Videos

So I'm trying to get all "hi tech" these days. I just installed the new video bar. Now that I have my new Flip Video Camera, thanks to Purina and Community Chickens, I hope to be uploading LOTS of video blogs! I only have the one up so far, but I'm trying to add the knitting videos and others that have been waiting for me to edit. Hope you enjoy the new feature, I'm having fun with it! Let me know if any of you are doing the Purina 60 Day Challenge, I'm preparing a Community Chickens Blog, and I'd LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to include some reader's comments!!! It's a great deal, you get great coupons and I'll be giving away a Flip Video Camera to one lucky winner.

Improve Your Flock in 60 Days

I'm proud to announce that Community Chickens and Purina Mills have asked Iron Oak Farm to participate in the Purina 60 Day See The Difference Challenge, and document the event for our readers. Check out my new Community Chickens post Improve Your Flock in 60 Days to get the scoop. It's a video blog, kinda fun.

Enter the Purina 60 Day See The Difference Challenge and not only will you receive money saving coupons, but you might win a Flip Video Camera!

Bumper Stickers with Meaning

Anyone traveling down I-75 the other day, would know that I REALLY believe in what my bumper stickers have to say.

These aren't just meaningless stickers, pasted haphazardly for passer-by's reading pleasure.

No sir!












(Little nuzzling for the road.)

Have you seen that carpet cleaning commercial where the guy identifies the stain as an Alpaca vs. a Llama? Wonder if he knows his goat breeds?

"We're here! Hooray!" They needed little coaxing to jump out and start immediately eating everything in site.

Be sure to visit The Barn Hop, a great place to find all sorts of interesting Homesteading bloggers, and posts!!!

Temple Grandin

Watched a beautiful film last night. The story of Temple Grandin. This story is truly inspirational. Based on actual events, it tells how Temple Grandin, a girl diagnosed with Autism at the age of four, changes the cattle industry and how slaughter houses direct their cattle. I found myself locked to the screen, loving the energy and genuine sense of self. Highly recommend this movie! To learn more about Temple Grandin visit her website at http://www.templegrandin.com/

Turkey in the Beans

I don't know why, but this struck me as hilarious. Turkeys are kinda funny creatures anyway, but when we saw this flock of wild turkeys and their little bald heads poking through the bean field, I started cracking up!

You can see more of their bodies here...the Aliens have emerged!

Happy Goats

The girls got a taste of their new pasture last night.

We think they like it.

Careful, she's a Man-Eater!

Everyone was playing nice on the green cut lawn.

Then Purl got brave and followed Zach into the tall stuff.

In leaps and bounds everyone followed.

Hi

Our pretty girl Knit.

Happy Tails!


Be sure to visit the Barn Hop where you can pick up a ton of great information from other homesteading bloggers!

Bottle Opener Giveaway!

Hi all, I'm trying to spread the love and promote our new Facebook page. Our goal for now is to get 100 "page likes". When we reach our goal, we will choose a random winner from the hundred to receive one of Zach's hand forged bottle openers. We have 35 so far, and all of you who are already members are instantly entered.

Moving the Corn Crib

The one drawback to the new house is that it doesn't have a garage. We've always wanted a large barn, so when we bought the house, it was a feature we were willing to sacrifice. But that still left us with a problem. Where would Zach blacksmith?

We were hoping to build Zach a stone workshop by the time we moved in, but it didn't happen. We're still building goat pens, and we still have to move the small barn for the chickens to live in. So unless something miraculous happens in the next couple months before winter, it's not going to be built until spring. We thought about him making a temporary shop in the barn, but with a 2000 degree forge, and a grinder that throws a waterfall of sparks, it probably isn't the smartest thing to do in an old dry barn with a loft full of ancient hay. One wrong move and that big beautiful barn would go up like a match box.

Zach kept looking at the metal corn crib as a possible shop, but it was kinda far from the house to run electricity, and the floor consisted of years of dead grass, and the dirt was sort of loamy and porous, not stable enough for the pounding of his treadle hammer.

I asked Zach what he though about moving it to the driveway. That way he would have a nice solid surface to work on until we could build his shop. We agreed, that we would attempt it.

Moving the corn crib was a lot like moving a really large, really heavy slinky. But with some hard work, and some crazy maneuvering we got it done. It looks pretty ugly in the middle of the driveway, I'm sure the neighbors think we're nuts, but it's only temporary.

 This is my brother Wayne. He was an awesome help that day! See how the hats are taking over.....

Zach and I used a car jack, two 2x4's and some cinder blocks to raise up the one side from the inside.

Then we used the tractor to raise up the other side.

Then we backed my brother's trailer under the teetering corn crib. A tree fell on my brother's truck during a storm and crunched it, poor truck.

The wheel covers kept it from sliding back.

Then Zach and I used a dolly, (hand cart, hand truck) as the second set of wheels. We pushed down on the dolly as my brother drove very slowly to the destination. Anyone driving by the house at this point must have thought we were nuts. We should have sold tickets.

Ok I know it's just Zach pushing down on the dolly in this photo, but I promise I helped.

There it is, now we just had to get it off Wayne's trailer.

Go Zach Go!!!

Side note: I want to make that spool into a table or something.

Good work boys!

The Closing of Borders Books

What do you guys think?

I keep running the movie "You've Got Mail" through my head. One of my favorite movie's by-the-way, only this time it's "Fox Books" that's closing. Frankly, this whole thing is a bit scary for my taste. I'm an English Literature Major. I spent 5 years of my life, and a whole lot of college tuition devoted to these little bits of binded paper called books. So maybe I'm partial, but what does everyone think about this, or am I getting my knickers in a twist for no reason at all? Honestly, I don't know the exact reason why Borders is closing. Was it bad managing, too many locations? I have no idea, maybe I should have researched this before I went spouting off on this tyrant, hmmm? But I have this un-shakeable fear that some of the contributing factor was that the importance of literature is going down the tubes. (I feel as though I am climbing the stairs of the soap box, teetering, here I go, oh no, I'm up.....sorry)

What exactly is this development saying about our society? I realize that Borders is not the end all, say all, to books as we know them. In fact, how many Mom and Pop bookstores has a major conglomerate like Borders or Barnes and Noble or Wal-Mart for that matter, put out of business? Is this revenge? Will the Mom and Pop book store rise to live again, or is this a tragic commentary on a larger issue.

As a "Borders Club Member", yes, I've been known to frequent the many isles of Borders Books, complete with over-sugared espresso concoction in hand, wiping the plastic whip cream from my nose. I received the mass e-mail that Borders was, in fact, closing its doors for good. There was a brief synopsis of the reasons, but the reference to "electronic reading" really stuck with me.

As a blog writer, perhaps I'm stepping on my own toes, but I'm willing to chance it. Even now as I write this post the e-glow of the Blogger's screen stares back at me and casts it's ghostly blue light on my soul. Perhaps that blue light is the spirit of books soon to be no more. (Ooooo eeee ooooo) Ok maybe I'm being dramatic, but do you remember the encyclopedia? The dictionary? We tried to donate ours and both the library and Salvation Army wouldn't take them. I ended up keeping ours so I can show my children what I used to look up words in. They will probably laugh and gaze nostalgically at my "oldness" the way I did when my grandmother spoke of making butter. And now, as an electronic Hobby Farming/ Homesteading blog writer, who writes about making butter, it makes my life a strange sort of irony.


The written word is vanishing. Penmanship is a nostalgic thing of the past. I only write cursive in my 80 year old Aunt's Christmas card each year because I know she thinks it's "more proper". And when I'm done, I have to shake out the cramps of unused hand muscles. How sad! But as cursive has been replaced by printing, by the by, has been replaced by typing, has been replaced by electronic sending, such as e-mails, and now has created the acronym language of texts because we are so lazy or hurried as a society that we can't even take the time to spell out a whole word, LOL!!!



I can't imagine a world without the paper book. The smell of the pages, the typed text, anxiously fingering each page. There is a romanticism that occurs when you read a book, novel, letter etc. It is irreplaceable. I see stacks of books lined up on my book shelf as tiny adventures. Each binding a small treasure, an accomplishment, like the stamps on a passport, or pins on a map, (or maybe that's the hoarder in me. Maybe I'll start collecting Chihuahuas, or shot glasses, or clown figurines?)  

So what of Kindles or Nooks, what of Amazon.com vs. a real live bookstore, where you can actually touch the pages? Is this the new future of reading? Maybe we'll save the rain forests in the meantime? What do you guys think because I'm confused as all get!

The New Blog Button

Want to give a shout out to Oikology101 for the great Tutorial on "Making a Blog Button". If you're a fan of Iron Oak Farm and you also write a blog, feel free to snatch up the HTML code to the right if you'd like our button on your page.

And if you'd like to make a button for your own blog, the step by step instructions on Oikology 101's site are easy and informative. Buttons are a great way to decoratively share interesting blog titles and links on your site. They also help spread the word about your topic throughout the blogging community, so share, share, share!!!

We also have the new +1 option, which as I understand it, is Google's take on  the Facebook "Like Button". By clicking the +1 you tell Google that this is an awesome blog and worth searching for. It allows the public to determine what websites should be first in Google search's.