Tuesday Night Auction

Tuesday during the summer a town close by has an auction every Tuesday night.  Then in the fall and winter it is every Sunday morning. Sometimes they have good stuff and sometimes not so good.  We go about every week and sometimes look over the stuff and leave.  Last night they had some linens that I was interested in so we stayed.  I managed to get everything I wanted and am now just finishing washing everything.  Now I have a huge pile to iron added to the pile of vintage clothes that need ironed.  Then I need to take pictures and then post the items in my Etsy store and on eBay.  I hope to have that done by the first of next week.
I work harder in my retirement than I did my job.  This is more than an 8 hour day but it keeps me very busy.  Then at the end of September I will be keeping my new granddaughter every Tuesday and Thursday while Gina continues getting her RN degree.  Then I will be just sitting and hold the baby all the time and spoiling her rotten.  Not that she won't get spoiled rotten enough at home.  Gina 42, Ali 47, and a brother and sister at home who will be seniors in high school.  Gina already has enough stuff for more than 1 kid and will always be dressed like a little doll.  September 4th at 10 AM is the big day and I can hardly wait.

My Day, Not as Planned

Ron and I got up early this morning to butcher several chickens but woke up to rain.  We need the rain but wanted to get the next group done.  So now we will be butchering chickens on Saturday morning.  Ron goes back to work tomorrow and doing it by myself would take forever.  I would love to find a used chicken plucker and am running an ad on Craigslist looking for one.   Not sure exactly how many we will be doing this time but for sure there will be 4 roosters and several hens.  I think I will cut the meat from the bones and grind the chicken as we eat ground chicken and ground turkey instead of ground beef.  Then I will put the bones in the roaster and use the broth to can and if there are any small pieces of chicken I will can that.

After we get the butchering done we will be moving some pullets to the cage of layers and move the 4 leghorn hens in with the leghorn rooster so we can get some pure breed leghorn eggs to hatch.  Leghorns are the best layers and each hen lays about 6 eggs a week.  I will leave them together for a couple of weeks and start collecting eggs to hatch the second week when I'm sure they are mating.  This will mean that the new leghorns will start laying in the early spring.  Out of the first 12 chickens I hatched I had one 1 rooster and so far the other 20-30 others are just getting old enough to start telling.
Of the 5 turkeys I have I'm sure we will be only butchering 1 for Thanksgiving and saving the rest for next years breeding and then will butcher the ones kept from this year and start a new breeding group every year. Turkeys are best if butchered before they are a year old or not more that 15 months .  If older they get a little tough.

I've learned a lot this past year on chickens and turkeys and have done things I never thought I would do.  It just goes to show your never to old to learn and I love learning new things.

Saturday's Pictures South of Tomah Wisconsin

Catholic church with a beautiful bell tower.

Amish man hauling 2 large bales of straw.

There was a young Amish man working at an English house and had his buggy covered.

Amish plowing his field.

Large Amish farm where many family members live.

Laundry blowing in the wind.

Amish girl walking up the lane barefoot, it did not get above 60 degrees today and it was cold.

Amish man stacking straw bales.

You see this a lot around Amish homes selling maple syrup.  This is blue tubing that goes from tree to tree and then to a large vessel that collects the syrup.  I have never seen anything like this before.

A tree that has been tapped for maple syrup.

Little boy playing in the field where others were stacking straw.

Amish men stacking straw.

Huge barn with the second floor where the chickens were living.  They were sitting in the windows looking around.

There are 4 ducks here but one ducked down before I took the picture.  They almost look fake.

One of the 4 wild turkeys I spotted but they all got into the woods before Ron got their picture.

Amish man raking hay.

Unusual house for an Amish, this is a brick home and the majority live in white plain wood homes.

Buffalo farm.

A team of work horses waiting to be hitched up.

Friday July 26th in Pictures, Tomah Wisconsin Area

View of several Amish farms.

Trestle bridge in Clark County, Wisconsin

Lone grave marker, the last remaining evidence of the community of Columbia Wisconsin.

Marker on the grave.

Wooden windmill.  

Amish clothes line that goes from the top of the barn to the house and is moved using pullies.

@ young Amish boys cutting grass while the young girl is swing a bat.

Clothes hung on the porch.

Lutheran church.

Deer along a country road.

Wisconsin People Love Their Deer Stands

At almost every farm in the back field you see a deer stand.  There has been some simple stands and some pretty unique ones.  Here are some we saw today while traveling in the Tomah area.  These people take hunting seriously.

Here is one that is white.  I would have thought you would want it green or brown but maybe it is to match the snow.

Here is one made from a huge water tank.  Look real good and you can see the door they cut to the left of the ladder.  There were 3 windows and look like some nice ones.  This would withstand the rain, snow and wind.   Pretty neat.

This one is made from wood with a sloped roof and had 3 windows that have white curtains.

I am still looking for them and would love to find a log cabin style deer stand.  So far my favorite one is the green one made from the water tank.

Wisconsin Trip So Far

Yesterday morning we left home nice and early and started our road trip.  We started out in the Kingston Wisconsin area for our first Amish community.  It is really interesting to see the different area of Amish and the style of their homes.  This area the home and property are very clean and very well kept.  We even saw a log Amish home, almost all Amish homes are white and very plain so this was very interesting.

Today we headed west towards the Medford Wisconsin area where we saw a lot of Amish and a lot of Old Order Mennonite.  I was lucky to find a Mennonite lady who sells second hand clothes and picked up a lot of things for my Etsy store.

Wild turkeys in a field.

Most farms in the Kingston have green houses because of the short growing season.

The young boy driving this wagon couldn't have been 10.  Look at the little one sitting on the back.

Log Amish house.

Some young Amish girls walking down the road.

Stacks of wheat in an Amish field.

Birds we see everywhere up here, not sure what they are, maybe some type of a crane.

Gathering hay.

Area at the bulk food store for the buggies to park.

2 young boys racing through a field where adults were cutting hay.

Machine that gathers the hay or straw.

Amish cemetery.

Amish headstone.

Mennonite women going down the road.

Plowing the field.

Looks like he is returning home after work.

Talked to some of the women here, one of the families just bought this house and a group of the Amish district got together and were working on fixing the house up.  The women were getting ready to set up the meal and boy did it smell wonderful.  There were at least 75 people working and serving food. 

 

6 Free Roosters

I know I've said it before but I LOVE CRAIGSLIST.  I saw where someone was thinning their roosters and I answered the ad.  These nice roosters came from a farm about 15 miles from our house.  The young kid who caught them for us was telling us that he and his brother showed them at fairs and at 4 H.  They are all under 8 months old, the huge white one is a Leghorn who I will be keeping and when we get back from our vacation I will be putting him with my 4 Leghorn hens for a couple of weeks and hatch some Leghorns.  Leghorns lay large white eggs almost every day so they are a wonderful hen to have.  The ones I have now are 2 1/2 years old and will butcher them next summer. The 2 black and white stripe ones are Barred Rocks I will keep one and Renee wants the other one.  I am going to see if she will let me borrow her Barred Rock hen for a couple of weeks and put her with the Barred Rock rooster so I can have some pure Barred Rock chickens.  The other 3 roosters I have no idea what kind they are and if any one knows let me know.

My new additions, look at that beautiful Leghorn.

Barred Rock

The Leghorn making sure everyone knows he is here.  I've never heard a rooster crow so loud.

Until we get back the roosters are rooming with the turkeys and they are not sure what is going on.

First thing they found was the food.

Leghorn, un-known and 2 Barred Rocks.

Some of the new boys and the turkeys.