Yesterday was Randy’s birthday. The day got a bit mixed up, but he got presents, money, and hotdogs for dinner so he was happy. Our neighbors came down to help us with chores and visit. There is nothing better than good neighbors. It was so nice of them.
We have a little ewe lamb who is really having a tough time. When she isn’t constipated she has diarrhea. When she doesn’t have diarrhea she’s bloated. Everyone has surpassed her growth-wise. I feel so bad for her. We are fairly sure her state is due to her eating too much hay at too young an age. Her body cannot digest it, yet she devours it. I’m about to decide to pull her this weekend, stick her in a crate in the house where there is no hay to be had, and monitor her diet. That will give me three days to really focus on her eating and get her system cleared of any hay and strictly back to milk (or milk replacer). I may even try to milk out a ewe so she will have real milk and not milk replacer. That would be huge for her system I think.
Our Rhode Islands are laying 12-14 eggs a day. A lot of them are still little, but some of our customers/neighbors don’t care as long as they get eggs. One of our roosters, yes we have more than one for now, has hurt his foot. If he is not better by the weekend we may have to put him down. There was a guy in town interested in getting a rooster from us, but I’m not sure we are going to have one for him now. We only have two RI roosters and one Bantie rooster. We really hope to get a new coop built and move our Banties into it. We will use that coop to raise our broilers once or twice a year and house the Banties.
I plan to devote Friday to cleaning our house. Between lambing, bottle lambs, a blizzard, and constant rain I’ve really let our house go. It needs a thorough cleaning and fast. I also hope to spend some time in the kitchen preparing meals for the upcoming week. We have really gotten away from healthy eating this week.
I hope to get some beans soaking so I can make Navy Bean Casserole and Italian Pinto Beans to put up for quick meals I can pull out of the freezer. We are trying to eat from our freezer (mainly meat) and get it all cleaned out before restocking it with grass-fed beef, fall broilers, and hopefully venison. I need to get some meat pulled out of there this evening, sausage, ham steaks, maybe a homegrown chicken to bake on Sunday, spaghetti sauce, and chicken broth.
I didn’t make it to the Asian Market while I was in Wichita Friday, so I’m completely out of brown rice. Hopefully I will make it back over there soon to get a few things, but for now we are rice-less.
This weekend (weather permitting) will be dedicated to tearing down pasture fencing. We didn’t get our pasture burned like we had hoped. Here in Kansas you at the mercy of the winds and the weekends have just been too windy and/or rainy. Our rams got to go out to pasture last night. The girls were so jealous.
Our yard is a weedy mess. Our neighbors offered to spray it yesterday (which was really nice of them), but Randy told them “no thanks.” They make fun of us because we are adamant about not using chemicals on our lawn and garden. Laugh away, we just won’t do it. We will hopefully get it mowed down low soon and burned off next year. Corn gluten is really expensive for the amount of grass we have, but hopefully we can start using it to help control weeds. I’ve planted lots of new fruit bushes and trees, so as they grow and branch out the amount or grass/weeds will decrease and we will have less to worry about in the way of a weedy lawn. Our yard doesn’t look great right now, and we know that, but we won’t break. We won’t use chemicals for a quick fix.
Hope you have a wonderful day!
A Simple Prairie Life 