tamwork Here's Tammy breaking in the new saw.
sammyd on 09.28.08 @ 09:57 PM CST [link]
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Sunday, September 28th
chriswork
Here's a pic of Chris helping to stack the wood. You can see the chopper and the ol WD in the background.
sammyd on 09.28.08 @ 09:54 PM CST [link]
Well, a busy day today.
Tammy and Chris went to Sunday school and church this morning and I went out and chopped down 6 rows of sweet corn stalks. I carried bundles of stalks to the garage and when Chris got home we ran them through the chopper and bagged them up. Tammy broke out our new chainsaw and started cutting the bit of wood we had from last year.
When Chris and I got done with the silage we helped get the firewood stacked and after a short break Tammy decided that it was time to do some tomatoes. We picked over a bushel and put 14 2 qt jars in the dishwasher. Tammy blanched the things and I got peeling. Then she filled the jars. Ran out of lemon juice halfway through so had to make a trip to the store, and I got to rest my back which was hurting from hunching over the sink while peeling all those maters. Chris did the chores for us.
2 of the jars broke while hot water bathing :-( so we have 6 gallons of maters done today.
Since last entry....
We taped Jethro last week and it said about 500 pounds, Toby taped in at about 300. We burned his horns off a couple of weeks ago and he looks really good. He has discovered a talent for slipping his lead and wandering off into the neighbors yard. I think the snap may be worn out so I bought a new lead and tethered him behind the garage on some good grass. Jethro remains the sole occupant of the back acre and is doing a good job of mowing it down.
We have sold 55 of our meat birds and someone may be interested in 15 yet. May actually get our chicken for free if we sell them. The 28 layers are looking fine and I got their nest box and a roost installed.
Tammys brothers say they want 12 of the rabbits which would bring us down to one buck one pregnant doe and the doe with 9 bunnies.
Gwen and Misty are keeping us in about a gallon of milk a day and Tammy has been making some killer cheese. It's a hit wherever she takes it.
Bev will cycle again in a week or 2 if she didn't take earlier this month and she's dried up. Poor thing, really nice looking goat but her udder just isn't anything to crow about.
I picked up a Gehl 400 chopper from a guy at work. No heads and the big chute has been replaced with something much shorter since he used it to chop baled straw for bedding. Just right for our operation. He had taken 3 knives out of it for a coarser cut but found the knives and gave them to me when I bought the machine. I've all ready chopped a bunch of corn for the calves and bedding for the goats. I also chopped a couple of big piles of weeds for the neighbor. We did 6 bags of silage today but I forgot to take pics. Still have a big patch of field corn to do though.
We bought a new Stihl chainsaw last week since we will be cutting most of our own firewood this year. It's a touch bigger than Dads which we borrowed quite a bit.
THe surveyors have our land plotted and recorded so will be closing on that soon. It worked out to just a touch over 7 acres. Will be helping the owner move his stuff so I can get some of my machinery under a roof this year.
That's about it for now. Lots of stuff to do while it's still fall though.
sammyd on 09.28.08 @ 09:48 PM CST [link]
Sunday, September 7th
Well the chickens are ready to butcher. We did a bunch and have sold a bunch. We lost 3of the meat birds this year. 1 got suffocated when the temps dropped when they were still chicks and I didn't have enough heat lamps turned on and 2 got caught by something out in their yard. We lost 2 layers out in the yard as well. Our little ducklings completely disappeared though. Overall not too bad but I really need to build a new coop and redesign the yard.
Toby and Jethro are growing quite well and our movable hutches work nicely. I added wheels to one end of Jethros hutch and moving it is a breeze. I'll have to post some plans and pics I suppose.
Dug carrots today and pulled onions. Best carrot crop so far but the onions could have been better.
Toamtoes are starting to turn red so we are getting stuff ready for the big canning push. Made 5 pints of pizza sauce last week with the first few. Got a bunch of 1/2 gallon jars for putting up plain tomatoes.
Potatoes are ready to dig and I'll try to get at that this week if I can find the time.
The corn has matured past the point of being sweet so any we have left will be fed to the goats.
Our little patch of field corn has small ears and we hope to be able to make bag silage out of it.
We dried Bev off since she wasn't giving much milk and she came in heat and gave Bubba something to do. Have to watch her next month to see if she took.
The weather has been pretty dry and the yard I have the big rabbit tractor on hasn't grown well. I'm supplementing the grass with a bit of hay every day. We had a batch of bunnies last month in one of the cages and they look cute as buttons.
The sisters family came up last week and we butchered 15 chickens for them. The kids enjoyed a day out on the farm. I had to frisk them down to make sure all the bunnies were accounted for when they left.
Still in the process of buying land behind us. Due to some side deals I am paying for the surveying and it's hard to find a cheap surveyor. Got a quote Friday from a place and it looks about the best so the ball will start rolling Monday on that.
Our regular wood supplier didn't cut any wood this year so we are frantically searching for a new supply. Not really enough time this late to start cutting our own. Tammy has started her phlebotomy classes and that cuts into her all ready few available hours. Have a few leads but I may have to invest in a chainsaw pretty soon.
As mentioned above we will be trying corn silage in bags this year. We have a small chipper shredder that works fine for running a dozen stalks through for an occasional treat for the goats but I think we will get tired of that real quick when doing large batches. I had a forage chopper around but it needed a lot of work and parts so I scrapped it this spring. I asked around and may have a line on something newer. It would be nice for chopping up the straw and old hay we use for bedding and mulch as well. Since I don't plan on pulling it through a field with a chopper box behind I believe the old WD will handle the task.
Finally got my corn planter home. I hadn't had a chance to look it over too closely before I traded for it and it is in better shape than I thought. Now if I get all my ducks lined up next spring hopefully I can get the corn planted early enough that it makes ripe instead of having to ensile it. I'll have to take pics of the process and share the results as we go along.
sammyd on 09.07.08 @ 10:02 PM CST [link]