September already

Wow!  It's been a awhile since I've last posted here.  Eh, where to start... Lousy unlucky living about sums it up.  Just one thing after another drove me down and everything I did attempting to improve the situation just made it worse.  So, I had to take a second job.  I have my grandson all the time now and we're sitting in the truck(he's sleeping) using the neighbors wifi.

It's breeding season for the goats and I'm pretty happy about it.  5 months and a new crop of kids will be entertaining me. I'm really excited about it, I love the kids.  All the nanny's are healthy, Billy got big and filled out.  Should be a dandy herd of babies.

Rough summer for the chickens.  Hawks, possums and coons been hitting the flock hard.  I get one varmint caught, another pops up.  I'm down to 4 bobwhite hens and a roo.  They won't start laying until spring
  The coturnix are easier to handle so I'm going to move more towards them.  I need to get the excess roo's out so the girls will lay more.  Eh, the wire rolls are out of reach for now.  Too many bills in front of that expense.  Hence the second job!

Both my lawn mowers have quit on me.  The farm looks like it's abandoned, the grass is so tall, the goats disappear.  The old mare tells me where they are most of the time tho.  The old girl is still in good shape and healthy.

Grandson is awake, guess it's back to the house....

sweltering July

Wow, been trying to figure out how to post updates here with a smart phone.  Not as easy as I was hoping it would be.  Quite a bit slower than the laptop is.

So here it is, middle of July and I've run thru the meager savings and managed to pick up a part time job with dollar general.  A third of the pay I used to have but something is better than nothing.

As you all can see, I'm back to making cheese!  It's goat milk this time, beautiful milkers from Akre Acres farm.  Possible give always in the near future.  Also making some lovely goat milk soap.

Lost a whole hatching of chicks, I somehow ended up with a rotten one in there and it fouled the hatch right before the hatch date.  Hate that, oh well.  Nothing else to do but clean it out and start over.

Guess I will leave it at that and go out in the sauna of a day and try to figure out why the brakes are dragging on the truck....

June Excitement and disappointment

So, here it is, half way thru this yea and I'm in big trouble. 2 weeks ago, I was summarily dismissed from my job. I was in the way of the new store manager promoting someone he obviously liked more than me. Of course I had no idea they were plotting against me. Their conspiracy was at least a month in the making as it takes 3 weeks to get shirts ordered and the day after I was dismissed, the guy promoted had his new shirts already. What a low down, weasel thing to do to someone. Especially one you acted like you were friends with to their face. Quick back stab, a bold fabrication for the termination papers and poof, there ya are.

Angry? Yah, maybe a little but the big picture is, I wasn't going anywhere in that job, I have the wrong body parts. Am I better off? LOL Not right now I'm not! I'm worrying about how to pay the mortgage at the moment.

Eh, I had 30 chicks I could have taken to market this coming Sunday. Big market, I did gret there last month. Dang puppy played with the chicks and killed them all. That's what I get for not closing the door all the way. So, now all I have to take is 4 baby rabbits. So, I whip out my forms for some novelty bird houses. Maybe I can sell a few of those. Alas, my jogsaw has grown legs and ran away. Geez! Can I just not win, ever? Why does it always seem the harder I try, the more I get knocked down?

Here's a good story tho.... A week ago Wednesday I get fired. Thursday, my son asks for help and I give it to him. Didn't work out quite how we planned and it snowballed into us spending 4 hours at the sheriffs dept waiting for assistance from a deputy. The deputy did all he could to help us and it rolled over to the next day. The end result after another 14 hours was what my son needed. If I hadn't been fired on Wednesday, I would not have been able to help him!

So, since I have no income coming in, I instantly rationed the critters way back to minimum, just enough to keep them coming to me when I call them. Hopefully, I can find a job quickly, before I am desolate.

Oh, I've been dabbling with goats milk from Akre Acres farm. I'm a little out of practice but I did make an edible wheel of cheddar this past week and good mozzarella the week before. I visited them Sunday and the compressor they just had replaced in their big cooler went bad after just 3 weeks. They had several gallons of milk that had warmed up to around 50F. I took it to try and make butter with since it needs to be around 70F to separate the cream. On the way home, I blew a brake line. Absolutely no brakes! No even a hint of brakes! Wow, was that a freaky ride home! I made it all the way to the farm having to use the park brake just once. Plenty of down shifting tho. I misjudged the driveway and the front gate stopped me. “sigh” had to pull it all apart and repair it. The truck is about half done now, son came by and took me to get parts for it yesterday after work and stayed to help me get it mostly done. The boy has to get up at 3am so I let him go home. I've been trying to bleed the line out by myself. Not sure if I'm making any headway at all. I iced the milk in the cooler but alas, it curdled on me so no butter try from this batch. Took me too long to get to it. Would have been better to have the cream separator already set up and ready to go. It's new, I need to bolt it down and read the book on how it operates. “sigh” another thing I haven't gotten to this week.

I've got several resumes and applications spread around the area. Hope I hear something soon.....

Mid May, drowning and freezing

Well, yep, here it comes, what is with this bi-polar weather?  The rods in my back sing to me every single day!  The farm is a swamp and the critters are all looking at me like this is my fault.  Hang in there girls, the sun is coming, I swear it is! 

My teeny baby quails have hatched!  I hope I can keep them alive.

The old incubator has gone bi-polar to match the weather.  I'm guessing the heating element is on it's way out.  Dang thing can't stay consistent for 2 hours at a time.  Hard to hatch healthy chicks out like that!  Seems like the new one I picked up with the proceeds from the rooster sales a couple weeks ago is doing a superb job as I got a nice hatch from it yesterday.

I'm working on it, I really am.  All these small opportunities to make the farm more viable in the little time my off farm job allows me.  My schedule got changed again.  Yay rah.  Not very happy with it at all.  The urge to be profitable with the farm is getting stronger every day.  I'm currently working on a barn add-on to house the chickens, turkeys and quail.  Probably have enough room for the new rabbit hutches as well.  Lost a whole kindle overnight to a first time doe I did not think had actually bred.  Guessed wrong I did, big time.  13 kits lost.  SMH with a side order of duh.  That's a loss of $130.  Not very good. 

On the up side.... the goats are all healthy and looking pretty good.  Billy has grown a bunch this spring and is starting to look like a respectable billy goat.  The 2 nanny kids I kept back look good as well.  Baby goat is finally putting some weight on.  Seems like this years kids were rough on her.  I'll have to watch her closer this fall and be sure to keep her weight up thru her gestation.  Can't have her looking so poor come kidding again.  That ignorant neighbors dog didn't help her much, glad she bounced right back or I'd have to hold some animosity toward that neighbor.  Even way out in the country, you still can't get away from stupid.

Got most of the new solar set up sitting here on go.  Need 3 more batteries and the dc to ac converter that I've ordered.  The batteries might take a month or 2 since they're a bit pricey but I'm close to where I want to be with it.  Progress is slow but it's still progress.  No more 1 step forward and 2 back anymore.

So, I'm doing what I can with my limited farm time to get the ball rolling in the right direction.  I've got a few irons in the fire for the future, will share when they're more solid.....  Until next time.....