Monday, September 26, 2011

First full week of fall, lots to do to get ready for winter, I love autumn!!

Today we will try to conquer the many fall time chores that are in need of doing. Lots of wood to stack and some to chop, thank goodness we have an electric chopper both to old and to arthritic to do it the old fashion way any more.  The camper we didn't get to use needs to be put to bed for the winter.  A couple of Poppie's project cars need to be moved to storage area, and no Poppie can't put one of them in my goat pen, the goats would destroy it, "on yay".  Sometime Poppie is so funny. The green house is still producing tomatoes so that is a blessing. The pump house needs to be restored to it pre-new pump condition.  The pool needs to be rolled up and put into storage. The shop area where Swiss Miss Chops and little ones live needs to made ready for head start children, who are to come on Friday.  That will be so much fun, for Poppie and the little children who have never gotten to see little piglets.  We are going to have to get the little boy piglets fixed next weekend. We had an order for one little boar so that is one less to fix. We have had good interest in the piglets I think we only have 3 or 4 that aren't going to be wiener pigs or market pigs, the ones not spoken for we will raise up and sell as market pigs on craiglist or take more market pig orders.  We are going to go get a ton of grain next week.  That cuts the cost way down and we have all the feed on hand for a while.  When it is just Swiss Miss Chops, it has only taken a ton since January, with market pigs we will go through several by the time they are ready to sell. It is always better to have several pigs to feed as they compete for the food and eat better than just having one which makes for bigger pigs.  Still taking orders if interested let me know.

I was out with Booboo in her turkey pen to see if we can for sure take an accurate count of what we have.  Originally we thought we had two toms and three hens, we gave away one of the hens to Knitter for her lonely tom.  We think we have one tom and three hens, which will make for a great little flock in the spring. Booboo is hoping to sell baby turkeys or free range adult turkeys, which will be nice for her.  Yogie has her chickens.  We had a flock of 19 wild turkeys in the back yard Saturday night and Booboo took lots of photos, they looked just like her penned domestic turkeys.  It was so much fun for her to get to interact with them. We are going to get them rabbits in the spring and raise them and butcher young adults for meat.  It is the most economical meat you can raise.  They will love their bunnys and I will have to learn to kill and butcher, Poppie refuses to do the deed and has left that to me, so I will step up and do it.  We are going to keep two piglets for ourselves one to raise as a second sow and one to butcher.  We are going to keep two females so we can have an options to choose which will be the better breeding female and then butcher the other.  We think that the little one, that is mostly black, will be the one we will keep in the long run as the sow, the other we are keeping is a larger female that looks to be a nice meat piglet.  We are tentatively naming the one Blackie.   I think people that don't live with the animals on a daily basis think we are cruel but we are not.  We are raising the girl to know where their food comes from and have respect for the animals that give their all to that purposes. We love our animals and allow them to get closer to the ones that aren't food but breeding stock, we respecting and take care of the ones that are to be food and make the girls aware from the beginning that they are food so they can have a little buffer to the animals eventual harvest. 

Today is the first day to the rest of our lives, as is ever day, but it is a day to begin anew and write something special on your new page of life........... tomorrow.

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