Life

It has taken me a month to return to this page. The farm is a little dim right now. My son asked me if anything was happening at the farm. He noticed that I had not been posting anything lately.
Something is always happening at the farm. There are always chores to do. Animals to feed. Sheep to let out into the far pasture or close in for the night. Even if you don't feel like it, it has to be done. I guess that is what keeps people going, the things that have to be done.

I have begun bee allergy shots. I don't want to give up my bees so I need to protect myself. And also there are so many wasps around the farm and I am allergic to them too. They give me 6 shots a week for 9 weeks until they build up immunity and then I get one shot a month for the rest of my life.

We have begun putting hay in the barn for this winter. The weather has been so good this summer that everyone has gotten two cuttings. We now have over 190 bales. That should get us through the winter. We don't have a lot of cattle and sheep eat it too. John was at the Farmers Coop the other day and a REAL rancher said he had put up 3000 bales! That is the kind of rancher that has to sale his herd during a drought. We made it through the past two years of drought with most of our breeding cows. We have a few new calves this summer. We will sell a few of the older calves before winter. We don't like to run too many older calves through the winter. It takes too much feed when we do that.

We did take a bull to the butcher two weekends ago. He is our first. We have always just sold the cows at the sale barn. This bull we kept for two years on pasture and the last three months on extra feed as finish out. I like the idea that I know where my food comes from. We know how he was raised and what medicines he has had through his life.

I have incubated chickens too lately. I have 10 straight run chickens that are now three months old and 23 chickens that are about 3 weeks now. I just started a new batch this morning. It takes 28 days for a egg to hatch and about 5 months for a chicken to start laying eggs. The chickens I have now are over two years and need to be harvested. I have to replace them first though as our family and friends enjoy the farm fresh eggs. Straight run means that they are both male and female. So the ten older chicks that I have, half may be males. The males will be harvested when they are about 8 months.

Luna and Odin are growing like weeds! They like to go up to the small lake and then they settle on the front porch. It is cool there. Luna barks a lot at night as warning. Sometimes I hear Odin too, but I think he is letting her do most of the work.

I guess that is all for today.

A Death in the Family

On August 13, 2013

 

Joseph A. Sutliff died.

 

Our daughter's love. 

 

Our son and brother.

Our beloved friend.