Spring Planting Farm Update

Spring 2024 Update:  Planting Progress Hi and happy spring!  Today I'm posting a blog version of our Farm Family Newsletter I write and send out each spring to our farming partners.  Enjoy!   It’s a rainy April day today, and we had a big 2” rain yesterday, which is something we haven’t seen in a while.  More rain is expected in the next few days, and we are thankful for the moisture to help fill up the ponds and keep things growing.  Dry but windy weather earlier this month made for good corn planting conditions.  All of the corn was planted within the first two weeks of April, then we switched the planter plates over for soybeans.  Nathan planted a couple hundred acres of beans ahead of the rains, and we are mostly caught up on spraying/weed control and fertilizing the wheat.  There is always plenty more field and cattle work to do, but we’ve got a good start on the growing season. (Since I wrote this, we received 9" rain in 48 hours.  Some areas around us received much more, so the creeks and rivers are up, and we have some fields under water.  There may be a little clean-up/replant action happening when it dries out!)   The wheat looks pretty good!  Some fields in the area really suffered from poor emergence, wind erosion and winter kill, but most of our wheat has tillered out well and is starting to form heads.  We also have a wheat test plot, where we side-by-side trialed eight different wheat varieties.  It has been interesting to watch them as they grow, and note the slight differences in leaf color that tell you where one variety ends and another begins.      We continue to utilize cover crops on a few of the fields.  We have seen benefits of this in the rockier-type soils and areas where the field might wash out due to heavy rains.  Our cover crop test plot is our 4000 sq. ft. garden, where I like to try out different things.  Our garden was originally broken-out pasture, with tough, clumpy soil.  After four years of relentless growing, weeding, and utilizing cover crops in the “off” seasons, our garden soil has improved, and we can grow some items like mustard greens and kale almost year round (unless the chickens get them!).  Last fall I broadcast leftover wheat seed over part of the garden.  This spring I direct seeded snap peas into the growing wheat, and I have been pleasantly surprised by the success I had with germination, and how well the peas have grown inspite of having competition.  In another part of the garden I plan to let the wheat go to seed and die off naturally, then build soil mounds and plant melons into the wheat straw.  We’ll see how it goes! Tales from the Farmyard:  More Chicken Capers Well, here I am with another chicken story.  Love them or hate them, those quirky, fluffy little critters are interesting, and have quickly become a focal point of our farm family story.  We’ve had quite a lot of chicken drama in the last month or so.  We’ve learned some hard lessons and some interesting lessons along the way, but the best lesson of all happened very recently, in what I like to call the “Great Chick Hatching Experiment”.  Case has always wanted to keep an egg to hatch.  Personally, I think we have enough chickens, and I’m not sure what we’d do with more, so I’ve always kind of pooh, poohed this idea, telling him to wait until 3rd grade (where they sometimes hatch chicks in the classroom).  But this spring we had a Buff Orpington hen go broody and want to sit on one of the nests, so I caved a little and told the kids that they could leave the blue eggs under Broody, and see if she would hatch them.  Why the blue eggs you ask?  Well, in that part of the flock we have an Americana hen (who lays blue eggs) and an Americana rooster, so the chances are good that any blue egg will end up being a pure-bred Americana chick, rather than some random cross.  Before you know it, we had two blue eggs being naturally incubated by good ol’ momma Broody hen.  Fast forward a few weeks.   The blue eggs were still in the nest with Broody and that nothing had happened.  Then last week, when I reminded the kids to change the straw in the nesting boxes, Elijah remarked that one of the blue eggs was cracked.  “Wait!” I said, “Show me.”  We opened up the coop, picked up the egg, and sure enough, there was a little pipping crack on the side of the egg.  “I think this chick is getting ready to hatch,” I said.  Right on cue, our little buddy in the egg started cheeping to let us know he was in there, and trying to get out.  Now, I have ZERO experience with hatching chicks, so what followed was a kind of what-do-we-do moment.  Do we take the egg out of the nest and put it in the incubator I borrowed?  How long do we wait to check on it?  What do we do with the chick once it is born?  Will the hen protect it, or sit on it and kill it?  Ultimately, we decided to let nature do its thing.  We left the egg in the nest with Broody, and waited another hour to check on it.  This time the top of the shell was off and a wet, bedraggled little thing was trying to make its way out.   We waited a little longer, and now a cute, fluffy dry little thing was hiding under the hen in the nest.  The little chick had made it.  Two days later, the other egg hatched as well.  They haven’t come out of the coop yet, but in spite of cold, wet weather and about thirty other big chickens running around, little Pip and Skip appear to be doing well.  Our little farm family has witnessed another miracle of spring, where new life chips it’s way out of the winter world (or egg shell in this case), the earth wakes up, and new discoveries and adventures begin all over again.  😊

 

The Easter Update - 2024

December has disappeared too quickly the past to years, leaving my already-printed-and-stuffed Christmas letters sitting in their envelopes waiting to be addressed.  Last year I didn't get any kind of letter out at all.  This year I resolved to do better, so it is an Easter letter this time!  To those of you who received one in the mail, you are probably here to check the answer to the puzzle that was included (see the bottom of the post).  To those of you who just happen to stumble upon this, I've included a little bit longer version of what's been going on in the Mentzer family the past two years.

2022:  Changes and Challenges  

Photo credit to April Kroenke photography

Parts of 2022 have faded from my memory, but in 2022 we had two kids in the school:  Elijah was in 2nd grade, and Case was in Kindergarten.  Jeanie remained at home as Mommy's little tag along.  Nathan was still doing farming and engineering, and for most of the year we were able to hire someone to help on the farm.  Nathan and I had just concluded our two year term on the Kansas Farm Bureau state Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee, and in spring 2022 we were blessed to go on a wonderful 3-day agricultural tour of the Pacific Northwest.  The only downfall to the trip was that all three of our kids (who were staying with grandma) had Influenza A the whole time we were gone.  We added a small herd of cattle and 15 chickens to our farm that year, and the kids really enjoyed taking care of their new pets.  For a family trip we camped (in 105 degree heat) at the Salt Flats in Oklahoma, and enjoyed digging for selenite crystals, swimming in the Salt Flats lake, and hiking Alabaster Caverns.  

2022 also saw me taking on the largest volunteer role I've held - serving as Area Coordinator for the brand new Southeast KS Operation Christmas Child team.  This was truly a step of faith.  I wasn't sure I had the time or experience for this kind of volunteer-recruitment/leadership role, but God's faithfulness was evident throughout the year.  I met many wonderful people, saw God provide for our needs in amazing ways, and it was so exciting when we collected more than 6,000 shoebox gifts to send around the world to tell children about Jesus and how much God loves them.  

Another memorable part of 2022 is that for part of the year Dad was very sick, and I made more trips than usual back to western KS to stay with him in the hospital or help out at home.  I learned that I wasn't quite ready to step into that caregiver role yet, but that spending quiet moments with people you love, and doing small things to help out is important and meaningful, and something I need to do a better job of.

2023:  Drought and Adventures

For the end of 2022 and most of 2023 we were in drought conditions, so that made the farming side of things a little more interesting.  On one hand it was easy to get all of our work done because we didn't have to work around rainy days.  The garden was much easier to keep weeded.  On the other hand we would've welcomed some more pond water and better grass/crop conditions.  The ponds and the river were too low to do much fishing, but we still had fun by exploring the dry creek beds for artifacts (and venturing into places we usually cannot get to), and wading in the shallow ripples of the river.  

Nathan and I both stepped up our volunteer commitments.  Nathan joined the KFB Water Advisory Committee, and also served on a KFB state Energy Task Force (which was right up his alley).  I added the county Farm Bureau president's role to my responsibilities, and some changes within that organization made the job more challenging and time consuming than expected.  The kids were faithful chicken wranglers.  We added another 25+ bird to our flock, but we had a very sad moment in the summer when we lost our favorite pet Silkie chicken, Leon.  Elijah went to Robotics Camp at Pittsburg State University, which was a great experience.  He also worked very hard on woodworking and electrical projects to take to the fair.  

Photo credit to April Kroenke photography   

Miss Jeanie loves to go camping, and we really upped our camping game with a WINTER camping trip to Arkansas in mid-March.  Tent camping with nighttime lows of 24 degrees involves some special considerations, but everyone stayed pretty warm.  The campground was beautiful and we had sunny weather to dig for quartz crystals at Crystal Vista as well as look for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park.  We also camped in the summer, with at stop in the Oklahoma Panhandle, on our way to Santa Fe.  We spent a week in Santa Fe, enjoying the historical sites, as well as archaeological points of interest, and, of course, the hotel pool.  

That brings us to the now, where we are still busy doing things like spring soccer, piano and violin lessons, etc. etc.  Nathan is just about ready to begin planting corn, I've already got a few things growing in the garden, and we have 9 baby chicks to care for.  As a family we are ready for warmer weather and some new adventures together, so that we have more fun updates to share at the end of this year 😊

We are thankful for the people God has placed in our lives, and wish you a Happy Spring!  

PUZZLE ANSWER:  HE IS RISEN INDEED!  

1 Peter 1:3

Lessons Learned on the Farm:  Leon’s Story

Happy National Agriculture Week! 

We’ve all probably heard of the 3 R’s of recycling (reduce, reuse, recycle) and the 3 R’s of education (Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic), but have you heard of the 3 R’s of Agriculture?  Coined by Aaron Alejandro, Executive Director of the Texas FFA Foundation, these three attributes - Respect, Responsibility, and Resiliency – are often learned through hands on participation in agriculture.  Today I’d like to share with you Leon’s story, an example of how these 3 R’s take center stage on our farm.  Leon (or Neon Leon, as he was first called) was a cute, white, fluffy feathered, poofy-headed, six-toed little Silkie rooster we got with our very first batch of chicks.  Three years into the laying hen lifestyle, we’ve gained a lot of chicken experience, but no other chicken will ever be as remembered as Leon. 

The First R:  Respect – Chicks NEED it.  If you’ve ever tried raising baby chicks with a 4, 6, and 8-year old, you can probably relate to the challenges of teaching young children how to handle and care for chicks.  You can’t squeeze them, dunk them, bathe them, drop them or step on them.  Chicks are fragile.  They need to be treated carefully and respectfully.  Respect is simply recognizing and understanding what makes others who they are, and being considerate of their needs.  When the kids understand that those cute little fluffy “cheep cheeps” are fragile, then they know how to treat them appropriately.  There are LOTS more examples we could pull from the day-to-day workings of a farm or ranch, but to keep things short, we’ll focus on the chickens.  Leon was a funny little fluffy chick and an instant kid favorite, so he got lots of love…and respect. 

The Second R:  Responsibility – “If We Don’t Do Our Job, Something Dies”.  While a guest on the Mission Matters podcast (link to the interview below) Mr. Alejandro made the comment that “in the world of agriculture…if we don’t do our job [something] dies.”  That is quite often the truth on the farm, and a lesson my kids had to learn the hard way.  You see, a few weeks after these pictures were taken, our family neglected our responsibility, and Leon died.  He was the low rooster in the pecking order, so he would never go up into the coop at night. Instead, he would huddle on the ground at the bottom of the ramp and every evening one of us would have to go out, pick him up, set him in the coop box, close the ramp, and then lock the outside door of the pen.  We did that for over a year, every night, faithfully “putting Leon to bed” as we called it.  But one week we were really busy with VBS and baseball and we came home and forgot to put Leon to bed.  Something snuck in the pen (under guard dog Spot’s nose) and that was the end of our good buddy Leon. 

There were lots of tears, but I guarantee we learned our lesson, because now, every night, I don’t have to remind the kids to go put the chickens away (and we have thirty-four of them, in two different pens).  Whenever the sun starts to go down, they take the initiative to go shoo the hens into the pens and count to make sure we have them all before closing the doors for the night. 

The Third R:  Resiliency – Get back up again.  When Nathan and I were planning to move to the
farm we talked about how you can be the best farmer in the world, make all the right decisions, and still have nothing to show for it at the end of the year due to a weather disaster, market collapse, or other unpredictable, uncontrollable circumstance.  While farmers and ranchers certainly try to manage their risk, at some point everyone has a failure.  At that point you have two choices:  either you throw in the towel, or you bounce back and figure out how to stay in the game.  The traumatic loss of our favorite chicken didn’t make my children want to quit the chicken business.  Instead, they eagerly look for new breeds to try, dream about building elaborate chicken tunnels, hold chickens on their laps while reading books and do their dedicated best to collect eggs and reap a few dollar of profit for their efforts.  And, as it happens, this year there are THREE fluffy little Silkie chicks hanging out under the heat lamp in the garage:  a grey one, a brown one, and a silly, fluffy little white one whose name is…Leon.  😊

Find the full link to the Mission Matters podcast episode here:  Mission Matters with Adam Torres and Aaron Alejandro