By Daisy Luther
Fall is here, and it’s my favorite time of the year. The weather is just a little bit cooler, the days are a little bit shorter, and the beautiful change of scenery is welcome after a hot dry summer. Today’s Friday Farm Blog is all about fall.
I heard from the publisher this week and was delighted to hear that the first run of my book, Prepper’s Water Survival Guide, sold out completely. Get your order in, because the second run will be coming in just a few days.
Lots of food prep is going on here. This week, I got a half bushel of peaches that I’m turning into Spicy Pepper Peach Jam using some jalapenos from the garden. I’ve got some tomatoes that will be turned into ketchup this weekend. Next week, we’ll be heading to a nearby orchard to pick apples for the year. I love nothing more than apple season!
Speaking of peaches, peach scraps cause an absolute feeding frenzy in the coop. There’s nothing funnier than watching baby ducks scarf down treats as fast as they can, trying to get their share before the more civilized chickens do. Here’s a video of this morning’s treat:
We set up a swimming pool in the coop for our ducklings, but it turns out they’re scared to get in it so far. They’re super cute, but I’ve decided we’re either eating them or selling them. Why? Because they aren’t friendly. Because they smell. Because I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into with ducks. They’re certainly adorable but far more of a pain than I expected. I’ll stick with chickens and goats for the time being.
Speaking of chickens, we lost one this week. One of our 7-week-olds got her head stuck and died of a broken neck. It’s always hard when you lose one, particularly because we’ve made great efforts to win their trust and make them friendly. Here are the remaining littles.
Our older girls are slacking. Nary an egg yet. The oldest ones are 7 months old, so I’m hoping it won’t be long.
No baby goats yet either, and Cora looks like her belly and udder are going to burst. Either she’s due soon or she’s having more than two babies. Of course, I have never had a pregnant goat, so I’m just guessing at these things.
Interestingly though, from the front, she looks much smaller. I think this means her babies have dropped and baby time is coming soon. Here’s pretty Cora from the front.
Our little goat, Nameless, discovered this week that she fits through our gate. It was a fun-filled morning of running down the road in our pajamas, as the silly little goat darted from one side to the other. Finally, we caught her and locked her up until we could fortify the gate.
Behold my hardware cloth and zip-tie construction.
So far, it seems to be working…until she figures out another way out, of course.
The once-a-month shopping challenge has my creative juices flowing. I’ve been using my Spark Naturals essential oils to make some lovely home-care products that I’ll be sharing with you soon. My goal is to make some knock-off versions of expensive store-bought goods. Just because we’re staying away from the stores doesn’t mean we can’t have wonderful things, right?
So far, so good, although it’s only the first week of the challenge. Please consider joining us! Here are the details. It’s a great way to test your preps, get a little more organized, and save some money. My friend Erica is on board, and here’s her first blog post on the topic.
How was your week? Are you preserving food? Planting your fall garden? Putting your feet up and relaxing? Share with us in the comments below! It’s always an interesting discussion when we get to learn about the efforts of folks in other parts of the world.
Talk to you next week!
HI Daisy,
I love your site. I am doing my Master’s in ecofrugal living. I also have goats to help me more ecofrugal. Meat goats and dairy goats. I am hoping to make loads of yogurt and cheese on this adventure. I love seeing what you are doing as well.
Cheers from northern British Columbia, Canada
Christina Rokoss
Garden is finished & tilled. Still some ripening tomatoes in basement. Sorted & put in boxes as to colour. This week did 12 pt of tomato soup & 4 qts tom. veg. beef soup. 2 didn’t seal so will have some quick meals.
Big job this week is sorting & tabulating what is in my pantry. Cleaned out one cupboard & refilling with only 2015 canning. Sorting through older canning & arranging by date. Some older canning can get pushed to back & forgotten when in the rush of picking & canning new stuff & trying to find a spare spot to store it. Also did a bunch of baking for our Thanksgiving. One son & family will be here.
My silly zucchini & yellow crookneck are still producing, just enough to eat for dinner. I live in a neighborhood of mostly middle-aged to senior folks, & everyone gardens. We’ve been sneaking around late at night or early morning leaving tomatoes on each other’s porches! I’ve been blending herbs & spices for taco seasoning, pork rub, pumpkin pie spice, etc. that I’ll give for Christmas gifts.
It’s acorn squash time here! We had few plants, but they were good producers. The other day, we had them with honey and butter baked in the middle. Tonight, I baked the squash with just butter in the middle. When they were done, I scrapped the meat off and mixed it with a bit of saunteed onion and cheddar cheese and just enough cream to make it–well, creamy. It was just as yummy as the ones I baked with butter and honey! Peas and beans are gone. Tomatoes are still producing and 5 or 6 fat pumpkins are idly sitting in the garden taking their time getting ripe.
That squash with cheese and onion sounds SO GOOD!
I have a dozen black star pullets ((McMurry) that are 21 weeks. We have been getting 2 or 3 pullet eggs a day this week. We canned 14 pints of tomato sauce and two dozen pints of amish cole slaw (basicly pickled cabbage) plus 20 pounds of cabbage fermenting for saurkraut. Two of my sons and one grand son came yesterday and we butchered 3 pigs weighing about 350 pounds each. One for each family. Working together made a huge project much easier. The next couple of days will be busy cutting, wrapping, canning meat and rendering lard.
Daisy, I had to laugh at your escapee goat! I also had the same adventure so I am always fortifying gates to keep the animals in their respective free range areas.
This week I spent a lot of time on chicks; I have 17 (1-2-3 week old) chicks in my indoor “warm baby cage.” The first week I have to watch for pasty butt, which I found on 4 chicks. They have to be cleaned, damp dried, and wrapped in a heating pad for about an hour. I have to keep checking them to make sure they don’t over heat, so it is time consuming. All 4 are back to the baby cage and doing well. The 2 month old chicks are in the outdoor transition cage and growing like crazy. I think another 2 weeks and they’ll be ready to go to the big coop.
Earlier this week I picked veges, collards, hot peppers and squash got them washed and ready for canning. Canned green beans, mixed garden veges, baby bella mushrooms, habanero sauce, collards, butternut and spaghetti squash in a variety of recipes. Dehydrated bananas slices, 3 types of hot peppers, mushroom stems and pieces, and herbs. I’m in the process of freezing several small quick meals of 15-bean casserole, chicken enchiladas, fajita meat and taco meat.
Hope you have a wonderful week.
I lost several chicks to pasty butt in my first batch. I tried to clean them off but must have gotten to it too late. The second batch had no pasty butt, thankfully!