Fall is a beautiful time of the year. One of my favorite seasons. The temperatures are starting to cool down and colors are becoming more vibrant. Pumpkin spice is on the minds of many with warm lattes and hot chocolate or mugs of apple cider to tempt the senses. Apple season is gearing up and I am looking forward to some organic apples this year from a small orchard in NC. It is very rare to actually find any fruit orchard or patch that does not SPRAY something toxic on their products. So I do my best to support such brave souls to take up these endeavors to feed us good and nourishing food. I am thankful.
Lots still going here, cow is milking about 3 gallons of Jersey fresh 100% grass fed milk daily. Getting ready to artificially inseminate her and see what the Lord will bless our endeavors with next Summer. Lissa is having a difficult time rebounding back from nursing her calf for four months.The calf is fat and robust but her momma’s weight continues to concern us. We are taking extraordinary measures to ramp up her groceries and keep her healthy and happy. We are working diligently to cut her production and reduce her milking to once a day to reduce the stress on her body. It is happening slowly and we pray the transition will go well. Any time you leave milk in an udder can provide an environment for mastitis so we are watching her very closely.
Our goats on the other hand are doing well. It is breeding season here so we will see what we decide to do. One doe failed to breed last year so we will try one more time and if we fail again her future here will be short. Our other doe has produced four kids in two years, sadly three bucks and one doe. Hopefully if we breed this year we will finally get tow does. Time to change our buck here so we will be selling all the males. We have two buck kids, one yearling and one wether. As well as the “herdsire”. We did not register these goats with the ADGA but they come from “papered” stock. We do not show our animals and goats are not endangered to the point of counting every single one of this breed so I rather just go unpapered. According to The Livestock Conservancy they are recovering. Here is the link for your information on the breed. https://livestockconservancy.org/heritage-breeds/heritage-breeds-list/oberhasli-goat/
We have 23 baby chicks in the barn. We decided to try and raise some Black Australorpes. They are supposed to be one of the more productive breeds of chickens. Come Spring hopefully we will have some fresh eggs from these ladies. The rest of our “fowl” barely earn their organic feed so hopefully these ladies will pick up the slack. We have sold our breeding flock of turkeys and are taking a rest for the Winter. Not sure if I will pick up a new breed or not. But time will tell…
Our New Zealand rabbit doe gave birth to four healthy little bunnies. We had another doe and a buck but unfortunately they just could not manage the SC heat and both became ill and died. The one doe is strong and healthy so she is good stock and a keeper. New Zealand rabbits are a meat breed and we desire to add rabbit to some of our meat sources around here. We will sex the group soon and set aside any females and process the bucks at 12 weeks which will put us around Thanksgiving.
Our two Berkshire female pigs are getting huge. The plan is to process them in late Fall. These bubbas are drinking a gallon of milk per day along with their organic rations and we give them quite a few gallons of clabber per week. So nice healthy pigs we certainly have. Sadly our processor cannot do the processing to some time NEXT YEAR so we will be home butchering these ladies. It is getting harder and harder to feed yourself these days. But God ALWAYS provides a way. Learning the skills of humanely slaughtering your own animals is no more just for the “few”. If you care about your health and cannot trace your food then you have to sooner or later head this direction. We continue to strive to learn so we can prepare these future generations to fend for themselves.
Our have been roasting our own organic Peruvian coffee for some time now. I need to ramp up my production and start offering it from the Farm. It is quite delicious! To add to my lists of undertakings I also have been blending my own Proprietary blend of organic tea as well. I decided to start drinking White Peony tea, it is real tea from the Camellia sinensis L bush because of the wonderful therapeutic benefits and low caffeine. After much research I decided to begin the Art of Blending my own tea. So after some trial and some error I have worked out a blend that is pure deliciousness. So I start with organic whole leaf White Peony tea from Frontirer Co-OP, I add organic hibiscus, organic rose hips, organic rose petals, a touch of organic lavender, a touch of organic spearmint and a touch of chamomile. We add a teaspoon of raw local honey to our mugs and sip and enjoy our nightly blend after evening chores. It is so relaxing and I think I am going to try and offer this tea blend from Farm.
Well Farm followers thank you for listening to my updates and ramblings. I do appreciate your time. I know we all have limited amounts of it and we are commanded to redeem it so thank you for stopping by! Please if you get on Social Media I do have a Facebook Farm page and a Group on there called Einkorn Lovers Group. Feel free to stop by and look at what we are doing in that realm. Happy Fall!