Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 17 November 2023…
Hey Y’all!
Good afternoon and happy Fast-Jet Friday! That’s Hannah “HAIL” Slayton in the front seat of today’s Mighty-Mighty F-15E pic. She’s doing very well and has only one ride remaining in her 2-ship flight-lead upgrade program. The weather has a continued to be dry but temperate. It’s looking like cooler weather approaching with some rain this weekend. The animals are doing well, with the exception of Betty the Jersey. Betty is sick again and the vet is on the way this afternoon. We’ll see what it is this time. The rest of the animals are doing very well. The top 2 pics are the lambs that will be going to the processor in a little under a month. We’re very excited to have that much lamb for sale! The beef cows are pretty much out of grazing pastures already and we’re starting to supplement them with hay. The same goes for the sheep flock. All of the birds are doing well. I spent a couple of days this week smoking meat. We’ve got a very large smoker that my dad had built and was no longer using so we moved it to the farm. We agreed to cook some turkeys for the Ava Walmart Thanksgiving celebration and it’s big enough that the 4 turkeys all went in at once. Actually, it’s big enough that I could have put at least 16 with plenty of room. Since it was smoking so nicely, I put this year’s pepper harvest on to get some smoke. As the turkeys came off, I put a half ham, a pork butt, a rack of pork ribs, a beef brisket, 3 chickens, and a pound of sliced pork belly on with the pans of peppers. There was still room for more! We’ve sampled (or completely devoured) everything and it all turned out very well. I used red and white oak and a bit of hickory, all from the farm. We’ve got meat for a while and the folks at Walmart enjoyed their turkeys!
In Episode 16 of the Dust’er Mud podcast we continue our discussion about our low-carb lifestyle and then spend the last 20 minutes or so chatting about how our desire for control on the farm has been leading to frustration. Check it out!
Local Farm Report for 14-16 November 2023
Harvest:
45 Chicken eggs
24 Duck eggs
6 1/2 Gallons of milk
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley
That’s a helluva beard you got there, Psycho!