Videos

October 17, 2016 - Tips For Training the New Milk Cow

Cows are not innovative trailblazers motivated to leap tall building or climb mountains, risking life and limb and stability to conquer new lands or reinvent the wheel. They’re steady, solid, dependable, stable backbones of family farming, born to graze here in the morning, graze there in the afternoon, chew their cuds in between, and vote...
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May 26, 2016 - Moon Pie the Baby Stealer

Life in the country is filled with strange and wonderful things. Animal things. That’s right. That’s Moon Pie letting two calves suck on her at the same time. And only one of them is hers. That’s Gingersnap, her real baby, on the left, and Pumpkin, Glory Bee’s baby, on the right! Sucking on Moon Pie!...
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May 25, 2016 - A New Complete Milking System

Got cows? Then you’ve got milk! And the baby doesn’t need all of it. You could use the original cow milking system….you know, your hands. After all, hand-milking is a low-tech operation. You need hands and a bucket. Clean up is as easy as putting the milk bucket in the dishwasher. But milking the cow…....
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April 2, 2015 - New Friends!

Precious, studying her new friend! What IS IT? She got up to check! Sniffed it from behind. Asked it to play! Here’s a little video showing what happened next!

March 14, 2014 - Cow Giving Birth

We have a baby! This is how I discovered Glory Bee yesterday afternoon. Two little hooves! And a little head… Glory Bee didn’t really want to talk about it, but I knew THIS WAS MY CHANCE! Finally! I ran inside for my camera and took a video of the entire birth. Dumplin tried to help....
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September 26, 2013 - The Video Book Trailer!

My publisher put together this video book trailer for my book, using some of my own photographs and video clips. That’s me doing the voiceover, reading a few quotes from the book. I hope you enjoy it! Tell me what you think! Glory Bee’s in it and she loves it! ***** You can order Chickens...
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December 19, 2012 - Comeuppance

This is where Glory Bee stashes Apple Dumpling when she wants some downtime to read her email–in a corner tucked amidst the spilled hay in one of the barn stalls. Not that she gets much downtime now. Baby’s raring to go. Dumpling is a-scampering, and guess who’s scampering after her? Ha. The comeuppance, it comes...
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December 17, 2012 - The Bad Baby Has a Baby!

The bee-hind shots are now behind me and all I have to offer you are baby pictures. I KNOW. You must miss the bee-hind shots so much! Saturday afternoon, I checked on Glory Bee and everything seemed completely normal, as usual. The Bad Baby loves to mess with me. I fed the goats and went...
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November 4, 2012 - The Pointing Ranger

Ross was determined to ride a horse today. He’s been wanting to ride a horse since we got horses, but not until Shortcake was there one that I felt comfortable entrusting with a first-time rider. Ross has never been on a horse before in his life. I saddled up Shortcake, gave Ross directions about how...
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October 15, 2012 - The New Ewe

Once upon a time, a teenage girl got two sheep for her 4-H livestock project. One sheep grew faster than the other sheep and became the chosen one. And so that fat little ewe went to show at the livestock barn and on to auction while the other little ewe stayed at home, all a-lonely....
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August 28, 2012 - The Ruination of Modern Society

If you’ve never seen square bales coming out of a baler, here’s a quick little video. It’s oddly addicting to watch the hay eaten in on one end then pooped out the other. This is how square bales are made: That’s Sam’s voice in the video. Sam is the hay man’s brother. My hay man...
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August 1, 2012 - Then He Busted Out the Light

I never realized Patriot was short until a few evenings ago when we visited him at the trainer’s. I had just been petting a Tennessee Walker that is boarding there, and well, a Tennessee Walker might make any horse look short, but Patriot looked particularly shrimpy. I pointed out that he was looking awfully shrimpy,...
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July 18, 2012 - Slight Comic Relief

This is Cookie Doe’s baby boy. This is what Cookie Doe’s baby boy likes to do. All day. Every day. (And NO, the hay elevator is not turned on! He uses it as a slide.) This, by the way, is what you see behind the baby right at the end of the video: A chicken...
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July 17, 2012 - Shooting Off Zip’s Back

We won’t need to nickname her Spooky. Trainer Mike Trader, shooting off Zip’s back. (Please know that real bullets are not involved in this type of exercise. It’s intended as a test/demonstration of a horse’s training under saddle.) That is a horse you can trust with your baby.

June 22, 2012 - Of Water, Trees, and Tractors

It’s been dry here. Any rain in the past few weeks has been random–and light. I have two creeks on my farm. One of the creeks starts on my farm, way back behind the second upper pasture, from springs in a huge cliff. This is the creek that is seen in most of my photos...
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June 21, 2012 - Fun in the Hay

I’m much more involved with getting hay than I used to be. I plan it, organize it, man it, drive the truck, and even help unload. I don’t stack hay on the truck, and I don’t stack in the barn. That’s some heavy lifting. But I was up and down and in and out of...
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March 12, 2012 - A Rescue Horse

That for which every horse longs in their sweetest dreams–a horse-crazy teenage girl to love them. Photo by Jerry Waters. This is Patriot today. Click here to see what Patriot looked like six months ago. Four horses were found wandering loose, abandoned by their owner, starving, in Ohio on September 11, 2011. Patriot was the...
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November 25, 2011 - Moving Day

Nothing is easy at Stringtown Rising, and of course, moving was no exception. I lucked out in that there were a number of dry days in November. I started packing weeks ago. Worried about weather–mud, snow, ice–I began moving boxes to the old farmhouse (here, I mean the old farmhouse on my cousin’s farm) because...
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August 26, 2011 - Croak

Oh, those little roos. You know what I forgot about little roos? They start crowing. You ever heard a juvenile rooster crow? Check out the difference between a full-grown rooster crow and a “teenage” rooster crow in this short video. (Little roos are crowing from inside the chicken house.) And you know what? Pretty soon?...
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June 20, 2011 - Annabelle Has a Puppy!

If this thing was any more adorable, it would probably be illegal. Annabelle showed up with this lil pup a week ago. I didn’t say anything for several days because 1) I was in the middle of an ongoing BP story that was taking up a lot of Barn page space, and 2) it’s a...
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May 20, 2011 - Magical

Sometimes, I take a moment, and just sit. And listen. And look. And walk around and see and pet and do. Or not do and just pet. And I realize it really is that special. Then I gotta go feed somebody or do the dishes or milk. Or something. But it was a really great...
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May 16, 2011 - The Sound of a Whippoorwill

The sound of the whippoorwill is becoming very rare, even in the country, but we hear them every evening in the spring. Now you can, too. If you’ve never heard a whippoorwill before, turn it up and listen for the more distant sound, beyond the crickets and frogs.

May 14, 2011 - Wranglin’ Time

We’ve been busy on the farm the past few days, doing things that needed done and catching up on a few things where we were behind. Such as sheep shearing. Those poor sheep were still wearing their winter coats and it suddenly got hot here. The donkeys’ hooves needed trimming, too. It was time for...
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May 6, 2011 - War and Peace

It’s so peaceful on a farm in the spring! Or not…. Just a little bellowing here. I think she’s wearing out. This is after four days of non-stop bellowing. And she’s actually made herself hoarse!

April 21, 2011 - Roosters Will Be Roosters

I’ve rarely seen my roosters actually hurt each other unless they’re confined (which is why I no longer keep any roosters in the chicken house/yard), but boys and roosters will be boys and roosters. They’ve always got something to prove– –to each other if no one else, because I don’t think the hens are that...
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