Chicken Update!

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 23 July 2023…

Hey Y’all!!

Good evening and happy Sunday! I hope you have had a wonderful weekend! We started the day today with a 30 minute rain shower! Then it got hot, about 90, but we were so happy to get the rain that we didn’t even complain. It rained for almost 5 hours Friday, a real steady slow 1/2” that the grass just loved. Then it stayed in the 70s the entire day. The market yesterday was warm but there was a breeze that made it comfortable in the shade. I can’t believe I missed Fast-Jet Friday! To make up for it, I added a pic of the Mighty, Mighty F-15E Strike Eagle. This pic was taken by a Scottish gentleman named Simon who loves to watch the jets fly past his house on the bank of the Loch. Update on the Beef Chickens: the 18 remaining chicks are doing very well. The top 2 pics are them in their new pen. The next batch of 80 chicks will arrive next week. We are considering constructing a different type of chicken tractor, we’ll see. I added 3 pics of the newest bull calf and his mom during sunset yesterday. Friday, we preserved our most recent garden harvest. I included a pic of the jalapeños as we were rinsing them. We blanched, vacuum sealed, and froze a couple gallon bags of green beans. We processed a lot of tomatoes, both canned with peppers and frozen in bags. We roasted all of the jalapeños and a bunch of bell peppers. We froze most of them and canned the rest. We didn’t deal with the cucumbers, just put them with the others in the veggie fridge. We will try to make pickles this week. We planted okra last weekend and they germinated within 3 days! It loves the heat, so it should be really happy. The market was quite slow yesterday but we met some new folks and had some great conversations. After the market, we visited some friends’ property and had a relaxing ride through their woods. Today was dedicated to the HUGE White Oak that fell across our lane and through our fence. A HUGE thank you to Auntie Fiat and Company for the help today!! I added before and after pics of the lane. We were able to completely clear the lane, a feat we never dreamed possible to accomplish in one day. It was such a huge tree that we thought it would take days to take care of it. It was hot, sweaty work but there is such a feeling of accomplishment when you work together to complete something that big. We still have to do some fence repair but that is the easy part. After we finished with the tree, we expanded the sheep paddock to give them a big area of ragweed. Then we set up a pasture and moved the beef herd. We just showered and are ready to sit down and rest…after we cook some of our grass-fed Red Devon New York Strips. Oh, that raccoon…it has evaded all of my attempts to trap it. The first night, it knocked the trap on its side and ate all of the bait without tripping the trap. The next night, it somehow took the bait without tripping it, again. It’s day is coming, I’m a patient and persistent man!

Local Farm Report for 21, 22, and 23 July:

Harvest:

68 Chicken eggs

28 Duck eggs

19 1/2 Gallons of milk

Cheers!

Psycho & Shelley