— planting corn, beans and squash in the same plot—you’ve practiced it. When Jonathan and Jennifer Christ started their 4-acre farm 10 years ago in Brentwood, California, they planted corn and tomatoes in traditional rows. Insects did a number on their crops, and the remaining plants didn’t produce much. “After spending the money and time, I knew there had to be a better way, a more productive and easier way, that would allow me to regenerate my soils, produce a quality product, and spend less time doing it,” says Jonathan, who runs Marsh Creek Farmstead with his wife and their four children. The Christs changed their approach and tried polyculture farming, a method that imitates…

We live in a world of multipurpose. The TV remote handles many different functions (if you can learn what they are). Trucks rumble down the road carrying everything from needles to automobiles. Telephones can now take and store photos, play you a tune and, if you’re lucky, make and receive calls. But my mom’s apron was the original multipurpose item. She made it herself, preferring flowery material. It had a yoke that went around her neck and strings that crossed in the back and tied in the front. It came to her knees to keep her dress clean, and provided a large front pocket. Mom’s apron held kindling to start the morning fire in the old kitchen range. It also made a good potholder. In the afternoons, Mom would gather…

“I liked the sweet way this kid was looking at her mom,” says Tanja Hupp of Mount Crawford, Virginia. “We named the kid Noel because she was born around Christmas.” “Big Red was one of our newest moms,” says Starla Hester of Tuscumbia, Alabama. “Here she is nuzzling with her calf Red Bull. We weren't very creative with their names!” “Little Poquita was just 8 hours old in this picture,” says Pat Graves of Dripping Springs, Arizona. “Her ears were already almost as big as those of her mama, Chili Burro.”…

It can be tough to get farmers off of their fields on an April morning when the weather is good, but out they come each year for Plow Day. Many people go down for the pancake breakfast, putt-putting to the gathering on old 2-cycle John Deeres. They swap stories of restorations, repairs, unusual sounds and what they think other tractor drivers are doing wrong. Families and farmers come to celebrate the new season with tractor and carriage rides. I usually seek out one tractor in particular. It used to belong to my father. After his death, it made its way into the hands of someone intent on restoring it. The new owner, Paul Rouse, graciously shared the restoration story with me and let me pose with the tractor. I also…

The sun hasn’t quite topped the trees by 6 a.m. on Mother’s Day, but I need to get moving all the same. A crew of nearly 10 people is coming to brand and vaccinate more than 70 head of cattle. The trumpeting call of the sandhill crane echoes across the wetland near our house, and I smile on my way to saddle the horses because spring has come again. My mother keeps an eye on two of our three children back at the house while my husband and I work alongside our eldest son, 10, and my father, brother, brother-in-law and a few friends. My mare whinnies as I approach. The other horses wait and stamp impatiently. I finish tacking up all seven horses to bring in the herd just…

Mother baked bread on laundry days, since the house was already warm and the yeast rose quickly. How she worked, my mother! Doing laundry for our large family was quite the task. Mother’s laundry days were Monday and Thursday, and she did all her wash the old-fashioned way. She bought 2-inch thick bars of dark yellow soap, carefully sliced off a few thin pieces of soap from the end, and placed them in a pot of water to warm on the woodstove. The soap melted in the water and created liquid detergent. If any of the softened soap was left at the end of the day, she used a dollop for her dishwater so none went to waste. I was born in 1924, the youngest of eight children. As the…

David Helmuth does everything big. Backin 1993, when Reiman Publications hired him to drive Country’s Reminisce Hitch across the United States, he insisted that the hand-picked team of six beautiful Belgian horses walk from one end of the United States to the other. “If I’m driving horses across the country, “ David says, “I am going ocean to ocean.” The goal of the excursion, chronicled in Farm & Ranch Living and its sister publications Country and Reminisce, was to reconnect seniors with the horses they remembered from their families’ farms. The hitch stopped at nursing homes and senior centers across the country. The horses also visited schools, performed at fairgrounds, and marched in parades. The hitch stopped regularly to pick up folks for a ride on the wagon—and more than…

New kittens on the farm would normally be cause for celebration, but when I was 13, our mama cat, Joyce, gave birth on our porch on a cold, windy day. To top it off, she took only one of her two kittens to a warmer place, leaving the other one without shelter. She’d never been known as a great mom, but she had always been better than this. I scooped the little guy up and started feeding him every hour. I couldn’t go to sleep, so I just lay there on the couch, waiting for Spotsy to start crying for the bottle. I fed him at 1 a.m., then at 2 and 3. This kitten didn’t just want to be fed; he wanted me to cuddle with him. Finally, I…

OUR BRICK BARN WAS BUILT over 90 years ago using recycled materials from a two-story house that was on the property. I’m proud to say we still use our family heirloom barn to house livestock and machinery. A brick barn is quite unusual in this area, but ours is pretty traditional on the inside, with box stalls, a granary and a haymow. As a child, I spent many hours playing in the barn with my siblings and cousins. Now my great-grandchildren are enjoying it just as I did. Post the riddles from your shed and help other readers solve their mysteries…like the strange object (left) that Jason Confer found. Jason Confer Farm & Ranch Living Does anyone know what this is? My father-in-law picked it up at an auction. It…

I was the first girl born into my father’s family in 90 years. By the time I came along, we’d been entrepreneurial city dwellers for three generations; when I was growing up, we owned a hardware store that was just outside Milwaukee. But I always felt the pull of the countryside. My adopted grandmother and mentor, Diane, took me under her wing, teaching me how to cook with the seasons and to sew like I was a seamstress. I also owe thanks to the incredible Sister Lucy of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, who taught me how to weed effectively and produce food on a larger-than-garden scale. A few years of internships and near-minimum-wage jobs on organic farms helped me learn the craft of gardening and make some cash…

It was the early 1950s, and yet another hard-candy Christmas had come and gone in our little pocket of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Little was expected and little received in terms of bicycles or Betsy Wetsy dolls. While the six of us kids questioned the existence of a Santa Claus who would leave such meager fare under our scrawny tree, we were in for a more memorable holiday at Easter thanks to my father. Some three weeks before Easter, our father had set one of his fat Dominique hens on a clutch of eggs. We kids did not have access to the chicken house during this time, and if indeed the eggs hatched before Easter morning, it was a closely guarded secret. As soon as it became daylight, Daddy emerged…