Farm Happenings

I thought I'd update what is going on around here, not that anyone is really interested but primarily because I have a bad memory, and someone will ask me in a year, "when was Curly sick?" etc., etc.,

Curly is our goat.  One of our mature male bucks.  He came here with his two brothers (Larry and Mo).  Mo died young from ingesting  (unsupervised) an entire bag of feed corn.  Corn and goats don't mix, especially that much.  Praise God we now have a door on the barn, and the goats can be kept out.  Before that, our feed was stored in the back of the car.

Curly hasn't been acting right for awhile now.  He, more often than not, lays down to eat.  He gets tired easily.  Not sure what his problem really is, but he started having respiratory issues on Saturday.  I gave him an injection of penicillin, and another on Sunday.  Today, he was back out with the herd eating.  He had been occupying a spot next to the water trough, we were resolved he wasn't going to make it.  So far so good.  Next step in treatment will be to worm him.  I don't normally worm my animals with a commercial wormer, so I will up his dose of DE (diatomaceous earth) to help treat any parasites he may have.

It's been raining all day here today.  We had a small rain episode on Saturday afternoon, right as we were finishing up the chicken butchering.  I feel a little better now that the house is all dried in, but we still need to add the tar paper.  (I said "we" didn't I? LOL, I meant the PH "we".  ;-)

PH also purchased four windows to put in downstairs (he forgot we have five windows).  There are not any windows at all on the North Side, as that side faces the container.  I'd like a door from the kitchen into the container, but that will be a future project.  Poor PH ;-)

So, I think the house project looks like this:

1) add tar paper
2) add windows and door(s)
3) add Tyvek wrap
4) add Hardi Plank
5) add metal roofing

Then Wa La! the outside is complete.

At that time, I am hoping to be able to move into the house, and start working on the inside little by little.  I should be able to do the insulation on my own.  I've done insulation before with my dad, lots of times.  I believe I can handle that much.  I'd like to finish the pantry first, then the Master Bedroom, followed by the bath, the kid's rooms,   and the kitchen.

Bo and Duke attacked our calf tonight.  If it happens again, they might be moving on to the Happy Hunting Ground.  Molly was very traumatized by the unprovoked attack.  Duke was the instigator.  He is a herding dog, and he constantly tries to herd her.   This then riles up Bo.  Duke isn't even a year old, and he is forgetting his place in the order of things.  He even growled at Beta the other day.  I was hoping she would eat his lunch, but she basically ignored him.  I don't know if this means he won that encounter, or she didn't consider him important enough to bother with??  Anyone, speak dog?

Tomorrow we will be picking up pecans (again) at a friend's house, in the rain.  i am not looking forward to being wet and cold, but I do want the pecans.  I plan to shell them all, and vacuum seal them.

Bread and Buckets

I've been buying buckets from a local bakery, washing them and then filling them with flour, sugar, rice, etc.  I need to stop by and get some more for cornmeal, and more flour.  All of my dry goods are in the freezer to keep the  bugs out of the bags, so once I have the buckets, I'll transfer them, and free up space in the freezer for meat.

I neglected to fill my sugar cansisters before dumping all of the remaining bag of sugar into the bucket.  I had to break out my handy dandy bucket opener to fill the jar today.  And guess what?!  The sugar bucket was on the bottom of the stack.  Which meant I had to move 75 lbs of dry goods to reach it (sigh).

I've been taking orders for bread.  My special this week is 2 - 12 inch loaves of bread and a jar of jelly (your choice of strawberry, grape, prickly pear and now apple). 

PD#1 turns 14 tomorrow.  I cannot believe it.  My little girl is growing so fast..  It's kind of scary. 

We've been busy here, doing our normal preparations.  I know I am not a hard core prep blogger, but that is because we live it every day, and am not just putting things by "just in case".  Our "just in case" is here.  The economy is so bad, and money so tight, that I don't go to the grocery store except every other month IF that...Tonight for dinner we had rice, with ground beef, canned corn, homemade bread, homemade apple crisp with vanilla pudding, and iced tea.  All from everything here in the pantry/freezer.  It feels pretty good to be able to cook without running to the store, but I am running out of things too.  I haven't been to the grocery store to REALLY stock up in awhile.  I need to go through the pantry and make a note of what I am missing and then bite the bullet and go get it.  I do know T.P. is on the list, down to 30 rolls...not good for PH.  He likes t.p.  It's a no go on getting him to use the flannel wipes. 

Two walls are up on the house, with the other two scheduled to be done this weekend.  Then comes the interior walls, the loft structure and the roof.  We really need the roof, because this week (after a full year of NO rain) it decides to rain.  This does not  bode well for the plywood decking and wall framing.  I am sitting here waiting for a big storm cell to come through.  The rain is much needed and appreciated (thanks Lord!) but the wood doesn't like it so much.

Had to run out and close up the wash house and take the wash off the line, as well as, cover the baby chicks in their chicken tractor.  I hope they keep dry.  We need to move them to the barn tomorrow.  I am worried about them drowning in the storm, or taking a chill/draft.

Areas we prepped this week:  dehydrated the rest of the 20lbs of apples and have about 5 quarts of dried apples.  Filled 3 buckets with dried goods, practiced shooting (dove season is here ya know!) - the goats run FAST when you walk out of the house with a 12 gauge!