Yes, it's been a while since our last post - an entire month and this summer is just flying by! Our farmers market sales have been very good so that means that our available hours and days are filled with grain cleaning, flour grinding, soap and lotion making, labeling, packing for the next market, etc.
Kevin has other obligations and activities too. Besides his full time job he teaches firearm safety training and is the local scoutmaster. Two weeks ago he was off to camp with the scouts. Here at home, I managed the extra chores, hauling the pig food and water out to the pigs with our old ford Ranger which I call our "side-by-side".
The pigs get wet food including any extra milk on hand and it is messy!
Last time I reported on new chicks that had hatched to two hens. One of the hens did end up with all of the chicks. They have grown a lot and are now in that kind of ugly stage that chicks go through. Their mom has left them already but they are doing fine on their own. Here they are at bed-time, piled into a nesting box on the floor.
I didn't mean to allow any more hens to hatch chicks out, the reason being that chicks hatched in July aren't big enough to send to the processor in the fall with the older ones (referring to the cockerels only). One of the hens snuck off and hatched a few in the woodshed though so we do have four more little ones. Three are all black like their papa but one of them is a little different and it will be fun to see how it turns out.
The first batch of chicks are half grown and (to me anyway) beautiful!
We are still in need of rain in our area. There have been some nice showers in nearby places but all we have had is sprinkles and short showers. The garden is suffering and the hay crop was not as good as we would have liked. The oats are very stunted which will make harvesting more challenging.
The wheat and rye (both fall planted crops) are looking pretty good and are almost ready to harvest. Here is the rye which is next to the oats.
And the wheat next to the rye.
The does have mostly adapted to the milking machine which we use daily for evening milking. I will continue to milk in the morning by hand; I enjoy the time with the does and we have a nice chat to begin the day. I want them to stay used to hand milking although my hands do hurt sometimes. Daisy and Poppy don't mind the machine much at all but Belle is not enthused.
One of the kids has left for greener pastures. Goat lady Bonnie chose Belle's buckling to join their herd. His name is Max now - I think they should have named him Lucky!
Of course many other things have happened since the last post, hay has been baled, etc. but these are the highlights. Hopefully it won't be so long until the next post but no promises! Thank you for reading through it and until next time, be well friends!