Surviving the Weather

Monday, January 22, 2024
Hello friends,
              We are managing through the freezing rain, slowly, very slowly.  It’s amazing how slick ice can be.  The cows’ hooves are able to break through a little bit, and we put some salt on the concrete holding area, but walking from our house to the creamery looks like my first day on roller skates.  Better safe than sorry so I was taking my time and trying to stay on the grass.  Stephen drove down today and was stuck at the bottom of the driveway for a while.  By this afternoon it was starting to soften up a bit, but melting is slow because the ground had frozen so deeply. 
              I have heard that the theory about a really cold winter is that there will be fewer bugs that survive.  I don’t think its true because the northern states and even Canada have a lot of annoying bugs.  We did think of something though.  The local Amish community is able to cut ice for their ice houses.  See, that’s a good thing for them.  We figure that we are learning character and fortitude through adversity.  We are really characters!…..

Brrrrr!

Monday, January 15, 2024
Hello friends,
              BRRRRR!  I know, I know, it’s a balmy 2 degrees right now so what am I complaining about?  Stephen is here from Atchison, and it hasn’t been above 0 up there since last week.  But my pain is my pain, and it is COLD.  Maybe I need to gain some blubber like the polar bears.  After two hours of chores, my core is plenty warm from all the layers, but the fingers and toes are just not happy.  Lord, help everyone who has to work outside! 
              The fire is warm, but the living room is the warm room, and the edges of the house are much cooler.  The furnace is set to come on if the wood stove can’t keep up, and Mom has an electric baseboard heater to keep her room toasty.  All doors must stay open, and the ceiling fan needs to keep the heat circulating.  We close the blinds at night for a little extra barrier and we can always put on a sweater to stay comfy.  The animals are not as fortunate.  I saw a recommendation on the news to keep all the pets inside.  Well, that works for dogs and cats, but cows and chickens are designed to live outside.  They need shelter and clean dry bedding, but we don’t have a heated space for them.  We put a deep layer of old hay on the floor of the chicken house and the cows have a deep layer of fresh straw which is cleaned out daily.  It’s a lot of work, but it helps to keep everyone healthy…..

Lots of Snow Falling from the Sky

Monday, January 8, 2024
Hello friends,
              Lots of snow falling from the sky, very little sticking on the grass, nothing on the roads.  There, now you know the weather in Pleasanton.  Now if you go north, I’m sure the conditions are very different.  I am hearing winter weather warnings that would make the most adventuresome stay home.   Here it is very wet and sloppy.  The cows are taking full advantage of the straw bedded loafing shed for shelter.  Bill and I had to walk back to the hay piles to bring the last cow to the milking parlor and the cows have plenty of hay but have to wade through water to get to it.  I was concerned that my boots would get stuck!  Not to worry!  Everything will be frozen solid soon…..

Happy New Year!

Monday, January 1, 2024
Hello friends,
              Happy New Year!  We made it!  There were days this past year that I wondered.  I don’t have all the new calendars replaced; guess I’ll have to see what they have at the bank.  The Julian date is 001 if you want to know what the “secret” code for one of the numbers on the corner of the cheese label means.  Yesterday was day 365.  Here we go again.
              It’s been a year of trials and triumphs.  Obviously, Bill has been through an ordeal and neither of us wants to take our health for granted.  We’ve been waiting for the insurance company and the hospital to give us a number that we have to pay and discovered that it may be lower than we were bracing for.  Good news.  I am doing end of year accounting and having 6 extra cows in the herd to produce more milk to sell has brought in more income.  We have had to feed extra cows, but I think it was worth it.  There were three heifers born this year (Aspen, Darcy, and Sweetheart) even though there were also 8 bull calves.  By the way, we still have a bull calf for sale that has already been fed a month’s worth of milk.  We had severe drought this year, but it did finally rain, and we have enough hay purchased to feed everyone.  The garden produced a lot of some vegetables, and not so many others.  There is always next year in the garden, and I need to start looking in the seed catalog….

Merry Christmas

Monday, December 25, 2023
Merry Christmas!
              It’s not very often that the newsletter falls on Christmas Day.  We already celebrated with the family on Thursday before the kids left for their other sides of their families.  Just a quiet day here.  We weighed our options yesterday and considered the amount of milk we would have to store in the bulk tank until Tuesday and decided to make cheese on Christmas Eve.  Not ideal, but better than the alternatives.  With milking 14 cows, we are producing a lot of milk that we need to either sell or make into cheese. 
              I sure would like a little sunshine.  Rain was needed I suppose, but cloudy days combined with the short daylight makes for dreary.  The cows were very thankful for the loafing shed last night so they had a dry place to lay down.  Although a white Christmas may have been romantic, it would have complicated chore time.  Let’s just be thankful so far…..

Annual Christmas Letter

It's time for our annual family Christmas letter.  We'll be open through Saturday, but closed Monday.  Have a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Noffke’s!
              What a busy season!  It feels like I’m not ready for Christmas, but I think I’m almost there.  This has been an eventful year and I’m thankful that we are all still here.  Literally.  Bill had a heart attack on Memorial Day and survived.  The doctor kept repeating how bad it was, but God is good and there is a reason that Bill is still here.  He had one stint to repair a 100% blockage, and a 3 stint “trouser” to remedy the other 90% blockage.  “Beautiful” was the doctor’s comment when he finished the procedure, just what Bill wanted to hear.  He has finished his rehab now and is continuing his exercise program to strengthen his heart.  I walk with him most of the time because I want to be healthy too. 
              Rachel and Max welcomed their daughter Josephine into their family in August.  Grandchild number 3 and the first girl.  We are enjoying this grandparent thing.  They do grow and change so fast, so I try to remember to take pictures.  I get to pop into their apartment every couple of weeks when I make deliveries to the city.  Love that baby smile…..

Candy Had Her Calf

Monday, December 11, 2023
Hello friends,
              It’s getting closer to Christmas and I’m starting to feel it.  The tree is up and trimmed.  The dust, bark, and various toys were swept away when we rearranged the furniture for the Christmas tree.  It never ceases to amaze me what we find under the couches.  I feel better just knowing it’s clean under there.  Shopping has begun, but it’s always tricky when you live so far away from the major shopping outlets.  Sure, we can order online, but Amazon doesn’t really do next day service out to the rural areas, and some things have to be seen and handled to know if it’s right. 
              Candy had her calf yesterday and, you guessed it, another boy!  Really???  That’s 8 boys and 3 girls for the year when we were hoping to increase our female herd.  We are now milking 15 cows!  The most ever for us, but it’s now time to let Casey take her pregnancy vacation so we’ll be back to 14.  Casey will go to join the dry cows and steers in lane 6 until a couple of weeks before her due date in February.  We milk year-round, so we have calves pretty much year-round.  It’s always our intention to skip calving in the coldest part of the year, but sometimes we just have to get a cow bred and worry about the weather later.  This year has been pretty mild, so it hasn’t been an issue.  Anyway, I have the 2 bull calves listed on Craigslist if you are interested.  I may have a buyer already, but we’ll see…..

Special Gift Bundles

Monday, December 4, 2023

Hello friends,

…..We are putting some wonderful gift baskets together.  As Stephen and I were deciding and arranging for pictures, I was looking at all the delicious cheeses and accompaniments to choose from.  Wow!  We have basically 3 tiers of gifts:   
The $20 bundle has 3 wedges of aged raw milk cheese and a tub of Fromage Blanc. 
The $50  bundle has 6 wedges of cheese, 1 Fromage Blanc, 1 KC Canning Co. condiment, and one package of crackers with sea salt.
 The $100 bundle has a quarter round, and  5 wedges of aged raw milk cheese, one reserve Gouda aged 4 ½ years, 1 Fromage Blanc, one bruschetta topping, one package of crackers with sea salt, and a flour sack towel with our logo!
The baskets are not included, but you can arrange it on a Skyview cheese board.  We have many other items for gifts like soaps, local honey, and lip balm stocking stuffers.  We have plenty of cheese, come and get it!  Your choice of cheeses, or we can pick them out for you….

Petula Due

Monday, November 27, 2023
Hello friends,
              A little leftover turkey, a few fall and pilgrim decorations, and some laundry is all that is left after a busy Thanksgiving holiday.  Stephen and his family, and Rachel with her family, plus mom were all here and this was a hopping place.  Add to that, we had to get this huge yogurt order ready by… tomorrow, and we have been working.  Except Sunday.  We insisted on resting and now we are rejuvenated and ready for the week!
              Petula’s due date came and went yesterday, and we are still waiting on her calf.  I was a little concerned about her last night when it was so cold, or Saturday nightwhen it was snowing, but she held on and is still pregnant.  We also have a heifer that is due on December 2 which is just around the corner.  Are we ready for babies?  I think so.  I remember last year right around Christmas we had a calf born, (Erin) and we had to put her under a heat lamp and make a little pen for her in the milking parlor.  She was literally born on the coldest day of the year.  She is doing well, by the way.  Hopefully we will have calves born in better weather this time…..
      

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, November 20, 2023
Hello friends,
              Rainy, drizzly, chilly, and dark, but it’s above freezing so it’s not so bad.  I’m writing this in one room and the Chief’s game is on in the other room, distracting me.  I will certainly need to proofread this before I send it out.  This week is Thanksgiving, and we have a lot to do.  Not just because there is company, but we have to plan so that we can take the day off and spend it with family.  Well, we still have to do chores, but other than that, we want to focus on the company.  I hope you are able to get together with your family too!
              We have a big Jersey Silk order to prepare for next Tuesday and our little vat pasteurizer is going to get a workout between now and then.  We are making at least 280 pints from about 64 gallons of milk.  It needs to be pasteurized 16 gallons at a time, cooled to 110°, inoculated with culture, left to incubate, scooped into 2 gallon draining bags, whisked, spooned into containers, labeled, and tucked in the refrigerator!  Then we deliver it up to the Food Hub where it joins with other local products in boxes, and then goes to the Joplin area.  Or maybe it goes to Joplin where it goes in a food box to be distributed.  Anyway, this is the most yogurt we have put together in a week and we are plotting and planning on the best way to get it done.  Meanwhile, I have some extra Jersey Silk in the fridge now so how about a sale?  Regularly $5.76/pint on sale for $5.00 eac…

Emmy Lou Had a Boy

Monday, November 13, 2023
Hello friends,
              I could take this weather most of the year!  Cool nights, warm but not hot days.  Perfect for all projects outside.  I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is next Thursday.  You heard correctly.  NEXT THURSDAY!  I suppose we need to get prepared because I’m looking forward to having company.
              Emmy Lou had her calf last Wednesday.  She was a couple of days early according to her due date, but we are used to that.  When we went looking for her in the lower 20, there was a young deer standing not far away, just watching us finding Emmy Lou.  It was not concerned about us humans because we were not a threat.  Then we saw another one, same situation.  As we came up to Emmy Lou and her male (argh!) calf, a group of about 4 more deer came over the hill to check us out.  They were all so tame!  Maybe it’s because Bill hasn’t been hunting for a while.  Anyway, Emmy Lou has been slow to have her milk come in, but gradually she is giving more.  That happens sometimes.  The next cow to calf will be Petula on the suggested due date of November 26th…..

Daylight Savings

Monday, November 6, 2023
Hello friends,
              I’ve never been a fan of Daylight Savings.  It’s just too light, too long in the summer evenings and you end up working too late.  When the daylight hours are shorter, I would rather have them in the morning for the early milking times.  Anyway, we are back to normal time and the cows are a little confused, but they follow our lead. 
              The cows are really growing their fur for winter now.  Unfortunately, we have a couple of warm days.  I don’t think they are particularly unhappy.  Not like the heat of summer when they don’t want to leave the shade and some of them are even panting.  Most of the day they our out there looking for that fall, after-the-rain regrowth.  Get it while it lasts.  Soon they will be eating mostly hay……

Full Moon

Monday, October 30, 2023
Hello friends,
              The full moon was Saturday, but because of the cloud cover we couldn’t see it.  Tonight is very clear, and the big harvest (almost full) moon made a dramatic statement in the eastern sky.  Wow!  No blanket of insulation to keep the daytime warmth from escaping into the atmosphere.  It should be chilly tonight.  We removed any usable produce from the garden on Saturday and my dining room is loaded with green peppers and green tomatoes.  Parsley is drying on cookie sheets, and beans are in the fridge.  One season ends and another season begins.
              We ended up with about 4.75 inches of rain for the week.  Very beneficial for the thirsty ground.  Amazingly, the sump pump didn’t run at all.  It has been so dry for so long that the moisture soaked in but has not filled the water table yet.  Wow.  We have two ponds for water for the cows, one has a huge watershed and fills easily, the other one in the lower 20 is still very low.  We need both to provide water for the cows in the winter so amazingly, we could still use a pond-filler rain!  I’m not a fan of the mud behind the creamery, but I can’t complain too much.  Mud comes with rain…..

Weston A. Price Farm Tour

Monday, October 23, 2023
Hello friends,
              What a warm and windy day!  I thought we could put the fans away from the milking parlor, but I think I was wrong.  The cows are growing their winter coats already since it is supposed to be time for that.  The cool nights are probably very comfortable, but these warm days they are hanging out in the shade.  Looks like a fall change is coming though!  Maybe we’ll get some significant rain.
              Two gigantic check marks!  The grant was turned in last Wednesday and we feel very satisfied that we did a good job.  Don’t know how we will stack up to the other grant applicants, but we gave it our best shot.  The other check mark is that the big two-bus load Westin A. Price Conference farm tour was today.  We prepared and prepared and then they arrived, and we were ON!  All hands on deck, 110 people ushered around the creamery, barn yard, sample table, and store in about an hour and a half.  They had a great time and our preparations paid off.  A big sigh of relief this evening….

Grant Writing

Monday,  October 16, 2023
Hello friends,
              Just a thin sliver of a moon out there, but oh the stars!  The main reason we call this place Skyview Farm is that when we bought the property and we were still living in the city, we drove out with the car and turned off the headlights.  We looked up at the sky and saw stars we had never seen before.  Amazing.  We see impressive sunrises and sunsets.  We see flocks of migrating birds.  All because we have a little piece of Kansas land with a view to the sky.
              The grant writing continues.  It is really crunch time now.  We have to have everything written, proofread, and all the supporting documentation attached.  Then we hit “send” by Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.  I don’t want to be right at the deadline, but it’s kind of like preparing for a big event at your house.  You think you have everything just so, and you look around and tweak here and there, thinking of one more thing you can add or correct.  We hope they like what we’ve done.  An awful lot of thought and figuring has gone into this, so we hope they like it.  If there are just too many good applicants and we don’t make the cut, we will regroup and pick the highest priority purchases first, implementing as we have fund……

Fall Pastures = Delicious Milk

Monday, October 9, 2023
Hello friends,
              Finally, it feels like fall.  We even had a little frost here and there this weekend.  I picked all the beans that I could find, most of the peppers, and some parsley for drying.  We went from air conditioner to heat so quickly.  In between we suffered through a couple of cold nights in the house as we refused to admit that it was going to be that chilly.  It was.  Bring out the sweatshirts, put away the shorts. 
              Despite the cooler weather, the grass is growing in the pastures and the cows are loving it.  They are spending a lot of time grazing and then laying around chewing their cud.  That equals lots of delicious milk production.  Willow is producing for the general milk supply after about  5 days of colostrum that has now passed.  She has a beautiful udder and is adjusting nicely to the new routine.  After considering lots of wonderful suggestions, we decided to name her little heifer Aspen.  Hopefully Willow will have many more heifer calves to name in the future!…..

Another Calf Was Born

Monday, October 2, 2023
Hello friends,
              Surprise, surprise!  Another calf was born this morning.  Our heifer Willow was due on the 9th of October, but she decided today was the day.  Or was it the calf that decided?  Anyway, we are excited that this one is a girl!  Kelcey’s calf was so happy to have company, that he was jumping for joy.  Now the challenging part is that we had only begun heifer training 3 days ago, and although we were making progress, she is by no means trained.  We have a training halter on her, we have been coaxing her to come into the milking parlor by following a bucket of grain, and after pulling and encouraging, she finally puts her head into the stanchion.  We got her milked this morning, but it was not without some unnecessary kicking on her part.  This evening was another opportunity for training.  We are thinking about tree names for Willow’s calf.  Maple?  Magnolia?  Ginko?  Juniper? Suggestions?….

Storms This Past Week

Monday, September 25, 2023
Hello friends,
              After all the storms this past week, we ended up with a little over 3 inches of rain!  Whoo hoo!  The pastures are growing in this week’s warm sunshine and the cows are searching out the tender new growth.  We did have some branches come down, but no damage.  Don’t talk to me about my new pullets.  It’s very sad, but I’m down to 9, I think.
              I’m writing this newsletter a little later than usual because we had to watch a calf being born.  Kelcey had her calf at about 8:15 p.m.  Stephen, Celia, and the boys were down for the day since they had a day off of school.  They were going to leave earlier but Kelcey was in labor, and it was quite a spectacle.  We watched and waited.  The boys were tired but very patient.  It began to get dark, and the coyotes were howling, the sound of train whistles echoing in the night air.  We watched by the light of Stephen’s cell phone as a little male calf was born.  The boys were tired, but still got to see the miracle of birt…

Making More Cheese

Monday, September 18, 2023
Hello friends,
              I sure am enjoying the cool nights and warm days.  It feels like, well, fall!  There are leaves that are turning and dropping, but I think they are conserving moisture and not just responding to lack of daylight.  We had a dramatic front pass through on Saturday, dumping a quarter inch of rain in about 10 minutes, and then it went on its way.  We were just finishing chores and breeding a cow, but we had to take it inside!  I am thankful for a little rain, but we need more!
              We are making more cheese now that we have more milk.  After several months, and maybe even years, of selling a little more cheese than we were making, it has been getting a little sparse in the cheese cave aging rooms.  Finally, we are able to make more cheeses and put them down to age for at least 2 months.  Stephen has been coming down the first couple of days of the week to help out and today was a cheesemaking day.  We also made yogurt and cleaned out the brine tank and readied it to refill it with fresh salt brine.  Then chores.  I will sleep well tonight!…..

New Cows Are Here!

Monday, September 11, 2023
Hello friends,
              A little rain!  I am thankful for every drop, but we need quite a bit more to wake up the pastures.  I think the clovers will perk up and that will help.  The cows are eating hay because the pastures are dormant for the moment.   More rain please! 
              The new cows are here!  Their names are Casey, Chanel, Fresca, Iggy, Rain, and Skinny Dip.  We are adjusting their common names a bit because, well, we like our names better.  Skinny Dip is now Candy, and Iggy is  now Victorious which are derived from their father’s names “Candyman” and “Victrius”.  Anyway, they are coming and going back and forth with our 10 milkers, increasing our milk production from about 30 gallons to our farm’s record high of 52 gallons for one day.  Wow!  We have plenty of milk for everyone, and for cheesemaking as well.  It’s a little daunting, but it will settle down as we have three cows going on their pregnancy vacations by the end of the month and before Kelsey has her calf about the same time.  Not expecting you to keep track of all that, but when you see different names, you will know they are now in the Skyview herd.