Friday, May 1, 2015

Friday roundup

Today is May 1 -- happy May Day!

As I mentioned last week, I'm starting a new end-of-week tradition called Friday Roundup, in which we chip in all the preparedness-related things we did during the week. As spring gains momentum, outside work will take precedence.

So without further ado, here's what our week entailed:

• Between working on tankard orders, Don totally removed a trashed gate and fence section into our pasture...



...and replaced it with a stout gate and new (salvaged) fencing.




• On Monday we butchered three animals. The meat should be back in about two weeks.


• On Tuesday I began milking Polly again (twice a day) since we butchered her yearling steer Chuck. She was a little rough in the milking stall at first -- it's been a long time since I've milked her -- but she soon settled in. Her teats were sore and chapped from Chuck's sharp teeth, so I'm putting bag balm on her teats after every milking, which she seems to like. She's giving about 1.5 gallons a day, which is quite decent considering how late in her lactation cycle she is.


• Canned 18 pints of pintos beans.

• Hauled about 40 lbs. of miscellaneous bacon ends which had collected in the freezer. I defrosted them, and over two days cut and fried them down, then rebagged and froze the cooked bacon bits.




• We received a shipment of 24 new blueberry bushes from a nursery. We'll be preparing new beds for them this weekend.


• We drilled holes and inserted poles to enclose about a half-acre adjacent to the garden (which includes the pond). This will be used to plant an orchard and expand the garden a bit more. The poles aren't concreted in yet; we'll get to that over the next week.


What's everyone else's Friday roundup?

11 comments:

  1. Sorted through some of our many, many books to find those that we won't read again in order to make room for some of the ones we bought at a used book sale. We found some good ones! Also sorted and bagged clothes for donation. That made room in our limited closet to prevent things from getting crushed and wrinkled. The spring garden work progressed well as now all but one kind of vegetable is planted. That will wait for another week.

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  2. Well....completely overwhelmed by your super-human accomplishments on the farm!! WHEW!! What a determined man and woman can do!!!
    My lil attempts seem awful whimpy by comparison!! But anyhooo...my small backyard garden is planted and sprouting forth. Obtained an 'off grid' coffee pot, took a load of cans etc to the dump (a result of terminating trash pick up...will share on that sometime), bought a flat of strawberries and processed them, learned how to make 'rice milk' from a youtube vid, and I think that might be it. (( sheepish grin here))

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  3. Garden, garden, garden! Seedlings in the ground, seeds at the ready, weeding and preparing the soil and raised beds as the money is there. The house gets short shrift when there is the opportunity to get outside again!

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  4. We just moved at the end of January, and my pantry got thrown together. This last week I straightened it out, put things in order of expiration, and inventoried the whole thing. Next week: the freezer!

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  5. I don't dare put myself up against all these great accomplishments ... I'll come out looking like a lazy bum.

    Just Me

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  6. Good for you busy girl !!! The snow just melted here and the deer wreaked my blueberries. glad to hear yours made it.

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  7. We moved the baby chicks to our 'big chicken' tractor where they can eat grass until they are big enough to be with adult birds. We built a bunch of new boxes from reclaimed lumber from the horse barns next door (stuff that has been cribbed). We also planted 64 New pea plants. A slow week here since the husband was working a lot.

    Learning in NY

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  8. I got a couple of container pear trees (it's late to be planting here in GA, but the worst that can happen is that they die, and they might make it). Plus worked on building up the garden fence--like you, I have deer issues. Last year they got a little of everything except the dent corn, which they didn't seem interested in.

    It's late for planting, too, but the growing season here will go until at least mid-October.

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  9. 20# of asparagus turned into 14 jars of asparagus pickles. This week: 40# apples to process. Seedlings babied and more planted.

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  10. I was thinking of canning bacon but I wanted to can them in strips of bacon, not bits of bacon. What do you think?

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    Replies
    1. You're in luck. See this post:

      http://www.rural-revolution.com/search/label/canning%20bacon

      - Patrice

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