Another Tree Day

We're on the second tree now, this one is a small/medium sized red oak. Hubby decided he was too tired to pack the saw down the fenceline today so he just picked the tree truck up with the tractor and brought it to the saw. I think he just wanted to freak me out.

I'm not even half way done with splitting the 35' birch he already cut and now I've got a 30' oak to go with it. Plenty more still laying in the fencelines. There's even a big hickory down in the back but it's got a couple other trees on top of it. Boy will that wood be nice for the smoker! I'll snap a pic of the split pile later today...

The 3rd bunny kindled today and so far, so good! She pulled hair and they are all wiggling under it. I hope she tends them and doesn't let them die.

Tonights supper is fried chicken(butchered last night) and potatoes with a side of bean salad and some cornbread. I still haven't ground the corn so I better get after it!

A Productive Day

Today is the day we decided we were finally going to tackle some of the trees that are laying on the ground from our inland hurricane. We have at least 30 trees of varying sizes knocked down in our fence lines. We spent 7 hours with the chainsaw and have just 3/4 of one bigun cut up. I did a little log splitting with the good old 8lb maul while I was working on grinding some feed. Split some, grind some. I wasn't finished with the feed before it got dark so I spent some time reading the latest edition of Mother Earth News. I love this magazine as it always has something in it I can use in my sustainable farming adventure. This months issue(Dec/Jan) is a dandy and has recipes for no-knead healthy breads, a nice write up about solar panels, one about a DIY pole barn, another article on heirloom fruits and vegetables and here's the best article this issue....... drum roll please........ Grow $700 of food in 100sq feet! You do know how small of a space that is, right? The author used a 5x20 spot and, well, get yourself a copy of the new issue and read it, it's great!

Thanksgiving Holiday

Hello everyone, I hope your Thanksgiving was pleasant! With the holiday comes black Friday and a miriad of goofy people standing around in 32 degree night time temperatures to be the first ones in Walmart for all the great deals on crap made in China. I know this should not surprise me but it still does, every time. I am soooo glad I'm not like that!

Living off your land is a lost art form it seems. That's such a shame. I fed my neighbors today because they just aren't very thrifty. They are severely underemployed, living in a run down rent trailer with 2 kids and they're hungry. They asked if the could have food off my farm on credit, I just gave it to them and even baked them some bread. They've lived near me for a year now and had plenty of room to grow themselves some food but simply chose not to bother. Now they are hungry. I fear all of us will be seeing this same situation more and more all over. How will we handle it all? I don't know.....

I am already gearing up for the next planting season with a couple new items for the gardens and replacements for the damaged trees in the orchard. This could be a long winter for all of us.

Quick Home Made Chip Dip

I hate to pay for something I can make for myself. Especially when I can make it without MSG and other nasty chemicals. We're fans of dill dip here. It goes great with potato crisps, all kinds of vegetables and especially with bread! It's simple to make. Just take one cup of sour cream, 1 cup of mayo, 1 tsp celery salt, 1 tsp garlic salt, 1 tsp dill, 1 tsp parsley and 1 tsp minced onion. Mix it all together and let it sit for 15 minutes to blend the flavor(it even tastes great right away) refridgerate when not being eaten.

A quick, money saving way to have a snack while the holiday bird is roasting......

Happy Thanksgiving!

Daily critter patrol

Look what I found this morning during morning chores. A new set of kittens, i think they are Shadows kittens. Like I need any more to add to the list of kittens I need to give away. Cats are an important part of farm life. Whithout them i would be over run with mice from all the grains i grow and store here. But, one must draw the line somewhere! I have at least 10 kittens that need new homes if anyone wants a kitten.....

One of my new does kindled this morning. She did not pull a single mouthful of hair. She's got 15 kits in the box, all are freezing to death. There's nothing I can do about it either. Maybe her sister will do better, she should kindle any moment.

The black and white cat is Mop. She's the only long haired kitten we've ever had here. She was in a litter of 4 and the only long haired one of the bunch. She got stepped on by a horse about a month ago and her tail was mashed. if you notice in the picture, she now has a stub for a tail. The dead tail finally fell off her this morning and she is a different cat in both looks and personality. She's happy to be rid of the dead tail, laying there purring like a chainsaw........

I found one of my young banty hens defending a nest of eggs this morning. I'll keep an eye on her to make sure she's really gone broody and if so, I'll set her up for a little cat and puppy protection for her and the nest. I might get some new banty chicks now!

Well off to shovel some compost for my indoor winter gardens. I need to get it inside and warming up so I can get seedlings started before the really cold weather makes them not want to germinate..........

Could Not Resist Sharing

Well, I was disappointed that my Kodak camera program would not load to this new computer so I spent a little time cruising the Kodak website and found a whole page of upgrade software for Vista and the new win7 programs, all free. Now the camera works!

Tonight I wanted to have dinner rolls to go with my Bohemian pork loin without having to look for the recipe. So, I took my normal daily bread recipe and made mini rolls of bread with it. The recipe is second nature for me since I make it every day(recipe is from Hillbilly Housewife) and it always comes out good. The roll/breads came out perfect, so did the pork loin. A nice home made country supper.......

Edited to add a link in the post to Hillbilly Housewife site....... just click the name...........

Growing outside the box

What I mean by that is to be growing things that are not usual for your garden. I've talked about growing coffee and tobacco a couple of times and have shared photos but this morning I found a photo tutorial made by a member of a survival forum I belong to. I hope Dilli doesn't mind me "plugging" the tutorial, I learned a good lesson on photo presentation from it. Please, check out Dilli's work, it is quite impressive and leave a comment....

Tobacco Photo tutorial by hillidilli(dilligaf)

Now for what's going on around the farm.....

Cody the coon dog killed a laying hen yesterday and the blue heeler pup wiped out almost all the Rouen ducklings. We saved 2 but I think one of those is going to die too. I spent a couple hours in the grinding room working on the feed mix. Grinding corn and mixing it with the rest of the grains I have. I like to have a weeks worth at a time to keep it fresh and save time on the daily chores. I was serenaded by the sounds of ducklings and chicks in the brooder tank in the corner. I'm worried about them being hatched out so late in the season, cold weather is coming very quickly. The unseasonable warm weather we enjoyed tricked the hens into thinking it was spring. It's harder than you think to convince a broody hen to not sit on a nest. Even taking the eggs away doesn't help much, they just lay more to sit on and gather eggs from other nests.

Did you notice, Queenbuffness made a comment on the chicken feeding page, she feeds her chickens meat scraps with great results. I think I will try it with my turkey scraps this holiday. Thank you Queenbuffness!

I still haven't gotten any of the projects that needed store bought supplies done yet. Seems the bank has a policy where they hold big checks for 2 weeks. Funny thing is, they claim it's because the check is an out of state check. They didn't have any problems cashing the small checks drawn from the same bank as the big one since June...... So add 2 extra days the bank is closed for the holiday to our wait, it will be December before i can have our own money to work with. I've already wrote several checks paying our overdue bills and I'm sure I will receive plenty of overdraft penalties for them. Thieving bastards. Glad they get to collect 2 weeks of interest from the Fed on my money.......

My Seed Savers Exchange seed catalog is all wrinkled up already ;) hubby and I have marked all over the poor thing working on what we want to try in the garden this year. The catalog is all heirloom seeds, some certified organic. Most of the seeds can be traced back to the 1800's.

I also order plants from Starks Brothers and Miller Nurseries. I'm also fond of a couple sellers on ebay. I get exoctic seeds there like coffee, tobacco and oddball fruit, vege and herb seeds either not readily available thru normal channels or too expensive commercially.

I put the nesting boxes in with the rabbit does last night, I should have 2 more batches of bunnies in the next couple of days and another at the end of the month. I need to get a good stock of bunnies up so I can meet what my new customer wants plus have a few for myself. You just can't beat the high protein/low fat of rabbit meat for your diet.

yesterday I tried once again to make some cheese with the poor quality milk. It's just not going to work, no matter what I do. Disappointing for me but more drive for finding my own cow. Cracked corn is just not a good animal feed all by itself. Not enough nutrient in it. While I know this to be true, it's hard to get some of these hard headed cheapass farmers around here to believe me. They think corn is some kind of wonder grain. They starve their animals all the time on cracked corn. Oh well, I know better anyway.......

ARG! This new computer with it's fabulous windows 7 will not support my Kodak program so I am still without pictures from my camera. I guess I will have to wait for the old HP to be fixed so I can share some farm pictures. I know it's a little boring without all the cool pictures from around here, hang in there, I'll have some soon!

Off to get some bread made..........

Feeding the Backyard Chickens

I had a question asked by a blogger pal so this evening I intend to do what I can to answer it for her. Thank you Deborah for asking.......

Tonite I'm going to share what I do to feed my chickens without having to fork out $12 for a 50lb bag of commercial chicken feed. Chickens are notorious for eating just about anything they can peck so table scraps are always on the menu. they will also eat about anything you try to plant in your garden if you don't keep them out. Chickens are particularly fond of beets, kale, potatoes, sunflowers, wheat, oats and all types of grass seed. Cracked corn is something they dive on but it lacks protein so I supplement cracked corn with ground soybeans, sunflowers, wheat, some barley, milo and oats. To keep my egg shells nice and solid, I wash every egg shell I crack, dry them and crush them up for the feed mix. I give my chickens all types of squash I grow here. They love the fruit and the seeds and devour pumpkins in a heartbeat. chickens will pluck your almost ripe tomatoes right off the vines. they aren't real fond of sweet pepper but eat your cucumbers every chance they get.

I have also heard it said that you can even feed chickens meat scraps but I do not. I also do not feed my chickens cooked egg.

I have heard that milk and cheese/butter byproducts are good feed supplements but have never set whey, milk of cheese out for them. I may try soaking their grains in it when the goat starts giving me milk.

I have also noticed that chickens like alfalfa and clover, they occasionally steal it from the rabbits and very often get right in the hay pile with the goats and sheep.

The hottest spot for hungry chickens around here in the manure pile. As it decomposes and turns into my growing compost, it is always full of worms, dung beetles and other various insects. Japanese beetles are a favorite for chickens as well. I shake them out of the peach trees and scoop them into buckets with a bit of water in the bottom(keeps the beetles from flying out) and I dump the water filled beetles in the feed pan and get back because a whole avalanche of chickens will appear to scarf them up.

So, anything you grow and harvest for yourself will make decent chicken feed for your backyard flock. don't forget the calcium and you'll have quality eggs and chicken meat without having to spend a dime on feed.

New Goals for Self Sustained Living

Way back when I first started blogging, I wrote a post supporting container growing and how it can benefit just about everyone. This is one of my favorite pictures, it shows that even an apartment dweller with very limited space can grow some of their own food. Even if it's just a couple meals a week, that is better than not at all! You can put plants in just about any empty container allowing enough room for the root system of the plant. Things like tomatoes need more room than a bunch of carrots, even garlic and onions can be container grown.

I have personally grown dwarf bananas, tobacco, coffee, cantalopes, tomatoes, carrots, shallots, garlic, radish, cauliflower, lettuce, sweet peppers, cucumber and tons of herbs thru the winter in my kitchen windows.

I have and still use things such as ice cream buckets to grow plants in. anything that will hold dirt and water is fair game here! I prefer 3 and 5 gallon buckets as they are easier to handle, stack well for storage and are just plain easy to get around here. For bigger containers, I like the cattle tubs(big buckets mineral mix for cows come in) as the cattle pastures are full of them. It seems farmers can pack those heavy things out to the field but have a hard time picking up the empties! So, I always ask to get them and no one has ever said no to me. A couple of holes punched along the bottom edge for drainage, we don't want rotted roots, and some compost mix and the plants. Works out pretty good! After a few weeks of good growth, it's time for a little fertilizer. You'll want to keep on top of that, especially if you have heavy feeders such as tomato plants. The more you feed a tomato, the better your harvest. If you think your plants are getting too tall, do just like you would in a regular garden and pinch the top suckers off so the plant bushes out more than it grows up.

Keep an eye on the moisture level and you'll do so well, you'll wonder why you haven't been container gardening all along.

There's plants that have been bred specifically for container growing such as the tom thumb series of tomatoes and peppers but even regular garden varieties will grow in containers. it's harder to control plants such as cherry tomatoes since they vine all over the place so stick with the bush variety of whatever plant you choose to grow and the plant will do much better for you without extra labor intensive attention.

Now, go find a bucket and plant something for those windows!

Back to the routine

Well, after some minor troubles and some aggravation, here I am, back online with a laptop I intend to give my college kid very soon. A bit of a bumpy ride but we made it.

Some sad news on the farm this morning, Moo cow gave up on me. This morning at sun-up, she wasn't with me any more. I was really surprised, I thought she was doing so well. guess I was wrong because she passed sometime in the night.

Today is the day I had written down on the calendar to put nesting boxes in with rabbits. With that done, I hope to see some new baby bunnies by the holiday. The weather has turned a bit cooler than it's been, hope that doesn't throw the momma bunnies off track.

Now that we're in a bit of a better situation for the time being, some of those projects around, here are going to get done! I'm relieved, a few sleepless nights thinking on how I was going to get them done. No worries now.....

I'm already getting seed catalogs, my all time favorite one just came in the mail today. My seed savers exchange catalog. I can get into so much trouble looking thru that little book, all the plants I'd like to try out. Makes me itch for spring and it's not Thanksgiving yet, shame on me. I'm trying to keep my mind where it should be but looking at all those seeds makes it so hard.
I'm going to gear a few more things toward container growing this next season just to see what I can get to prosper in a bucket. I'm also thinking on a new home made fertilize mix to try. Now that I have goats I want to try my old mix compared to a mix with the goat in it to see if i can improve plant production. Hehehe my own little science experiment.

Oh, I almost forgot...... I picked up 5 gallons of fresh milk yesterday and made a couple wheels of cheese with it. Not sure I like the milk tho, the colby cheese seems a bit mushier than it should be. It cooked up right but it just doesn't seem right. I won't know for sure until it dries a rind and I cut it but it seems a bit soft. I also made a batch of cheddar but it doesn't come out of the press for a few more hours. I'm anxious to see how it looks. I'm not feeling like the milk qualtiy is as good as I used to hget, different feed and all.

I've got 9 young roos lined up for the cook pot for tomorrows supper. All are from this past springs hatches. They're starting to do a little bit of fighting and they're chasing the hens quite a bit. I'm worried it might be affecting my egg production numbers so they gotta go. I'm thinking chicken and dumplings sounds pretty good!

Missed it!

Of course, since I wanted to see the meteor shower, it had to rain all night! That is so disappointing. The day started overcast and drizzling but the sun has come out now. Moo cow made it thru the rain in good shape I think, and all looks good around the barn lot.

Oh! When I tended that English Game Cock yesterday, the bugger escaped on me and then spurred my leg! Got me front and back, drew blood. Normally I'd squash a flogging rooster instantly but this feller can't help it. He was bred to be aggressive and he just can't help it. Of course he ran right out into the barn lot and jumped on the first roo he saw which happened to be my little Seabright. He didn't get a chance to do any damage tho, I trapped him quick with a manure fork and put him back in his pen. Now I've got a nice bruise on my shin from that goofy rooster with a matching spot in the middle of my calf muscle. Ah, the joys of farm life!

Hey Gen! Yep, I only got a couple eggs compared to normal. Not sure what happened, it's possible that the chickens have chosen to lay in a new spot I just haven't found yet or the weather coming in contributed. They were all up to roost by 3pm and then there's the natural fact that chickens do not lay every day. Sunlight is a major factor along with the 26 to 28 hour laying thing. I'm sure I've have a pile of eggs today tho, the sun is back out!

The baby bunnies I've got right now got sold yesterday. They aren't ready to go yet but the guy paid me and said he'd wait to pick them up until they are. He also bought 4 banty roosters. Can't imagine what he'd want with 4 roos but it's his money, he can do what he wants with it. I'm pretty happy about it all and this man could turn into a regular rabbit customer from the way he talked. Might be a good thing!

Some more good news for the farm.... looks like hubby has a good line on employment. A little farther away than he wanted to go but we kind of need it right now. It looks like he should be heading to a new job by the end of next week. Good things always come to those who have the patience and fortitude to wait for it. I hope it works out the way it's supposed to....

I found a new book to read, it's a book on the older farming and farm living skills. The print is very small and I am in desperate need of a new pair of glasses so I'm stumbling thru it the best I can right now. Maybe next week I can get a magnafying glass and I'll tell you all more about it then...... Now I must get off the library computer and get back to the farm, the bread won't bake itself! LOL

Another Monday...

I'm full of hope today even tho it's overcast and misting rain outside. Today could be a great day. On the way over here to the library, as I topped a small hill along the rural state highway, coming thru a combined bean field was a beautiful 8 point buck. He was trailing a doe because he was trotting along with his nose on the ground, not paying attention to anything which of course scares me since he's close to the road and not slowing down. So, common sense prevails and I go ahead and slow down just in case he runs right out in front of me. He gets right to the edge of the road, stops and raises his head. If there was ever a time I wish I had a camera....

I made a nice loaf of french bread last night plus my normal every day bread to go with the chicken I butchered. I breaded(home made breading mix) the pieces and fried them up with corn and potatoes I grew for the sides. For some reason, my chickens were in roost by 3pm yesterday and I only got 6 eggs which I used for the egg dip with the chicken.

I'm concerned about the weather we've been having lately and how it's going to affect next planting season. November and February as normally our wettest months and so for November here has been unseasonably warm and dry. So, I've been working on plotting out what I will container garden next season to ensure I don't suffer crop failures with plants I need to eat with in the coming year. Container growing will help me a great deal if we have another wet spring as well as a dry one. Control of the plant is all mine with the containers.

Okay, now a news flash for all you early risers...... the Leonid Meteor shower is going to be at it's peak Tuesday in the pre dawn hours. I'm hoping it's not overcast here like the last meteor shower... I just love that stuff and hate to miss it due to weather.

I'm having a bit of a craving for carrots and radish. I'm thinking about pulling a planter out of storage and setting it in the kitchen window and planting some carrot and radish in it. Both are super simple to grow and the 10" deep windowbox planters work pretty good for them. Maybe I'll have fresh baby carrots for Christmas!

A little excitement around here

It's normally just kind of quiet around here but I'm not complaining, I like it that way. Nothing wrong with things going like they are expected to be. The animals are all doing well and the house is still standing, lol. I've just bee piddling around the farm, working on little things that I'm not happy with. I was giving the Moo cow a little attention, rubbing on her, giving her water and hay, working her legs for her when she stood up. Just stood up and stayed up. She walked in a circle and moved forward 4 or 5 steps and laid back down. I steadied her as best I could and notcied instantly where her problem is. All this time I thought it was her back legs but it's not. Her front ankles are stiff and she's walking on them. So, more cow therapy is in order to help her get back on her feet. I will work on getting her ankle muscles stretched back out so she can run and play like a young cow should do. I'm so excited( hard to tell when typing or reading) about her progress. Everyone around me has said that since she's been down so long, she'll never get back up. Well, I guess Moo is going to make farmer history then because she is getting back up! Go Moo!

I had a wild day with the chickens, I guess we have to be missing some eggs when we pick up each day because I found 48 eggs last night! I'm going to have to whip up a couple quiches and some pound cake or we'll never get all those eaten.

The countdown to getting the home computer fixed is coming to a close and boy, am I glad about that! I so can not tolerate nosey people at the library, they just can't mind their own business! Also, you get these kids sitting next to you that think they are computer guru's and constantly mumble and curse..... not to mention all the work I need to be getting done around the farm that I have to put on hold so I can go to the library. LOL, I so love being in public. Can you tell I miss my home computer??

Easy stuff happening around the farm today. I'll just be gridning a little chicken feed for the week, digging some potatoes from what's left of the patch out back, working on Moo, cleaning up more of the straw in the loft that the chickens have so graciously scattered for me(they peck the strings and break bales) and maybe a new bread recipe for supper. Nothing special for supper tonite, just a couple of pork butterflies from the hog I butchered.

The weather is still nice here so it will be an outdoor day and supper will be made on the grill over a fire tonite. Just can't beat a real wood smoke and flame pork chop!

Another Beautiful Day

This warm weather is so nice. I know come January we're going to pay for it. I'm dreading the 2" of ice and the freezing temperatures.

I had to take a quick cell phone pic of the baby bunnies this morning, they were just so darn cute. They are eating feed now and completely out of the box. They grow so quick.

I had a nice time last night, my daughters first home game, they won. I took around 30 pictures that I can't get off that old Kodak camera until I get my computer back. The countdown is killing me, I should have it back in around 10 days. I'm so excited about it, I can finally get all my garden plans for the coming season worked out. I've got all my old garden plans on a cd-ROM I can't access until my computer is fixed so I'm wormy waiting. Hahahaha, I guess I'll live thru it okay.

Moo Cow got up yesterday! She stood for just a few seconds but it was great. Now she knows she can get up and she's really moving around the barn lot now. I'm pumping the feed to her in the hopes she continues to get stronger. After all this time, no one around here can beleive she's not dead yet anyway so when she gets up, she will surely be the talk of the farming community. Not that I really care about that but maybe some of my farming ideas might rub off on others because of her.

I still haven't found a milk cow but I haven't given up. I've got a few leads to run down in the next week or so that hopefully will give me an opportunity to aquire my own milk source. Speaking of milk, the nanny goat is doing well and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she's got at least one kid inside her growing. 2 would be better ;)

Not much going on around the farm today other than enjoying the warm weather. I've been tossing the idea of making a different goat pen away from the barns but nothing serious yet. I've got a couple spots in mind but they need some cleaning up and clearing out. Brush and a few pieces of farm equipment in the way. Maybe by the end of the week I'll get more motivated toward getting something solid going.....

Lazy days

lazy days, yep, it seems that way lately. This past week has been absolutely gorgeous! 70 degess, mostly sunny, mild nights, not what one expects for November. It's overcast today tho, looks like a bit of rain might come this way. Now I have to figure out how to get that cow back in the barn. She's made it 20 or so feet out into the barn lot and she's grown a bit.

I've got a bucket all set up to transplant the mini bell peppers from the tub by the porch to the kitchen garden for the winter. Since the frost didn't kill it back and it's still flowering, I might as well save it. The peppers are sweet and spicey, a nice addition to just about everything I cook around here. I will give the plants a juice of rabbit poo as fertilizer and let them grow in the windows.

The Muscovy duck hatched a chick out yesterday, she still has 6 chicken eggs and 7 duck eggs under her. I'm not sure exactly how long the Rouen has still, she's just got duck eggs under her, all her own. So, we've got 7 more days before the ducklings start to hatch, 21 for chicks and 28 for ducks.

The bunnies have jumped out of the box and this is the size where they are so darn cute! I love playing with them. At this size, it's hard to imagine them as supper. I've got 3 does hopefully to kindle on the 24th as well.

I've been doing double duty with the cooking, more than one meal at a time going. I've got a sweet sauce simmering on the stove today for pizza sauce, a couple italian dishes and what's left will go with meatballs. A little of the pork mixed with some of the beef rolled up with my own little recipe. I made a couple batches of french bread so we could have garlic bread with our meals. I like the french bread better than the italian bread.

Hubby is still unemployed and we're starting to feel the squeeze just a little bit. I'm still sitting on a few projects that need finished before the bad weather comes along. Always thankful we had a decent harvest this year, plenty to eat!

It's time to start thinking about the coming holidays. I love this time of year... I need to make some soap and some cheese, get back after that quilt that's been sitiing folded up in the drawer for more than a year...

Indian Summer maybe?

The days have been amazing lately, makes me think we've got a little bit of Indian Summer going on here. It's wierd to run around the farm in a t-shirt in November and all the trees are bare.

Yesterday turned into a pretty nice and easy day for me since I had nothing really planned. On the way home from the library I stopped at the gas station and picked up a couple gallons of whole milk. I used it to make up some ricotta cheese. it's about the only kind of cheese store bought milk is good for since being homogenized ruins it. I hit my food storage and whipped up some home made lasagna. I used my handy dandy Joy of Cooking book for the french bread recipe, whipped some of that up for garlic bread. I like the recipe a bunch since it doesn't call for sourdough, you just scald your milk and go. Fresh garlic pressed with the hand press for the bread and we had us a fine supper. LOL I am still tasting the garlic with my coffee this morning. Maybe I went a little overboard with it but it's just so darn good!

Moo cow is a real dandy, I think she's been trying to get up in the middle of the night. This morning she was turned back around and headed back toward the barn and on her other hip. That's good for me since now I don't have to strain myself trying to get her pushed over but now the hip I wanted to doctor this morning is down. She'll shift herslef again I hope and I'll get it doctored then. She's full of spunk and she's bright eyed, glad I didn't give up on her. She may get up yet!

Polar Bear is in the dog house(literally), she woke me up at 4:30 this morning to go out and when I let her back in, she peed the floor! Wouldn't have been so bad if it was on the tile but she peed the carpet, again. She's smarter than that, just being a turd I think. So, she's been outside all morning chasing the cats.

This warm weather has me thinking I might try and start a few more plants for the kitchen garden. Maybe a couple more pepper plants and a cucumber or 2 more. The tobacco plant I grew in the ice cream bucket is finally coming to seed. I hand pollinated all the flowers and almost every one has a seed pod. Should give me plenty of fresh seed for spring planting. Hubby is already eyeballing the leaves and I haven't even mentioned cutting it yet. he must be running low on his tobacco stash. He smokes too much anyway.

The coffee plants I started this past spring are looking pretty good. I'm thinking of seperating them into their own little pots. I've got my pop bottle pots all cleaned and sanitized, I just need to get a bucket of composted dirt in the house to warm up. It should be good to go after 3 days in the house, don't want to shock the roots with cold dirt. All 9 plants are doing pretty good, I look forward to their first flowering.

I'm also thinking hard about tearing out the kitchen cabinets and counter over in the corner of my kitchen. That space seems to be a catch all for every piece of junk the hubby and the son can get their hands on. I'm thinking about building a walk in pantry in that space. It will eliminate a clutter spot and be much more useful as a meaningfull storage spot. If I do it, I'll take pictures. I am seriously considering it.

I need to go check on my neighbor with Cancer today, he just had a chemo treatment yesterday and he might not be feeling too good. I'll stop in and see if he needs anything done around his farm. Until tomorrow.............

Momentarily Freaked Out

LOL, this morning started with a jolt to the system. like I do every morning while my coffee is brewing, I stare out the window into my barn lot and look at my critters. There's a critter missing! Hardly one you could miss, she's been laying in the middle of the barn doorway for the past 2 weeks but where is she???? She's gone, not in the barn doorway. So, with a hundred different thoughts running thru my head, I find my shoes and head out there in my pj's. She's either got up or crawled about 15' out of the barn and over by the pen I have that dump dog in. I don't know why she would do that, there isn't even a nibble of grass over there, but she did. Just couldn't see her from my viewing window! Now, of course, every critter out there knows I'm out there and the morning chorus begins. Goats bleating, horses nickering, chickens and ducks cackling, the dog barking....... "sigh" so I went ahead and did the morning chores in my pj's.
I finally got a cup of coffee tho it was around 25 minutes later than I intended. That's life!

I have no plans at all for around the farm today but I'm sure I'll find something to do and share it with you all in the morning.

Rabbit Day

I got woke up early this morning by a call from a neighbor asking for a little help. Worked out good, gave me a reason to pick up the home made rabbit hutch he'd given me a couple weeks ago. Hated to make a trip up the back roads for just a rabbit hutch. It's a decently sized, home made hutch with a kindle box built in so I put one of my bigger does in it for now. I know the picture isn't so great but it's the best of the 3 I took with the cell phone. I am so looking forward to the laptop being fixed! We're looking good on having the laptop going very soon so I can be back online at home instead of having to drive to the library. I hate being in town and it takes so much time I could be doing something else with.

Hey Gen, the hog is done! It was one a neighbor fed out, I just traded him out of it so I didn't have to feed the escape artist myself! LOL The hog is officially sausage. I ended up with around 150lbs. We should be good for the winter now. No wild hogs here in southern Illinois unless they are escaped farm hogs.

Not much else going on but grinding feed and baking bread today.

Sunshine days

Wow, it's so nice to see the sun shining. A beautiful full moon for Halloween and also last night with the clear skies and bright stars. Still sloppy but the nice days are making it tolerable.

I am in the process of butching a hog today. It's hanging right now, gutless and skinless. I'm looking forward to stuffed chops and sausage. I've been out of sausage for a couple months now.
I already have my meat grinder set out on the counter and I've gone thru all the parts, made sure they are clean and properly oiled for smooth operation. I use a hand operated grinder, it's efficient, operates smoothly and does a great job for just a small amount of effort.

I don't get fancy on my hog butchering. I keep the hams, the loins, prep myself a couple of roasts and the rest gets made into sausage. It's what we eat the most of so it makes complete sense and I've never been much of a chop eater anyway. I'll have it all cut,wrapped and ground up by this evening.

I've been digging potatoes from that disaster patch of the hubby's... I'm not any more disappointed than I thought I would be. Hahahaha, hubby is NOT allowed to plant taters for me anymore! Not all his fault tho, the crazy amount of rain we had did not help at all. We'll not be eating taters much this winter but I think we will live thru it.

Not much new with the cow, she's still laying in the barn doorway. We are considering slinging her up to the rafters. She's made several good efforts to get up the last few days, has even rolled herself over a couple of times. She amuses herself by turning in circles to suit her mood. Every time I check on her, she's facing a different direction. I think we need to make her use her legs. It's a work in progress.....

I made a divine tomato/meat sauce last night. I'm going to use it on some pizzas for supper tonight. it's been a while since I made any pizzas and my son asked if we could whip a couple up.

Well, off to finish the farm chores.......