Last week I was expecting my parents to arrive on Sunday. They got here on Saturday afternoon. I am glad we had more time to catch up on what they’ve been up to for the past month. However, having company always throws me off my schedule for some reason.I have been struggling for three weeks now with getting the irrigation water. since no farmers are irrigating anything right, now the water district has drastically reduced the flow in the entire system. I finally was able to water everything on thursday, but don’t know if I can catch up with what the lawn and trees need before they shut the whole thing down for winter.
While Mom and Dad were here we had a cookout and campfire on Sunday and then on Monday since Mom was here we culled chickens. That process took us all day long. It took a while to get the line set up so everything went smoothly. The first two chickens were a learning/re-learning process for both Mom and I. It ended up that I would catch the hen, cut off her head, and then scald and pluck and singe the feathers off. It was then up to Mom to eviscerate and cut them up. I think we got the first two done before lunch and then the rest took until almost 7:00pm to complete. The last two we decided not to cut up and we left them whole due to time considerations. Mom and Dad took one of the chickens and 6 dozen eggs for payment. Well worth the cost.
I am slowly making progress on the duck house, three walls framed that I need to sheath and stand up. I just bought the studs to frame the front wall and then I need to build/buy doors and put a roof on it. Sounds like it is soooooo close.
I also just bought a new cover for the grass catcher on my riding lawn mower. The website labeled it as a cover assembly, but it did not come with the baffle or latches attached. Since I could not water, and did not have the front wall framing figured out I tackled removing the (riveted) parts from the old broken one and bolting them on to the new one. I hope they stay attached and I’m not dropping nuts and bolts all over the lawn while I try to pick up leaves this fall.
In the past three weeks we have had 2 nights with temperatures of 32 or less. the first night the week before my parents came through the low was 31 and it did a lot of damage to the garden. This last thursday when I woke up in the morning the temperature was 23. That finished off the garden except for the cabbages. Even the bamboo seem to take a hit. I did clear the bamboo berms of grass and weeds and added more mulch. There are a lot of worms there now and I found lots of rhizomes forming on the plants. I should have some good shoots in the spring, if I can keep them alive over the winter . I even had to cut off a couple of rhizomes that I could not “redirect”. This validates my berm and ditch control method for keeping the plants where I want them to grow.
I have completely separated the mama goats from the babies and am now getting a gallon each day of delicious milk. I can’t drink that much, my cheesemaker has been gone for a week, and I think the child that needed it has outgrown that need. I have over 7 gallons of milk in the refrigerator. What am I going to do with all of this?
So, on to the stats for the past two weeks:
for the week of 8/31/2014 thru 9/6/2014 –
- Collected – 52
- Sold – 4 dozen (6 dozen given to the cheese maker)
- Cartons filled – 4
for the week of 9/7/2014 thru 9/13/2014 –
- Collected – 52
- Sold – 2 dozen ( 6 dozen to Mom for help with culling chickens)
- Cartons filled – 5
I will try to both have the duck house done by next post (with pictures), and try to post on time next week.