Thursday 20 August 2009

August 20, 2009

We got some rain last night which was very welcome. Our garden is about to burst. The late corn is ready and there's probably 30 quarts to freeze in addition to the 20 that the early corn yielded. The late cabbage is also ready. Most of it will go into sauerkraut. Tomatoes are just starting to come on after getting a late start due to the cool weather in early summer. The winter squash seems to be developing well from what I can see. It's a jungle in there because the squash in interplanted with the corn. As soon as the corn is harvested I'll cut the stalks and feed to the cows and sheep.

Sugar continues to milk well, giving us what amounts to about 1% cream unfortunately. The calves are growing like crazy, though. I had an idea last night that maybe her failure to gain weight has to do with internal parasites. I have the equipment to do fecal tests for worms in sheep. There's no reason why that won't work for cows except I don't have the nifty chart identifying the cow parasites. I'm not sure that matters, though. Worm eggs will still look like worm eggs. I plan on doing the test this weekend and treating her if she needs it.

I ran into my butcher yesterday at one of our local gun shops and remembered that I need to call them for a September appointment to take in the lambs. I'd really like to sell at least one more and two would be better. The price is $3.25 per pound of carcass weight plus the butchering and slaughtering fees which are about $50-$60 for a 50# lamb carcass. The total for 50 pounds would be about $220 and the total yield would probably be around 40 pounds after cutting and packaging. Email joe[at]realfoodfreedom[dot]com if you're interested.

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