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Jim and I had to run to G’ville to drop off something at Tech and as we were driving by the Walgreens at Augusta I noticed the temperature flash up on the sign… 111 degrees. While I had definitely thought it was hot, I thought 111 was a bit excessive and figured that sign was fritzy. So I hit the ext.temp button in the car (I think that button sat there unused for the first year that I drove Landy before I realized what it was) and 109 popped up on the screen. Hmmmm. Guess the sign wasn’t really all that much off after all.
So yeah, it’s been hot here and fairly humid… as in denim has been banned from farm wear because of discomfort and inability to get them off once you’re back inside! The sheep refuse to graze during the day as they’d rather doze under the shady trees and the cows have stayed either in the barn or under the trees as well. The horses are willing to brave the rays to graze, but even they have to hang out in the shade during the hottest part of the day. Unfortunately we lost the smallest of the pigs. I feel fairly certain that heat played a part as the bigger pigs were very nearly overheated that day as well… we’ve had to add a much bigger waterer and make more frequent trips out to re-wet their mud pit every day. The day that the pig died was the day we were gone much of the day picking up the headgate and no one was here doing our regular observations and checks… yet another reason why I prefer to just stay home.
Speaking of the headgate… I’m still in shock that I found such a good deal on it! A brand new headgate similar to the one we just bought sales for nearly $800 at the farm store. I found an unused one on craigslist for $150!! Apparently the guy who was selling it had bought it 10 years ago when he was first getting into cows. Then the cattle market tanked so he got rid of the cows and never even set up the head gate… so it sat in his barn unused and most likely forgotten. Now he is moving and decided to clean out the barn so posted it on craigslist just to “get rid of it” and as luck would have it I was the first (of MANY!) callers. I think he regretted that he didn’t ask more for it… but he was happy to honor our verbal agreement even when he got offers for 2x what he listed. Now I just need to figure out how to set it up!
And that needs to be soon because I firmly believe that Mary had a fling with the neighbor’s bull… either that or she’s packing on the pounds and had an udder augmentation.
M’s palpated cows before but Mary’s a bit… lively… and M’s not confident that Mary would stand still for the procedure.
Anyway.
I’ve been making cheese again… just mozzarella this time. We’re all out and I really should be making it every day… but I can’t get my cheese making mojo going…
Sophie gets her casts off on Tuesday! Hooray!! The poor girl has been so depressed 
and on top of that she’s got a sore throat, a horrible cough AND ear infections. Unfortunately the cough and sore throat must’ve been catchy because now Xander is coming down with a horrible cough and has complained of his throat all morning.
Sigh.
Summer colds are totally wrong.
Luckily Beckett has remained healthy!! However I’m betting he’ll get sick just as the other two get better…. prolongs the fun agony.
Anyway… continuing on the farm front. We’ve started processing some of the chickens. We placed an order with Cornerstone Farm in NY for supplies (knives, tools, a plucker and a scalder) and are still waiting on the plucker and scalder. We’ve had a lot of hiccups with this order, but we’ve all been pleased with the items we’ve received so far. We’re all anxious about the plucker and scalder though. So far we’ve done 6 of the roosters. That leaves about 74 more to be done. Yeah… 74. So we would reallylike to have that scalder and plucker really soon. Like today would be nice. Seriously. And I still need to clean out the freezer… which would probably be a good thing to do today (note to self).
Anyway. So there’s lots going on here at the farm. My apologies to my friends that have called or emailed only to get no response. August is a tough month with very little reprieve in sight as the garden is starting to come in and there will hopefully be a lot of canning and “putting up” going on soon, as well as doing all the chickens and getting them in the freezer and making chicken stock (with feet!!) to put away as well. Not to mention getting things winterized.
So that’s it for now… Look for a chicken post soon!
Since I don’t post all that often anymore (why is that anyway?) I thought I would force myself to do an entry while taking a bit of a break from cleaning up. Yesterday I spent the bulk of the day making a birthday cake for one of Jim’s co-workers and in my typical style I managed to dirty nearly every surface in the kitchen. This morning I was determined I would work until I could find the bottom of the sink (and that’s saying something if you’ve seen our sink) and I’m now waiting on the dishwasher to do it’s thing before starting in again. At least my technicolored fingers are fading. Unfortunately the kids are still alittle hyped from the icing frenzy or it could’ve been the strawberry muffin they had with breakfast.
So anyway… M’s started pulling some of the potatoes. We’ve enjoyed all kinds of new potato dishes, my favorite being new potatoes boiled and then finished in heavy cream with chives. I think partly this is my favorite because everything in it was produced on the farm (potatoes, cream, chives and butter… all made right here!). Probably not something you could eat everyday, but definitely yummy!
M has finished up planting all the tomatoes and peppers and I believe that she’s made a second planting of greenbeans (the first didn’t do so well). She’s made all sorts of little lettuce boxes on the porch and I am very excited about having our first homemade salad! She also made boxes for carrots and radishes and for the first time that I remember we actually have little carrots coming up! The radishes have made glorious tops but no radish… not sure what that’s all about, but the greens taste good.
Let’s see what else is new?
We put up another clothes line. It’s much higher than the other one, although right next to it. Now I can hang out King sized sheets and they have no threat of touching the ground, which is a good thing. I love our clotheslines, we got them from Lehmans and it’s just too cool to walk out on the porch, roll out the laundry and not have to drag the clothes basket along with me. Yeah… lazy… I know.
Jim possibly destroyed his phone this morning. Maisie side stepped and kicked the bucket (not figuratively… she’s still alive) which caused a great tidal wave of milk to slosh over the side which somehow (and I’m a little sketchy on the details) his phone was completely drenched. I purposefully saved by old BB Curve just in case something like this happened… but here’s hoping that his phone is actually ok, otherwise he’ll be carrying around a pink phone and he’ll lose all kinds of man-points for that. Just kidding of course… if his phone is totally dead then I’ll give him my Storm and I’ll take back the old Curve. But I’m still hoping his phone is ok.
The pigs are growing nicely. They are soon going to outgrow the pen they’re currently in and will need to move to the “permanant” pig pen below the sheep paddocks. Only thing is, that hasn’t been fenced in yet. Good thing Jim is finished with school for a little while and can work on it otherwise I think the pigs are going to succeed in digging up that big dogwood tree in their current paddock!!
The pigs are so funny! I enjoy watching them and their pure joy whether it’s eating or wallowing in the mud… they are thrilled with themselves! They, unlike most everybody else, can tell the difference between my voice and M’s. I call them up with a good ole “pig, pig, pig, pig!” ala Farmer Hoggett’s wife (from the movie Babe) and if M does it they just sort of cock an ear and roll their eyes but if I call them they come running! Smart wee piggies.
I think I already mentioned that we put the new chicks out in the big poultry paddock. They don’t have that much longer before the meat birds are ready to be… harvested? what is the right word? processed? Whatever… I’m looking forward to it as the price for free-range chicken has gotten appreciably higher (most recently we payed roughly $6/lb for breasts). The naked necks will take a little longer to grow off, but the others should reach prime size by the end of next month I think. Again, it’s a good thing that Jim’s going to be off for a bit as we’re going to be mighty busy!
And in completely unrelated to the farm news: Jim and I will be taking our first ever just-the-two-of-us vacation. The only other vacation we’ve had was 9.5 years ago… when we got married. This vacation (and I use that term lightly) is only for one night and we still have to do farm chores (ie milk) so it’s not like an escape-it-all kind of affair. The hospital periodically has silent auctions to raise money for Rape Crisis services. This year one of the items was a night at La Bastide, including dinner and breakfast. Jim won that one and also the weekend loan of a X6 BMW. The X6 is made right here in the Upstate and I think Jim is just as thrilled about getting to pick it up at the factory as he is about getting to drive it for the weekend. Luckily too, La Bastide is relatively local as it’s on the TR side of the Cliffs. Also the chef there is big on sustainable cuisine! Anyway… I’m excited… even if it’s only for one night.
And the whole dressing up for dinner thing led me to realize that I have no shoes to go with the dress Jim bought me so I found myself at Belks since they were having a shoe sale. But unfortunately I had no Jim with me for a second opinion so I had to resort to this:
yes, a pic of the contending shoes…
complete with the little footie sock that the shoe-woman all but attacked me with. She’s a serious footie-pusher, and she almost got mad at me for the pics, but she let it slide… this time. Not too many weird looks… but there were a few. Hey… I don’t like to shop alone! The dress Jim bought for me is a black and white number. So what do y’all think… black shoes (which are comfortable-ish) or candy-apple red ones? which I will have to practice walking in as they are the highest heels I’ve ever worn… seriously I think I am well over 6ft tall in these jewels but they are soooo pretty! By the way, M, I bought the red ones, they were seriously on sale (like under $30). The black ones ended up being under $20 once all the discounts and coupons were added up. So I have options. Jim likes the red ones, probably because I have to hang on to him to walk in them! Xander, y’all might recall, has a thing about women and their shoes. My fellow KG APs will remember the fine shoes that most of the women sported over in Bishkek (I should’ve bought a pair of the pointy toed shoes… just so Xander would be happy!). Anyway, Xander has been most upset that I seem to have an “ugly” shoe collection (I sport Danskos as a general rule, although I’ll occasionally wear a pair of Keens just to mix it up… LOL). He has taken to pointing out women with appropriate shoes (and clothes) when we are out in town… going so far as to physically point me in the right direction when he’s spotted a particularly lovely lady. So you can all imagine his joy when he spotted me showing off my new heels to M. He was like “FINALLY!!!” everytime he sees them he grins and gives me a thumbs up. He likes the red ones too. I modelled the whole outfit for him and he was most impressed, telling me I was quite “prilly” but would be even “prillier” if I did my hair and put on my face.
Seriously.
So anyway… the dishwasher is done and I must return to the grind… especially since I now have 3 children telling me that they are starving and are desperately in need of lunch. Tacos anyone?
- the boys dentist appointment went well, although Beckett screamed like a banshee for the duration! No cavities! Yeah!
- continuing on the farm front: We’ve made the decision to raise Desmond as a beef. We took care of his “bull-ness” earlier this week and all seems well on that front. Honestly, he doesn’t seem to even notice.
-I’m growing tired of all the people who think that we will not actually take the pigs and Des to the processor. The pigs were brought here with one purpose in mind. Desmond had the possibility of being our herd-bull, but his size ruled that out. Our desire is to breed for ease of calving and his birth wasn’t exactly easy.
-Sophie has taken over Des’ bottle feedings as well as feeding Zenzi, although Xander “helps” to some degree. Sophie really likes feeding Des because it’s over quickly, but she doesn’t like to feed Zenzi because it takes so long. Seriously. The other morning Sophie was sitting on the edge of a bucket, legs crossed, arms crossed with her head in her hand while feeding the lamb with an extremely bored expression on her face… I wish I had the camera… it was a classic M pose.
-Jim is being very patient about me blogging instead of doing morning chores… even if I was playing QWERTY just moments ago because I was suffering from a continuing bout of writer’s block.
-Just to pat myself on the back: I played the word “sermonizingly” which caused the person I was playing to leave the room. That so amuses me. Of course I just had my butt kicked by the last guy I played… but it was actually a really good game.
-We are averaging about 5.5 gallons or about 44lbs of milk a day, which is somewhere between AWESOME and OVERWHELMING! I need to make more butter and cheese, which is probably on the docket for today. The pigs shall be happy regardless 
-Speaking of butter. We finally broke down and bought an electric churn. It’s lovely. It has a really quiet motor and best of all can do 2 gals of cream at a time! WooHoo!!
-We also went ahead and upgraded our canners. We’ve had the same pressure canner for ages so we decided it was high time for a new one. We now have an incredibly cool looking All-American Canner 930. Yes it is wickedly expensive, but since so much of our pantry is stocked by home canned goods then I think it’s perfectly ok… plus the thing should last forever. We also went whole-hog and got a Weck water-bath canner(no photo on that link but have a look-see at those beautiful jars) as well (with faucet), simply because it can be used for cheesemaking as well as canning. We did break down and buy a couple different jars… how can you resist? They’re just too lovely. Even Angry Chickenmentioned them on her blog a couple times FYI: Weck doesn’t have online ordering, but their phone people are so incredibly nice that it’s sort of fun going old-school with a call-in order.
-Feed situation update: We are now mixing the feed half and half with no problems whatsoever. Seriously, I totally don’t understand why the feed doesn’t bother them as long as it’s mixed with the old. We’re going to keep weaning out the old feed to see what is the lowest percentage of mix they will tolerate. Even at the current rate it makes our feed bill much nicer.
-just read the above paragraph and realized it’s a grammatical nightmare. Meh… I’m leaving it.
-And because I really need to jump on the whole dairy aspect of my day I’m going to stop here. I seriously hope to have something more interesting than a “bullet-post” next time!
-Maisie is doing excellently. She’s giving very close to 6 gallons of milk every day. Jim and I have taken to milking together to speed up the milking process. He milks one side and I milk the other. We had our first teat-tiff this morning because he kept squirting milk on my fingers. I only retaliated once and then Maisie voiced displeasure and we resumed normal sane behavior. I started milking with Jim after he said I should be more involved in the whole milk process… as if carrying 30+ lbs of milk all the way down from the cow barn twice a day, pouring it up, making butter (cheese, sour cream, buttermilk etc) wasn’t enough… apparantly I need to be more “hands on”. Hmph. Actually I don’t mind.
-Sophie had her first experience milking and did really well! See photos to the left in the Flickr thing. She was actually mad at me for not allowing her to do more… maybe next time!
-M’s birthday is Monday… everyone say HAPPY BIRTHDAY M!!!
-I made mozzarella cheese with fair success… better than the paneer that I scorched (eww…).
-I made a sour cream pound cake out of our own butter and sour cream (and eggs too). It is delicious!
-Zenzi is doing well although still has issues with sucking a bottle. She won’t take the bottle until you force the nipple in her mouth and then she sucks just fine.
-Desmond is growing by leaps and bounds! He’s still in his “awww he’s so cute” stage. I need to take more pics of him. He thinks I’m his mama… everytime he sees me he runs up to the fence and starts licking his lips!
-No new lambs yet. I was fairly certain that we would see some lambs this past week, but nothing. This week is looking good though!
-Zeke will be going in with the ladies in another week or so. He (and they) are very eager to get acquainted!
-We’ve put in an order for Poulet Rouge type poultry. Our chicks will be arriving sometime in/after May. We’re excited to experience these high quality birds. 20 will be replacement layers and the rest are for eating.
-We also have duck and turkey eggs in the hatchers right now. These will also be for eating.
-M, with the “help” of Dandy and possibly Jim, planted onions and I think strawberries in the garden. M has just started transplanting her seedlings… look for Flickr pics soon.
-Xander and Beckett are doing well. Xander still tries to reason his way out of mischief (I tease that he’s going to be a lawyer) but Beckett inevitably rats on him!
-Xander’s Southern accent has deepened considerably… Beckett still speaks in “3-year-old-ese” but is starting to drawl out a few words. It’s a bit alarming.
-Sophie has so much going on with her “issues” that I don’t even know where to begin. We now have an “advocate” at the peds office who is helping to point us in the right directions concerning therapy and the best courses of action. It is overwhelming to say the least.
-For those who knew that Sophie had genetics testing done- the results came back confirming that the only thing genetically wrong with Sophie is that Jim and I passed on our eccentric genes. Seriously. That’s what the geneticist said. Seriously. I’m not kidding. He said “you are eccentric, eccentric people tend to marry eccentric people and then have eccentric kids….” I really like the geneticist. He’s kinda out there too.
-The shearer is supposed to be coming sometime… but when? Who know!
-And that’s about it. I’m waiting on the cow guy to call me back but I need to be out working on the sheep barn. At least two of the children are at large on the property and Beckett is clingy… looks like it’s going to be a fun day
Ahhh that time of year again. After weeks of perusing all those lovely seed catalogs, decisions have been made, seeds chosen, and orders placed! All is good! So, as usual, I’ll be listing this year’s garden contenders… why? because invariably I lose my paper with them all listed and can’t remember! It’s true!
This year most all of our seeds are coming from Bakers Creek, the same company that we used for most of our seeds last year. We have a good many seeds that we saved from last year so I’ll post them later as we plant them as I can’t even remember what we have exactly!! But here’s what I recently ordered:
Tomatoes-Red
Pantano Romanesco
Cosmonaut Volkov
Break O’Day
Hazelfield Farm
Tomatoes- Cherry
Koralik
Tomatoes- Orange
Woodle Orange
Tomatoes-Green
Aunt Ruby’s German Green
Peppers-HOT
Tunisian Baklouti
Peppers-Sweet
Emerald Giant
Red Cheese- these are EXCELLENT pickled!
Red Belgium
Doux D’Espagne
Shishito
Squash/Pumpkins
Galeux d’Eysines
Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin
Beans
Triomphe de Farcy- this is a haricot verts type green bean
Roma II- this is a flat Romanesco type green bean
Henderson’s Bush Lima- this one’s a… well… lima bean
Beets- I love beets. Love. Love. Love. Maybe my favorite root veg.
Flat of Egypt
Crapaudine
Peas
Lady Peas
Rice Peas
Cucumbers
Boston Pickling
De Bourbonne
Fruit
Litchi Tomato
Greens
Rocky Top Lettuce Mix
Siamese Dragon Stir Fry Mix
Onions
Tropeana Lunga
Yellow of Parma
Jaune Paille Des Vertus
Sorghum-I believe that M has grown sorghum before.
Honey Drip
Spinach
Giant Noble
Roselle- beautiful plant!!
Red Roselle
Zucchini
Black Beauty
Crookneck Early Golden Summer Squash
Herbs
Genovese Basil
Chinese Chives Mixed
Wild Zataar Oregano
Flowers
Arikara Sunflower- it has edible seeds and is very pretty. .
Orange Hawaii Marigold- according to the catalog, you can feed the flowers to chickens to brighten the yolks… we’ll let you know how that goes.
