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“If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, May 19, 2011

What's Going on Around Here

Wow things have really been a little crazy around here. Three days ago, Sugar kidded with twin doelings. All went well and it was an uneventful birth other than being a bit on the chilly side. Go figure! Our weather has been nuts. We had about 2 days in the 90s, then the temperature dropped and the past several days have been in the 70s with lows in the 40s. Folks, we are in the deep south in mid May. This is late February weather for us. Not complaining mind you as I am not thrilled to see 90s and 100 degree weather anytime soon. We cut hay a few days ago and yesterday I raked it into windrows. I raked it by hand and today I am a little sore. Today we will bale it, again by hand. I will be doing a post either later today or tomorrow about baling hay by hand. It is hard work and not something that I particularly look forward too. However, when you are only cutting and baling about an acre then the equipment is simply not worth the cost. It took me two hours with a rake to rake up the windrows yesterday. By the time I hooked up the equipment and raked then I still would not have saved much time, although I would have saved some wear and tear on my muscles. Who needs to go to a gym when you live the life we do?! The garden is going crazy and as soon as I get this hay baled today then I have to start putting up vegetables. The pole beans are loaded, sunflowers still need to be thinned, the cabbage needs to be harvested and put in the freezer and I have radishes that are probably too big now to be enjoyable. The carrots are ready to harvest and the seed pods are filled out on the turnips and collards ready to be dried and put up for fall planting. Then I can pull those final plants and plant something else. The tomatoes are growing well and will probably be producing in a few weeks. The broccoli is about finished but there are some small heads to be harvested and then the broccoli greens also to put up. The pepper plants have doubled in size and are flowering now. I did get herbs dried and put up the other day, now to harvest some more herbs and put that in the freezer. The squash plants are huge, flowering and have tiny fruit on them. The garden looks like a jungle but is going like gangbusters. The next few days are going to be nuts getting all of this stuff put up. We also have rabbits that need butchering and a goat that needs butchering. Unfortunately there are just not enough hours in the day. Well, I had better get moving as this hay won't bale itself and it is supposed to rain tomorrow and Saturday. Blessings from the farm, Kat

2 comments:

Kelly Cook said...

Did you get rain? I just met a local farmer that has baling tractor and tried to get an answer as to how many acres of land it'd take before he'd be willing to come bale it all for 1/2 the bales. He didn't say. Still looking for land so we can move.

Had 2 goats give birth this week, two sets of twins, though one boy didn't survive. I think we're up to 12 now and planning to sell off so we just have 2 milkers and the buck.

Kat said...

Hey Kelly! We had a good amount of rain this spring, none the past couple weeks though. Even though it said it was supposed to rain....nothing. Now they say rain later this week we will see. Still praying that you find land. We have plenty down here if you want to move to a different state. PM me if you are interested. We will be selling most of our doelings born this year. Just waiting for the rest of the girls to kid so that we can decide who we are retaining. We will retain 1. I have a buck that needs to be in the freezer, just can't seem to find the time. It is hard keeping them all and I don't want my herd getting to be too many so that chores are overwhelming! Good luck in selling, seems to be a good time for it. More and more are looking for milk goats. Blessings, Kat