Farming stuff

The old beat up farm cat is still going strong. She's used up 8 of her 9 lives over the past 15 years and is too old to be having kittens anyway but she ran out the door and now look what we've got! She had 4 kittens on the couch. I knew it was coming when she followed me around all morning meowing at me so I put a towel up there and let her rip. Had to sit next to her so she'd stay there and get it over with.

LOL the worst part of it all was- I was working on a batch of cheddar cheese and every time I had to get up to stir curd or check temperatures, I had to get one of the kids to sit there. Kind of a trade out thing. As you can see, I got the cheddar done in good order and it's drying on the butcher block table.

Today will be a garlic cheddar day as we've eaten all of it and need some to sell. I've got a couple of regular customers now so I need to focus on cheese making more regular along with everything else going on.

We've finally seen a break in the rain, looks like just a slight chance of rain on Wednesday and clear for the rest of the week. Good news since I really need to cut some hay!

Crop reports have me a bit worried too. Seems the world is suffering a coffee, sugar and wheat crop failure. Since I don't grow sugar cane, I've been thinking about stocking some up. The price has gone up a bit lately which backs the reports. Maybe another 200lbs or so for the cellar is in order. Thankfully my little wheat patch is looking okay and is headed for harvest on time. Somehow my little metal harvester scooper thingy(guys at the coal mine made it for me) got ran over and broken so I need to come up with another one. I'm thinking I could whip one up from left over plywood if the single blade cut isn't too wide to catch the straw stalk. Tack it up in the shape of a wooden feed scoop and harvest my wheat that way. Peeling wheat one handful at a time will make for a long day!

This weekend I'll be finishing the chicken coop, I'll take pictures. I've already put some of my pullets out there, they were making too much noise in the house so out they went. Since I don't have the back wall or door on it, I banked them with straw bales. They're now big enough to jump the straw and forage but are returning every night to the coop to roost. Speaking of roosting, the door blew off the old barn stall I had my bantys in during the big storm we had last Friday. I was pretty disappointed because I could not find my bantys. No worries, they've returned and are roosting back in the stall every night! I continue to feed them like I always did in the stall so they keep roosting in there.

That about covers the farm news, don't forget about the wheat, coffee and sugar crop troubles, might be a good time to add a little to your preps and avoid higher prices.......