Recent Posts

Most dairy cows are fed rations at some point in the year. The climate does not offer year round grazing in most areas, including Ireland. Even in temperate climates like California, the pasture still has to have time to recover, and winter season does not offer as much growth. It takes a huge amount of land/pasture to sustain diary cattle on 100% pasture. If you read the KerryGold info, they do not graze their dairy cattle year round. They very much emphasize pasture/grass fed, but they do note that seasonally they are fed stored crops, which would be dry hay and silage. But that is barely mentioned. I also would not call Dairy cattle free range. When they are on pasture, they are often rotationally grazed. This is a very intensely managed way to graze pastures, without over-grazing. They are in paddocks that are moved frequently, to allow for regrowth. Even with that, it takes a massive amount of land for this to happen. Ireland is not going to support a world wide butter supply on pasture only.

KerryGold is 82% butterfat (at least what we have available in the US)
Land O Lakes offers a European style butter that is also 82% butterfat and is very good.
Vermont Creamery offers an 86% butterfat, but it is not available in my more rural Midwest area.

I do agree that KerryGold is excellent butter! But I choose to support American farmers and buy Land O Lakes. I have heard that KerryGold may be coming to Wisconsin at some point though.

I wish that AE Dairy (Anderson Erickson) offered butter. They are an Iowa Dairy, getting milk from diary's within hours of their location. They have the absolute BEST chocolate milk, dips (AE Party Dip!) and cottage cheese. I only buy AE milk to drink.

Iowa has a lot of dairy farms. A little north of me, dairy is huge. The Blue Bunny ice cream plant is in Lemars. They make more ice cream (by a single company) than any other city in the world.

I just saw a video on TikTok on the Oregonians page. Is this you?
The tree cut the house in half!

I would go with the Classic Tilt head. There isn't much of a size difference between them.

Here is a comparison of them that might help decide. Comparison of Classic Tilt Head and Mini KA Mixer

The handle on the mini would be nice, but also a pain. LOL 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

I would absolutely get a beater with the silicone edge though. That comes with the mini, but you can buy one for the Classic from KA, or cheaper on Amazon. When I still had a KA mixer, that silicone edge beater was THE best thing that ever came along!

Good luck! It sounds like an opportunity that you can't miss.

That guilt you are feeling means you are a good person, but that doesn't mean you have to stay at your current job.

When you mentioned BOOM - I knew it was an aerosol can. I don't know what it is with men and things that go BOOM, but they love it. I used to exclusively burn my trash, and always sorted out the aerosol cans, so I wouldn't get a boom. One day I found my husband and young son tossing them in the fire to get them to explode (they were safely within something so it wouldn't hit them). I was like WTF are you doing!! And they just laughed! They also loved Tannerite and making other things go boom. At least they were safe with it.

You were right to call it in. He was using no sense at all with the burning.

I so seldom burn now. I usually have some yard waste in the spring and wait for favorable rains and wind direction. Once the crops turn in the fields around me, I will not burn anything. Stalks now, and we have grazed them and the cattle are off them, but it still terrifies me to burn!

This is the ballot tally from a smaller population county in my area.
Yes - the math doesn't math on it, but that was explained by an undecided vote that wasn't reflected on the tally sheet.

Interesting!

I always keep my BKF under the sink, but I wish the powder had a better lid. It clumps up so bad for me. I haven't found a really good container to swap it to, and I am a bit hesitant about keeping chemicals in anything but their original packaging.

I am trying to pare down my pantry and my freezers. I just added a half beef to my freezers, so they are really full now. I had a lot of larger bulky items in there from Christmas, and I just need to organize it better. It's hard when I had to quickly cram in a lot of beef. I do put that stuff into the stiff sided grocery totes, so I can lift out to see what is below. It helps keep it better organized, instead of just random packages thrown in. I have another quarter in there to take to one of my kids, so that is not helping me get organized. I need to keep that separated.

Money wise. Lord. Normally we pay most expenses in December, but this year we did not need any more expense, so we pushed it into January. The bill sitting on the top of the stack is 108K That's the biggie, but there are some other sizeable ones. Ooof... painful.

Hope to get a couple loads of fats sold here soon. They are ready and we need to get them out of the barns to make room for calves.

Are these actual temps!

Or are they windchill temps? I find that the weather forecasters in my area are now reporting the windchill temps, but never really revealing that is the windchill, not the actual real temperature. That can be frustrating, since it is just inflating the drama of it all. We need to know the actual temps and forecasted temps. We do take into account winds, not that the wind makes it actually colder (yes it 'feels' colder, but it is not actually that temp). But we need to know the actual temperature and the wind/speed/direction to make our decisions for cattle placement and also for ventilation choices. Many a night my husband has woken up and check the temps/wind and has to go out in the cold to change ventilation for our barns.

Today's low is supposed to be 5º F
It drops from there to -19º on Saturday night, -20º on Sunday. Sunday's high is supposed to be -7º. These are all Fahrenheit, and actual temperature, not wind chill conversion.

This is normal. We always get cold snaps. It can be challenging, especially if it is windy. What we struggle with the most is water freezing in our barns. It is essential that water flows 24/7 in the barns. So when water freezes, it is necessary to get it going again ASAP. Our outdoor waters for cattle on stalks works much better. We have in-ground water tanks that never freeze up. We might have to go break the ice at the very top (ground level) sometimes. Usually first thing in the morning. But if the cattle are at the waters, that doesn't freeze up. Best thing we ever invested in!

We ramp up our feed for our cattle on stalks, so they have energy (heat). They get feed in their bunks every morning, usually with some protein mixed in. They also are on a stalk field that provides natural windbreaks, no matter the wind direction. We save this stalk field for last, since it will be the one they spend the worst of the winter on.

Out of everything, the only thing I have seen is the Barbie movie, Ted Lasso (but not the last season) and some of The Crown

I have about 100% quit watching any TV, and there is never anything worth paying to see at the movies. A friend talked me into the Barbie movie and I enjoyed it. Mostly went for the popcorn and a Dr. Pepper.

Jo Koy was the MC - I haven't heard a good thing about it. I heard that he accepted the job 10 weeks ago, because no one else would do it. Says a lot about the state of things, doesn't it. I have watched some of his standup, and once you see a little of it, it's the same joke spun a little different. He used to date Chelsea Handler.

FOMO

Fear Of Missing Out. People see others buying them, see influencer's on Instagram and other platforms, and FOMO sets in. It's a real thing!

I have experienced it before. Something that I didn't even thing about, then didn't really think I needed, but the more I saw it, the more I wanted it. I didn't want to miss out on getting it... BAM! Scrabooking supplies, home decor, etc. I now take the 'park it in my cart' approach. Put it in my real or virtual cart and think about it. Do I really want it? Do I have a place for it? Is it worth the cost? Most of the time it is not - and I put it back or delete it from my cart. I have a lot of things on my Amazon wish list. I go back weeks or months later and look at them. Do I still want it? Almost always no, I do not.

FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. I can fall in to that trap, but I am working hard to not go down that path.

I bought one Stanley, and it is the Admiral's cup. I thought I had to have it. Turned out I hated it, but the silver lining is that my husband loves it. When he runs the sprayer and the combine, he does not have enough cup holders. He has a cold drink and his hot coffee, and only room for one cup. We discovered the wide base of the Admiral's cup works to put on the floor and doesn't tip over when the machine gets a big jolt from a bump or a fast turn. So, I am happy that he likes it and I didn't waste money on a stupid purchase.

My favorite insulated cups are the ones I bought in a case lot from SaveACup for crafts. Never really got the crafts done, but love those cups. They are the YETI style 20 ounce ones. Hot stays hot and ice stays in them for a day or two. I ended up buying the mag slider lids to replace the original lids to keep the flys out....always have flys in the cab! LOL I hate finding one in my drink! Plus I got the colored mag sliders, so everyone knows who's cup is who's.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is a book that I enjoyed so much.

The main character, Tova does loose her husband to cancer, but the book doesn't dwell on that, it is just part of the plot as to why she started working where she is. But there is that mention of it.