OberRun Farm

Flys were pretty bad this year for a lot of people. Some great tips on fly control in this article.

Proverbs 31 Homestead: Controlling Flies on the Homestead - Naturally Homesteading, homemaking, family, & faith

A Teens and Oregon Mustangs trainer has this well started Palomino Buttes gelding available. The horses from this HMA have an incredible mind, you don’t want to miss out if you are in the market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4n8B5bRIi8

https://www.facebook.com/hannah.brown.7798574

https://www.facebook.com/100079502859001/posts/483433704316721/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

WARNING: Amazon has done nothing to combat AI generated books. Therefore, I HIGHLY recommend that you always look up the name of the author of any nonfiction books you purchase to see if they have a verifiable history on the topic the book is covering. Especially when it comes to homesteading and health topics, to do otherwise can be dangerous.

It’s that time again, too much zucchini from the garden. Time to find new ways to use it up. :)

Lemon Zucchini Cake This Lemon Zucchini Cake is so moist, undeniably delicious and topped with a lemon glaze that will keep you coming back for one more slice.

https://www.facebook.com/100064859373563/posts/891648759673762/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Some people may not be aware that rescues are being absolutely Flooded with calls to take animals these days.

It's extremely overwhelming.

The past several weeks our rescue has been inundated with a different kind of phone call, though. We've always had these requests, but we are getting more lately than ever before.

They go something like this...

"I saved this horse (two horses, mom and baby, etc) from shipping to slaughter, but I cannot afford to feed/float/keep/have the farrier (have the vet out because the wound is much worse than the pictures). Really, I just saved her to donate her to a rescue, so can you come and get him/her from me, ASAP!?"

We know people find those misleading pictures heart tugging. They flood your news feed asking for money and someone to open their doors. And there are sooo many of them.

But, if you are going to jump into that mess, You have to be the one who sees the horse through, unless you have called a rescue beforehand, and that rescue has agreed to take the horse in.

Things are hard for rescues of all sorts of animals at the moment. We don't know of any in our area who do not have a really long waiting list.

Examine your situation before you jump into one of these kill pen schemes.

We advise never get involved, but if you're going to, be prepared.

They aren't set up with the buyers best interest in mind. They are solely about profit. They are so very rarely a simple commitment, often more complex than what was represented, and take quite a bit of resources to get to a good place.

https://www.facebook.com/100063606517769/posts/998355425627999/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Expect continued interstate and highway closures in eastern Oregon due to wildfires

PENDLETON -- (Release from ODOT) If you plan to travel across Oregon in the coming days, make sure you carefully plan your route. I-84 and many other highways in eastern may be closed or unreliable due to wildfires. With a long hot summer ahead, other fires and closures throughout the state are likely.

Travelers should be prepared for more I-84 closures and are encouraged not to rely on this route. Many eastern Oregon highways are closed or impacted as well. Travelers are urged to use Tripcheck.com for up-to-date information.

Wildfires are unpredictable and we have no estimate on opening times for any fire-impacted highways. Previous plans for a nighttime only closure of I-84 to remove brush along the highway were upended when the fire quickly reached the highway. Fire crews are actively fighting fire from I-84.

Travelers should use U.S. 20 to move east or west across central and eastern Oregon. If you must travel, consult Tripcheck.com and check conditions for your route. Here are some other tips while traveling in wildfire season:

Do not follow GPS directions or detour on local or forest roads. These roads are not suitable for interstate traffic. If a highway is closed on tripcheck.com, it is likely that nearby local roads will be closed as well.
Expect power outages near wildfires. Treat non-working traffic lights like a four-way stop. Roadside message boards and tripcheck cameras may also be out in these areas.
Carry extra supplies including food and water in case your trip is delayed.
Driving in smoke is like driving in heavy fog. Slow down but keep a steady pace and stay alert. Slow driving gives you more time to respond to unexpected conditions.
Turn on headlights when driving in smoky areas.
The best place to wait for a highway to open is at home. Do not travel to the closure points and wait, closures could last for days.

When taking a dam and daughter to a show or if you have a self nursing goat here is a good way to apply teat tape.

How to apply teat tape on a goat I dam-raise my kids, and when I have a single kid, I tape a different teat each day, so the kid becomes accustomed to using both teats, and the udder develop...

https://www.facebook.com/100063462341730/posts/1042539511204784/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=735867982043618&set=a.404798328483920&type=3&mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Driving around in farm country today I was on the lonely road. I came to a T intersection and I needed to make a left but I seen this guy coming down the road. So I backed up and waited until he passed me. This was one farmer to another giving them a “ brake” because I know what he’s going through. They are not occupying the road because they think they own it. They are just trying to get to the next field.
I’m not posting this to show you how great I am but instead I am hoping to influence you to show you how great you can be.

Although I may not have equipment as big as this I encounter the same issues when I’m moving from field to field. People in a hurry and not wanting to give somebody a break just so that they can go as fast as they possibly can.
We love it when you come out to the country especially when you bring the kids along. As the temperatures warm up, people want to experience the country, especially agri-tourism. If you’re taking in the country, slow down a bit and actually see what you’re passing by at speed limit speeds. You might just see something you’ve never seen before.
Please give the farmer berth and allow them to pass or safely pass or just politely wait your turn.
Remember the life you save may be yours and mine.
Thank you for taking this time to read my public service announcement




A total solar eclipse is so fun to watch. Although this 2024 one appears to be better in Missouri than the one we had in 2017 in Oregon. We didn’t get a crawfish eclipse as part of the viewing experience in 2017. 😆🤣

https://www.facebook.com/GatewayGarlic/videos/270064099526782/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Funny, but so true.

https://www.facebook.com/100064702805224/posts/805032514996835/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Trash cans have feed in them
Feedbags have trash in them
Why is this so hard to understand?

Stay tuned this spring for advanced classes on weeding and barn mucking techniques… *wink*

https://www.facebook.com/groups/goatcrazy/permalink/3636603683250812/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

https://www.facebook.com/100068612682005/posts/618689190428165/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Got leaves ? Get ready for a huge fertilizer gift from the trees.

The leaves of one large shade tree can be worth as much as $50 of plant food and humus. Pound for pound, the leaves of most trees contain twice as many minerals as manure. For example, the mineral content of a sugar maple leaf is over five percent, while even common pine needles have 2.5 percent of their weight in calcium, magnesium, nitrogen and phosphorus, plus other trace elements.

Since most trees are deep-rooted, they absorb minerals from deep in the soil and a good portion of these minerals go into the leaves. See the accompanying chart for an analysis of the nutrient elements in fallen leaves.

Actually, these multi-colored gifts from above are most valuable for the large amounts of fibrous organic matter they supply. Their humus-building qualities mean improved structure for all soil types. They aerate heavy clay soils, prevent sandy soils from drying out too fast, soak up rain and check evaporation.


A lawn sweeper is a good machine to use for collecting leaves. Using a sweeper is much faster than hand raking, and a better picking-up job is done. Neighbors will be happy to have you sweep up their leaves—and you will add to your supply of leaves.

Some people complain to us that they have no luck composting leaves. “We make a pile of our leaves,” these people say, “but they never break down.” That is indeed a common complaint.

There are two things you can do that will guarantee success in composing leaves:

1. Add extra nitrogen to your leaf compost. Manure is the best nitrogen supplement, and a mixture of five parts leaves to one part manure will certainly break down quickly. If you don’t have manure—and many gardeners don’t—nitrogen supplements like dried blood, cottonseed meal, fish bone meal and Agrinite will work almost as well. Nitrogen is the one factor that starts compost heap heating up, and leaves certainly don’t contain enough nitrogen to provide sufficient food for bacteria. Here is a rough guide for nitrogen supplementing add two cups of dried blood or other natural nitrogen supplement to each wheelbarrow load of leaves.

2. The second thing to do to guarantee leaf-composting success is to grind or shred your leaves. We will deal with this in detail later on, but let me tell you right now that it will make things simpler for you in the long run. A compost pile made of shredded material is really fun to work with, because it is so easily controlled and so easy to handle.

A compost pile can be made in almost any size, but most people like to make rectangular-shaped piles, because they are easier to handle. It is a good idea to put the material in the heap of layers. Start with a six-inch layer of leaves, either shredded or not shredded. Then add a two-inch layer of other organic material that is higher in nitrogen than leaves. Try to pick something from this list: manure, garbage, green weeds, grass clippings or old vines from your garden. You can add low-nitrogen things like sawdust, straw, ground corn cobs or dry weeds if you put in a nitrogen supplement such as described above. It is important to mix leaves from packing down in a dry mat. Keep the heap moist, but not soggy.

Turn the heap every three weeks or sooner if you feel up to it. If you can turn it three or four times, before late spring comes, you will have fine compost ready for spring planting use.

You can make compost out of leaves in as short of time as fourteen days by doing these things:

1. Shred or grind the leaves.

2. Mix four parts ground leaves with one part manure or other material liberally supplemented with nitrogen.

3. Turn the heap every three days. Turning a heap made of shredded leaves is not difficult because the compost is light and fluffy.

One more tip: Why not experiment with covering your heap with a plastic sheet? It will keep the warmth in, and prevent the heap from getting too wet or too dry.

Leaves can be uses much more conveniently in the garden if they are ground or shredded. Leaves in their natural state tend to blow away or mat down into a tight mass. If shredded they turn into compost or leaf mold much faster, and make mulch better mulch.

If you don’t have a shredder, there are various other devices you can adapt to leaf shredding, or make yourself. Many people use a rotary mower for shredding leaves and even for weeds. A mower that is not self propelled is best, as it is easiest to control. Two people can work together very nicely. One person piles up leaves in front of the mower and the other operates the mower back and forth over the pile. A leaf-mulching attachment placed on the mower will cut the leaves up finer, but sometimes it is not necessary. You will be surprised how much leaves you can shred this way in a half-hour or so, even with only one person working by himself.

Of course, some people use a mower with a mulching attachment to cut leaves up right on the lawn. That is fine, if you don’t want to us the leaves for compost or mulch somewhere else. Most gardeners need leaf mold more on their gardens and beds than on their lawn.

If you have so many leaves on your place that you can’t compost all of them—or if you just don’t have the time to make compost—you can make leaf mold. Leaf mold is not as rich a fertilizer as composted leaves, but it’s easier to make and is especially useful as mulch.

A length of snow fencing makes the best kind of enclosure for making leaf mold. Make a circular bin, as shown in the photograph. A bin made of wood or stones can be used if you don’t have a fence.
Gather your leaves in the fine fall days and tamp them down in the enclosure—after wetting them thoroughly. Leaves have a slight acid reaction. If you plants don’t need an acid mulch, add some ground limestone to the leaves before tamping them down.

Over the winter, these leaves will not break down in the black powder that is the leaf mold you find on the forest floor. But they will be in a safe place, secure from the winter winds, where you can pull them out next spring and summer for use as mulch. By then they will be matted down and broken up enough to serve as a fine mulch. Some people keep leaves “in cold storage” like that for several years. Nurserymen who require fine potting soil sometimes do that. Then, when they come for their leaves, they find really black, crumbly humus.

You can shred your leaves with a compost shredder or a rotary mower before putting them in you bin. Then they will break down a lot more over the winter.

Leaf mold is ordinarily found in the forest in a layer just above the mineral soil. It’s usually soft, like a mattress. It has the merit of decomposing slowly, furnishing plant nutrients gradually and improving the structure of the soil as it does so.

The ability of leaf mold to retain moisture is almost miraculous. Subsoil can hold a mere 20 percent of its weight; good, rich topsoil will hold 60 percent, but leaf mold can retain 300 to 500 percent of its weight in water.

Freshly fallen leaves pass through several stages from surface litter to well-decomposed humus partly mixed with mineral soil. Leaf mold from deciduous trees is somewhat richer in such mineral foods as potash and phosphorus than that from conifers. The nitrogen content varies from .2 to 5 percent.

If you keep poultry or livestock, use your supply of leaves for litter or bedding along with straw or hay. Leaf mold thus enriched with extra nitrogen may later be mixed directly with soil or added to the compost .

A Friday Funny…

Time for some farm funnies…

What do you call a line of rabbits running backwards?

A receding hare line.

What do you call milk from a miniature cow?

Condensed milk.

34088 Priceboro Dr., Harrisburg, OR

"Problem: A new-born animal is not breathing.
For more visit here Instagram.com/veterinarians_to_be
Some new-born animals are very weak, especially after a difficult birth. They often have much fluid in their lungs that stops them breathing normally.

So after parturation you have to do these

1. If the baby is having difficulty breathing, hang it upside down. Rub the chest to make
any fluid in the lungs come out of the nose.

2. Lift the new-born animal up by the back
legs for a minute or so to let mucus and
fluid drain out from the lungs. You can
hold the back legs of a small animal
and swing it round to make mucus
come out of the nose.

3. Put the new-born animal over the back
of its mother with its head down to
help fluid drain out from the lungs.

4. Put a piece of dry grass up the baby
animal's nose. This makes it cough then
it starts breathing.

5. Make sure the baby animal sucks its
mother's teat as soon as possible. When
the mother feels a baby sucking, her
brain releases a hormone called oxytocin
into her blood that makes milk flow
from the udder. It also makes the uterus
contract and push the placenta out."

Keep following Veterinarian To Be

Goat Milk
Farm Fresh Eggs
Strawberry Plants
Raspberry Plants

Now available for porch pick-up.

https://homesteadingfamily.com/learn-to-extend-the-growing-season/

Learn to Extend the Growing Season Learn how to extend the growing season with these tips that go a long way to extend your garden harvest without a greenhouse.

Hubby found morels on the farm today! So cool!