Colonel's Blog, Earthdate 19 Jan 2023...
Hey Y'all!!
We awoke to a brisk 39 degree sunny morning. The wind is blowing so it feels about 10 degrees cooler and our hands got pretty cold during morning rounds. The farm is a bit soggy after the half inch of rain yesterday. Betty and her calf are doing really well. The calf is big, strong, and is good to stay right with her mother. Betty is being an awesome mom, even though this is her first calf. It is very cool to hear them communicate and bond through the little noises they make back and forth. Those little noises turn into quite a ruckus when we separate them for the few minutes it takes to feed Happy and Betty while we milk Happy. We let the calf have everything from Betty so far but will begin milking a bit probably this evening. She is producing WAY more than the calf can eat. Yesterday we refreshed the straw for Happy, Betty, and calf. I also installed our new satellite internet. So far, it is exponentially better than anything so far. We hope it keeps being so. We made 2 pounds of paneer, 2 pounds of ricotta, and a pound of butter. We are already making more paneer today and will continue to do things with milk. We also plan to begin setting up the next sheep paddock.
We made the hard decision to dispatch the ewe I have been discussing. We also decided to go ahead and process her to see if we could get any usable meat or at least try to tell what was wrong with her. Well, there was no usable meat and the only thing that was wrong with her is that she was old. She had a few spots on her lungs, but nothing that would cause her decline. The rest of her organs were fine, just old. Since neither Shelley nor I grew up doing this regenerative farming thing, we have done a lot of studying, reading, watching, and asking questions. Joel Salatin says to look around the livestock sale barn and if you can't spot the sucker, it's you. Foolishly, for our first sheep purchase, we thought that since we had no plans to go to a sale barn to get our animals, his wisdom had no application. So we found a 'kind soul' on an online social networking platform that was 'getting out of the business and needed to liquidate their entire flock' of the exact thing we were looking for...and they would deliver. Unfortunately we assumed everyone has the same moral direction as us and we didn't even consider this was too good to be true. So, 35 of the most rag-tag group of animals you have ever seen stumbled out of the livestock trailer of the 'kind souls' and we had our first sheep death within 30 minutes of the 'kind soul's' departure. There were about 15 very young lambs that all had pneumonia; we found that out after 3 died and we took the next 3 that were declining to the vet. Well, the ewe today was one of that rag-tag bunch, somebody's cull that they sold because she was too old and ended up on our farm. She gave us a good ewe lamb so we consider her time here a success, but are relieved that worry is over. While we may have been the sucker, that group of sheep has taught us very valuable hands-on lessons that are forming the foundation of our regenerative farming knowledge.
I'll leave you with a request to scroll back up to check out the pic for today. It is the three beef calves playing together after we unrolled hay. It is a very exciting time in their day. Ever wonder where the phrase 'High tailing it' comes from? I submit it's from calves when they get the zoomies!
Local Farm Report for 18 Jan 2023...
Harvest:
29 Chicken eggs
5 Duck eggs
3 Gallons of milk
Sales:
N/A
Cheers!
Rich & Shelley