I was able to get some photo’s of the girls working the young steers the other day. These calves seem to work and listen better than the pure bred Jersey calves the girls have trained in the past. The calves are Holstein crossed with Jersey and are 6 months old.
This time they did not fit into their old smaller hand-carved yoke that Fred made. The twins had to put them into the larger yoke that Fred carved.
Choosing the right calves for training is very important; these were the best in that group of calves showing some intelligence, good behavior and sound conformation.
Some miscellaneous photo’s taken during the week. Hold your mouse over the photo’s for an explanation.
Here is one of our new queens we reared out of the Minnesota Hygienic mother colony. She is now settled in with her colony and laying well.
Stay tuned, soon I will be posting photos of our new chicken house the kids built this week. I already showed Nonna and she figures it’s good enough to live in. You have an open invitation mom!
CALLENS HONEY FARM 
I really really enjoy this look into your lovely family and the workings on the farm! I find your blog gives me “hope” for the future of our children after reading so much bad news…
question, can you show me (or us in the www) how you make cream? Is it done with a separator or the old fashioned way of letting it sit and it rises to the top.
BTW I tried your cornbread recipe and it was delish. I made muffins and froze them.
Thank you very much:)) Rest assured, there is hope!! The cornbread is what I like to use for our cereal, although in the summer I hate heating my kitchen up! As far as the cream goes, we have a variety of 3 cows that our girls milk. All we do is strain the milk and then in either the next morning or evening we skim the top cream off of the glass gallon jugs using a ladle and put it in a special jar for cream. Silvana makes sure we don’t steal too much……..she’s in charge of butter production:)) It is easy this way, unlike with goat milk that you have to separate the cream. So there you have it. Chill, let it rise and skim:))) The longer you let it chill and rise the thicker the cream.
God bless you.
ahhh, Little house on the prairie style.
Sandra –
You and your entire family are truly a successful American family.
Our land is so precious, and you’ve succeeded in taking good care of it.
I have never seen kids with such happy faces. What a joy for you!
Love, Coma Marie
Thank you so much Marie!
Love from Minnesota, across the miles,
Sandra
I love seeing all the different things you and your family do on the farm. They did an amazing job on the chicken house. If they would like a Florida vacation – we will be building a brew house soon. LOL
Thanks Faith! Glad you enjoy the work. Thanks for the offer but holy smokes we are drowning in work here with all the garden stuff coming so early. Grape juice is keeping us busy and the apples are early. Good luck with your new brew house!
Sandra
You and your family have soooooooo many different talents. It would have to take several pages to list them. It is pretty amazing the amount of responsibility the kids take on. It’s wonderful. It’s good to see that. Spoiled kids should have to read about this.
Thank you Brenda:) I was one of the lazy kids growing up……….the farm is a perfect environment for learning. And….the tomato idea worked pretty well providing tomatoes into December. Not bad for MN. Take care,
Sandra