May 21, 2009

Sugar is here.


She looks thinner than she did on Monday but I think the calf is lower than it was which is stretching the skin. I found out more about her from Jennifer's uncle. She is 3 1/2 years old and this will be her second calf. She is closed in her stall for the night because she doesn't know the boundaries yet and I would rather she find them in daylight.

What a difference between the way cows and sheep eat. The sheep are very picky about hay and eat all the best leafy parts first. Sugar just mows and if she drops some on the floor she picks it up and eats it. Nice.

We worked on the garden all afternoon manuring and laying down the plastic mulch. I'm off work tomorrow so we'll hit it hard. This is shaping up to be the first year we've had the garden in on time for many years. Knocking on wood...

May 20, 2009

Work was busy today. Actually the whole week has been busy dealing with 3 breakdowns on 2 different machine tools. One is fixed, one is diagnosed and will be fixed in the morning and the third...?!? Oh well, tomorrow is our short day and then we won't worry about it until next Tuesday. (We're on a 36 hour schedule - 10 hours Monday-Wednesday and 6 on Thursday).

I shallow tilled the garden today and plan to manure, mulch and plant tomorrow and Friday.

It looks like Sugar, our Jersey cow, will be arriving tomorrow!

May 19, 2009

I came home today and put the finishing touches on Sugar's stall (clean straw, good hay, water) in the hope that she will come tomorrow. While in the red barn, I noticed that our ram, Joash, is limping. It may be that the other ram butted him in the shoulder but if it's not better tomorrow, I'll look at his hoof.

I mowed around the garden and put up a short electric net to keep out rabbits. Last year we lost almost all of our peas and lettuce to the little thieves. It just needs a shallow till and will be ready for the bulk of the planting this week(end).

When I came home today, I peeked in the white barn and saw the cat food stealing raccoon in there chowing down. I nearly drew my .38 special snubby but thought the 124 gr. Gold Dot was probably overkill. Instead I came inside and had Jennifer get me her Walther P22 out of the safe. I went back out and performed the latter part of the Mozambique Drill and bye-bye masked marauder. The P22 might not be the ultimate in home defense but loaded with CCI Stingers it's a damn fine barn defense handgun.

I was just standing at the kitchen window and saw that the lamb races have begun. All of the lambs (less the bottle baby who is penned in the barn) were running and jumping and playing along the bank of the creek. It looks like great fun.

May 18, 2009

Last night I moved the rams into the smaller stall next door to get their old stall ready for a new occupant. We're getting a Jersey heifer this week. Her name is Sugar and she is due to freshen in the next few weeks. She was pasture-bred so we're not sure of the due date.

Jennifer's uncle is giving us the cow but we'll be giving him the calf after it's weaned. We're going to get a bull calf from our herdshare dairy for Sugar to nurse. That way we'll have beef for ourselves. We probably won't milk her until the calves are weaned.

Irish Bangers

All measurements are approximate:
2# ground lamb (at least 20% fat)
1/2 cup Guinness Stout
1 cup fresh sourdough breadcrumbs
2 tsp good sea salt
1 1/2 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp mace
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp rubbed sage

Blend all ingredients thoroughly with fingers. Stuff into natural hog casings and twist into links. This is the first time I've made these so I'll have to let you know how they taste.

Ike!

Ike huffed and he puffed and he blew our hoophouse down!

Wet...finally

Two days of rain here with more likely. We're supposed to get the remnants of Ike on Monday.

This is the time of year when near panic sets in over all the things I should've gotten done over the summer and with the rain not much is getting done here this weekend. I can't complain though because we're coming out of our usual summer drought and really needed the rain.

I'm having trouble finding hay for the winter. My usual (and closest) source may not have any this year and another source tells me it will come down to his third cutting this month. I really don't want to have to buy it at auction but it may come to that.