Ninja Cow Farm LLC

May 15, 2014May 13, 2014

Update on the antique apple press restoration 5.0

Apple press macerator drum — Here you see the block of laminated red oak, cleaned up and chucked into the lathe ready to get started.

The apple press restoration is close to being done, but getting further and further away as the days get warmer. You see, once warm weather hits, I lay down my shop tools and pick up my gardening implements. Not because I cannot stand the heat, but because I can’t spend but so much time in the shop working on projects like this. When it’s cold, snowy, rainy, sleety, miserable, I head to my shop where it’s warm and comfy. Nobody misses me much because they don’t want to be outside with me anyway. But as spring rolls around, things like taking the kids boating, going for a gator ride, seeing new calves, etc. all start sounding good to my crowd. So I put down my chisel and hammer and try to concentrate on projects that involve more of the family. That means that while I’m very close to finishing, I’m also very close to putting all this in a box till this fall. Maybe this weekend I’ll get it finished up and put back together. Maybe not.

Antique apple press restoration — Roughing out the wood. There are already a lot of chips of the ground at this point.

It’s a joy to get back on the wood lathe for this project. I enjoy a lot of different types of work, but working on a wood lathe is one of my favorite things to do. It’s more artistic than scientific. Not so much on this particular job but on many others. I spent a lot of time on a lathe when I was younger and any time I can get a gouge in my hand and make some chips fly is a good day.

Antique apple press restoration, finished drum — The finished product. Turned true and to size, with a center hole drilled through for the shaft.

I wasn’t able to grip the drum in my wood lathe for drilling the center hole so I had to cover up my metal lathe and do the drilling in the big chuck on the metal lathe. I try to limit any wood getting around my metal working tools, as wood can be bad for them. However I’ve gotten sloppy by having a big metal lathe. I’m used to being able to grab most anything in the 100 pound chuck. My wood lathe chuck, which weighs about 2 pounds, wasn’t even close to holding this drum, something I didn’t check till after I’d already parted off the finished drum. Oh well, you cannot win them all.

Pictured with the drum is a nearly completed knife. You can see the teeth which are .250″ between teeth, and cut at a 15 degree relief, the same as the original knives. Miguel had what I think is a good idea. Since we have such large pieces of metal for the new knives, let’s drill pockets in the solid drum and cut the knives as long two tine forks instead of single piece knives. To insert a knife, you put the dull end (non machined) of the fork into the hole drilled cross wise in the drum, then the sharpened end of the knife goes into the slot cut to hold it, just like the old slots. The makes for a very positive retention system for the knives, stronger than the wedge system in the old setup. It’s overkill for what this thing does, but since we already have the large pieces of metal, why not? I have to ponder on it a bit more and make sure it’s going to work but for now it’s sounding like a good idea.

Hopefully we’ll get these last steps done shortly and button this thing up for the summer. I’d like to have it ready to press apples come fall, not be scrambling to get it working at the last-minute. I hate unfinished projects.

May 14, 2014August 17, 2017

The questionable link between fat and heart disease

I looks like there is a trending article in the Wall Street Journal making its way around the inter-web that does a nice job of telling the history of our war on fat and gives some compelling evidence of why it is a failed war on many fronts. The most major failing is that we as Americans are fatter than ever. Certainly fatter than when this war on fat started.

Chilaquiles. Pork sausage, fatty beef, and yes some corn chips. Now that's diet food! — Chilaquiles. Pork sausage, fatty beef, and yes some corn chips. Now that’s diet food!

The article is fairly long and makes a lot of references to studies, both good and bad. It also pokes some pretty big holes in the original studies that supposedly showed that fat is bad for you. The author of this article is pimping her new book, which surprise surprise, is based on the same topic. Now there’s nothing wrong with promoting your book, and based on the one review so far on Amazon (850 reviews as of mid 2017, 4.5 stars average), it needs some attention to get people to buy it. It was only just released (as of May 2014) so I’m not knocking the book, just pointing out the obvious.

I read the critic’s reviews and it looks like a who’s who of the anti-carb movement, all people who have their own books. Again, not really an issue but I like to see a broader cross-section of people before I can believe the hype. However, what I have read sounds pretty good. The author is an investigative journalist and has apparently spent 9 years on this project which puts her earlier in the movement than a recent book publishing would suggest. She has gone beyond hyperbole and has, again apparently, done her research to back her findings. She lists her copious sources which isn’t common. Finally, the findings of her book match my life experiences that I’ve written about before.

As an update to the post I wrote before, I’ve decided to dip my toe back into flying. Not in any big way, but just easing back in. Step one was to go and get an airman’s medical. It’s one thing to go to the doctor and have him tell you something you don’t like hearing. It’s quite another to go to a FAA doctor, who is reporting everything he sees to Big Brother. We’ve just come off a winter where my family consumed over 800 pounds of pork. That’s over 5 months. Folks that’s about 5 pounds a day of pork! Now some of that we served to friends, some was bones and gristle and whatnot that went to the dogs. But bacon/sausage for breakfast, and pork roast/pork chops/etc for dinner, and leftovers in between? We have practiced what we preach this winter.

Now I’m sitting down with the nurse and she’s checking all my vitals. I haven’t had an exam since I turned 40 and this is when things begin to fall off of you. I’m picturing all the fat I’ve scarfed in a short amount of time. Was all this stuff wrong? Will I have blood pressure through the roof? I’m certainly stressed enough at this point. The result? Better blood pressure and pulse rate than I had when I was in my 20s. Oh, and I’m about 5 pounds lighter than I was when I wrote that previous post too.

May 13, 2014May 12, 2014

Apple press restoration update 4.0

The apple press restoration made some progress lately. Thanks to Miguel’s “wife” I was able to get some stock of stainless steel for making my knives. Miguel doesn’t have a wife, it’s a joke between he and I.

I used the old knives for dimensions and used a .250″ end mill to cut the slots you see on the three knives on the left. It’s a very simply machining operation, and it only burned up one end mill on the stainless. Luckily I had a spare.

After cutting the slots, it was time to cut the relief for the knives. The knife is spinning in an arc when the macerator is running, so the teeth have to have relief on the back side so they don’t drag on the apples. Little things like this are important, but more so when you are the power source for the machine. An electric motor might heat up a bit, you’ll quickly tire and give up if a hand powered machine isn’t running correct. Coincidentally, this was the first time I’ve had to nod the head on the mill. It was neat to get out of the normal square and 90 degree setup and see more of what the mill can do.

Here is a closer view of the knives being cut for relief.

May 12, 2014

Another farmer’s workout? How about sawing with a WoodMizer

I’ve written here about the silvopasture project we have going on the farm. The project was stalled because of the terribly wet and cold winter we had. We only managed to get about 60 trees on the ground before we called it quits to wait for better weather and a better idea. Then came spring, an apple press, cows to move, spring calves, my real job, and we aren’t any closer to going back in the woods. Even worse, all that timber was sitting on the ground getting older and older. I knew I needed to buck the saw logs and get them to the mill so I finally made time to run down to Mann’s sawmill, where I’ve always had my logs sawn in the past.

As soon as I pulled on the yard, I knew I was in trouble. There was twice as much lumber on the ground as I’d every seen on their best day. I popped into the saw control shack and talked to Stephen Mann. Short story, they were too busy to do any custom sawing. I needed another place to take the logs.

I have a friend who had just purchased a Woodmizer portable saw mill. Of course it’s brand new, it’s too nice to let me use, and he’s barely had time to use it himself. He said he’d help me but I knew this was too much wood for him to cut. Now what to do. After multiple phone calls, I finally came across Roy Lynch. Roy worked me into his schedule and about a week later he was on my farm, on time, and ready to work. I was under the impression that I’d meet Roy, make sure he had what he needed, then leave he and Miguel to saw lumber for 1 day. Instead I quickly found that Miguel and I were not able to keep up with Roy. We didn’t really have our stacks stacked correctly to start with so we spent the first 30 mins stacking and then restacking our wood. I had to get Spork out of the house to help with the stacks so we quite literally had two grown men and a boy not keeping up with this saw. It got better and in the video below you see us standing around more than stacking. Don’t let that fool you. There are busy periods and slack periods. The only time I could take a breath and get video was during the slack periods.

We sawed from 7:30am to 4:45pm, then sawed again from 8am to noon the next day. I thought maybe I was getting a little girly, sweating and breathing hard a time or two. Then I looked over at Miguel and he had sweat pouring off of him and most tellingly for Miguel, wasn’t cracking jokes. If he was tired, then I didn’t feel so bad. Total cost for all the sawing, including coming to the farm, was less than $1000. For that we had this when we were done.

Half of the rough sawn wood we have stacked in 5' tall stacks. — Half of the wood we have stacked in 5′ tall stacks.

The other half of the wood. A full truck load. — The other (not quite) half of the wood. A full truck load.

We sawed nearly all the pine into 2″ thick full dimension lumber. That means that a 2″x4″ is actually 2″x4″ instead of 1.5″x3.5″ like it is in the store. All the oak and poplar we sawed in 1.25″ thick by whatever width was possible. This way we can plane 1/8″ off of each side and end up with 1″ thick planks, cleaned and ready to use.

We are planning on building a solar kiln on the property, behind the chicken barn. We’ll build it out of some of the pine we sawed, then store the rest of the wood in the kiln to dry for a few months. After that it’ll move into the barn for long-term storage. This is the wood that will be the next barn, next soap box car, next apple press part, or whatever. It should last till Bok Bok is in college.

May 11, 2014May 11, 2014

Grazing update, mid-spring

The cows have pretty much decimated the paddock yesterday. The ate 85% of the grass in the paddock, and two pallets of fresh vegetables from the market. Despite that much chowing, they ran into this mornings paddock and are busily munching away at the new grass. It really is amazing how much food they can put away.

The fescue has headed out again this year. Not as tall as last year which I take as a good sign. The seed heads last year were waist-high. This year they are knee-high. I hope that means the grass isn’t finding the need to stretch so far to reproduce. Whatever the reason the cows are clipping off the grain heads and getting their annual boost of grains. They are also getting some more of the stalks which is helping with the scours. Their stools have firmed up mostly except for the occasional loose stool.

We are well and truly in grass now, with basically unlimited grass for the cows. The only reason we keep the paddocks small at this point is to make sure each area gets the attention it needs. It may make sense to make the paddocks a bit bigger than we are now, just to give the grass a chance to be a little taller post grazing.

Overall the cows look good. We are having trouble with our young bulls fighting each other and we have decided to end the non-castration experiment and to cut the bulls the week after next. The vet is coming to help since we haven’t castrated this late before.

May 10, 2014May 11, 2014

Raw milk regulations easing? Or just the media getting around to reporting?

Darling Wifey sent me an article on Fox News about raw milk and how some states are pushing to ease regulations. At $13 a gallon in Florida, seems to me we’re causing people to pay black market prices for something that shouldn’t be regulated in the first place.

If I didn’t have my own milk cow, I’d be worried about all the quotes from the different alphabet groups listed in the article that raw milk will kill you. Funny how it’s not killing people where it’s normal, like California and Europe. Unclean milk will get you sick in my opinion, no matter where it’s from. However the less handling between you and the cow, the better off you’ll be.

May 9, 2014May 5, 2014

A farmers workout. Care to get in shape for summer?

The farmers walk, weight lifting. — The farmers walk. After all these years of farming, I look just like that. Except he has hair. And muscles. And he’s younger and better looking. Otherwise, exactly the same.

So I’ve been working out recently. Each morning I get on my stair climber and climb for about 40 minutes. Then I hit the shower or the barn, depending on what is going on that day. I’m glad to be working out again and thankful for SWMBO who has allowed me to move some stuff around to make everything fit. I felt like I really needed to be doing something to offset the amount of butt sitting I do at my day job.

However before I was on my stair climber, I was working on the farm. I don’t do most of the heavy lifting, Miguel does that. I do however do my part and I can tell a difference in how I feel compared to when I didn’t really do that much on the farm. I seem to be stronger than the average Joe and if it comes to using my core muscles, I really seem to be quite strong for my size, age, etc. Turns out I’ve been doing a real workout all this time and I just didn’t know it. I don’t think I’ll give any of the guys in the videos a run for their money anytime soon, but I do know if I get a hold on you, you’re going to have a heck of a time getting loose. Tackling calves and hauling pigs does have its advantages so if you want to get into your bikini for summer, come out and get into your muck boots this spring.

May 8, 2014May 5, 2014

Little red truck, 11.0

1972 chevrolet stepside restoration — The bed, finished except for the tailgate. I’d make fun of the barrels as work surfaces but when we got home, we had nothing close to working as well as these barrels.

March 1st. The bed is done. The tailgate hasn’t been started on yet, the truck is in 1000 pieces, and we’re picking it up from paint. Stressed? Oh no. Not a bit. We’ve got entire days until the wedding. I’m sure it will all work out fine. Let’s head to the barn and get to work.

1972 Chevrolet step side truck restoration — Truck and bed loaded onto my trailer, ready to haul back to the farm to start putting things together.

At least we’ll have most of the pieces home where we can do the work ourselves. It’s hard to have everything waiting on you, but it’s even harder to have it waiting on someone else who is outside your control. Two weeks till the wedding day. It’ll be close, but it’s doable.

May 7, 2014May 11, 2014

Daily thought from Sugar Mountain Farm

I subscribe to Sugar Mountain Farms daily blog. Its a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone trying to farm. At the end of each days post, he has a “daily spark” which is usually thoughtful and uplifting. Today was a little different.

Daily Spark:
What doesn’t kill you leaves you weak and exhausted.
What doesn’t kill you leaves you for another day.
What doesn’t kill you leaves you alive.
What doesn’t kill you leaves you hunting it down
to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

May 6, 2014May 5, 2014

Nothing goes to waste. How extra bits from harvest help in school.

As I’ve mentioned before, we home school our kids. Darling Wifey takes about 110% of this role as I’m effectively useless because of my schedule. One thing she’s elected to do since the beginning is to be part of a co-op so that our kids “are socialized” which is the big thing people worry about with home schooling. That’s said a bit tongue in cheek, as the socializing thing is over blown. The real reason we attend a co-op is so the load of teaching is shared across multiple people and the kids have opportunities to do things in school that we wouldn’t be able to do in our own home school. Things like projects and science experiments. However with multiple people taking a role and only having to focus on one subject we are able to expand the learning opportunities.

A pig heart and lungs, being kept for class — A pic from our hog killing class. Here we’ve saved the lungs and the heart.

This year we were able to be part of helping the biology class study the human body. For anyone who’s ever watched Mythbusters, you know that a pig is a very good human analog and that pig organs are remarkably similar to human organs. They’ve even used pig parts as transplants for human parts. Pig heart valves, anyone?

Anyway, when we were going to be killing pigs last winter, SWMBO said she wanted a heart and lungs set from the pigs. I really didn’t know what she was going to do with it. Some sort of witches stew maybe? Eye of newt… Heart of pig… Unicorn tears…. Stir to combine. You never know around here. But like a good Igor I procured the pig parts as instructed and she froze them on a pan in our upright freezer. No special wraps or prep, just frozen right out of the pig.

Using pig lungs to demonstrate how human lungs work — Fluvanna demonstrating the lungs, and how they work.

About 2 months later, the parts were thawed and taken to co-op where one of the teachers used them in a display for the kids. Apparently you can buy hearts and lungs for schools, but they are extremely expensive and are stored in formaldehyde making the whole affair a stinky mess.

I still remember dissecting a frog in school. Being able to put your hands on real parts is the difference between knowing about something and knowing something.

This wasn’t just a random thing to show, this was part of an overall lesson plan for the year.

The kids were able to touch and see up close what organs look like and to discuss how they really work. You never know where learning opportunities will come from. Since we will kill one pig a year for ourselves, I’m fairly certain this will be a repeat opportunity for the kids at co-op.