Homestead Pantry

It's been awhile since I last visited, since spring sprung with such a vengeance we have been running as fast as we could to keep up. The first round of chicks graduated from the new little brooder house right to the freezer, our happy tummies, and to our happy lgd puppy's chicken/turkey/guinea tractor in the pasture.  Even though we've been raising this breed of lgd (livestock guardian dog or predator control dog) it seems that every litter has a star or two or even more, that find a new and creative way to amaze me.  This one adores her babies and will not let any other animals near them.  Larger poultry are allowed near them but not too near, and definitely they are not allowed to eat her babies' feed up from them!  Our biggest challenge is keeping her out of the tractor.  One, being that she's a puppy I expect her to make mistakes.  Usually that entails death, mayhem and destruction though innocent young pups have no way of realizing it could happen from just having fun with her babies, or trying to redirect them when they make mistakes and get out of their tractor.  So far she has been almost perfect but we just can't expect that to last.  She's only a baby herself, after all. 

Her babies include some white crested black polish, and they are sure cute.  The pasture rings with their singsong calls, from both turkey and guinea.  It's a wonderful sight to open the tractor door, let them all come out each morning.  They come flying out on both sides of me with a whoosh! They go only as far as the pile of feed I had placed there to distract them and keep them near yet allow me space and time to move their tractor to fresh grass.

 Our dairy goats did well for us this spring, with twins and triplets, mostly.   One first time mom delivered a tiny single!  Interestingly enough, she herself was a very tiny singleton when she was born three years ago!  One saanen doe adopted the two orphan lambs just in time to release us from bottle duty so we were able to visit a fiber festival without having to smuggle bottle babies along with us so they could be fed. 

We sheared all but two of our sheep and two of our alpaca so far, but don't worry, they're on the TODO LIST.  Which happens to be at least as long as my leg! 

 The garden is growing right along, despite a sorry lack of rain.  We had only a half inch in the past three weeks!  Watering hoses were made for just such weather, I guess.  The tomatoes are blooming this week and setting on a fine crop of Brandywines, among others. 

Late as it is, I had best add only one or two more items.  We continue to find and collect newly hatched ducklings and put them in the duckling greenhouse.  The two week old crop has moved out to the pasture with the geese.  What a wonderful sight to see all those baby ducks and geese surrounding the three adult geese!  I can't thank our predator control crew nearly enough for their constant vigilance that makes all this possible.

 Finally, this evening we returned from our 'shopping trip' with three heifer calves and a nubian buckling to raise on our extra goat milk.  I guess we didn't think it was enough to make cheese!  So our nearly 9 weeks old dairy goat kids are facing a serious reduction in their milk supply!

Until next time, eat fresh, eat raw, eat well!

What a week!  We have been picking green beans, then hauling and pushing green beans at area markets.  It's about the end of it all now, until they dry and then we will see about shelled beans!  

 We have started a remodel of a rabbitry, to meet increased market demands. Lighting needs improving for winter so we will be looking for information as to the optimum light level in order to avoid wasting electricity by using a higher level of light than necessary.  Poultry need 14 hours of light a day to lay well, and rabbits as well as goats breed better depending on the length of the daylight in any given season.  We are looking into providing the electricity with a solar panel array as we consider going off-grid. As I informed the school district board member complaining about the money he says public cyber charter schools cost the school district, it's all about customer satisfaction.  If you don't provide it as part of your service, you can expect to see your customers flocking away.  I could tell that the public school systems' board meetings had never before discussed such a radical concept as customer satisfaction. Well, we feel that the electric company is getting too greedy so we are preparing to meet our needs as well as those of our customers that want more rabbit.  Since we help two rabbitries market their rabbit meat we find ourselves busy helping them develop better facilities for their rabbits as well as develop systems that save them money while better meeting the needs of the animals.

We finished stage one of the new Chicken Run and have materials laid out for stage two.  They chickens are already 'running' in stage one.  The garden is much safer now.  So nowadays my porch *is* painted, but this time it is actually paint, as the DH ran over my bucket of hive body paint, and the dog tracked it all over the porch.  At least it's not cowpile green!

We have begun bringing in and collecting the new mudroom/workroom project materials, but it is on the same priority as the greenhouse and hotbeds!  I was really hoping to be able to begin wool processing and fiber arts lessons in the workshop by now, so yes, we are a bit behind  schedule.

School is really full bore now so lots less help around the homestead these days.  We could really use one or two good homesteadin' apprentices.  Luckily the hive removal last week was one that could be done after dark so I had help with that job.  Most of the work is just routine nailing and a little post driving, with stage two of the Chicken Run, stage three will require a few post holes be hand dug.

Speaking of digging, I just remembered that the Jerusalem artichokes are probably about ready to dig, and there are a couple of beds of potatoes up there that need digging up as well.  Oddly enough, I first thought of it last week when I was at a friend's homestead.  His Jerusalem artichokes were just now in bloom!  He said that livestock enjoy eating them, too, so I will see about that as I have a lot of them out there this year.

 Until next time, eat fresh, eat well, be well.