Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

[misfitmorgan]

That would be a portable business, that is needed everywhere. I take it that the equipment at new prices is high and there would be a substantial difference in price for Jimmy’s equipment.

It’s nice to be near family but not if you don’t get along with them. Your sister in Ohio, doesn’t it get cold and snowy there too? My advice, go where you will be happy.

I forgot to say yes it does get cold and snow there but not for to long like just a few weeks. Most of winter is above freezing for temps. I did used to live in willow wood ohio which is about as far south as you can get in ohio. The weather is the same as northern kentucky and mid west virginia. My sister lives about 30 minutes from dayton ohio so a bit colder then willow wood. We will see what live brings.

Wherever we move I want to be closer to a USDA slaughter facilty and a stockyard. ATM USDA slaughter is a little over 2hrs away, and the closest auction is 2.5hrs away....so kind of a long distance for either one.

Over the weekend we got all the sheep sheared, tagged anyone who needed it, dewormed those who needed it, trimmed hooves, gave the ewes their annual CDT, and separated lambs. In about 4 weeks the boys will go to the auction. We have some really nice looking lambs this year and all but 2 are boys of course. At current prices, we should get between $1,200-2,400 depending who is there buying that day. We normally sell directly off the farm but if we did that this year we would only make $600 at most as local people are still wanting to buy lambs for $75-100 despite them going at auction for $250-400 atm. Basically anything over $600 at auction and we will be happy. All the money is going towards the new sheep/goat barn. We have everything atm for the next section of pasture except, wood corner posts, insulators and electric wire.

We are keeping 2 ewe lambs this year, one is a really big suffolk girl lamb, she is about 50lbs atm and one mutt girl who is about 35-40lbs atm.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Yesterday our first gosling hatched....so exciting!!

We had 3 geese all sitting on one nest and a 4th on a separate nest. There are duck eggs mixed in the nest as well, so when the geese hop off the nest in 2 days we will toss those in the incubator.

 

[Baymule]

Congratulations on the gosling, hope you get more! What kind of geese?

If we had a pond, I’d have waterfowl. It’s too much work to create artificial ponds.

There is a small cattle pond near the road on one of the back roads near us. Last week a pair of Canadian geese had babies paddling behind their momma.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Thank you!!

The geese are white/grey Toulouse and Sebastopol cross. We have a manmade pond on our place that will be fenced off in the near furture to be the duck and geese area. Near future being you know.....next year or two lol.

 

[Baymule]

Yeah like “temporary” means it’s still there and I’m still using it.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Yeah like “temporary” means it’s still there and I’m still using it.

Exactly lol

So some odd events. Thursday around 10am my little 4lb chihuahua mix started barking like someone was here while I was in the bathroom getting ready for an appointment. So I looked out the front window and saw no one, she kept barking. Then I realized she was barking towards the back sliding glass door, I could see her in the doorway to the kitchen but not what she was barking at. I walked thru the kitchen to the back living room and there at the sliding glass door was a michigan rattlesnake...IN the house!! Thats a first, it was a big gravid female so we caught the snake and relocated it a couple miles away.

Next up.....our frost free date is May 23rd. We started planting our garden on wednesaday(26th) including 4 bundles of onion sets, and 3 flats of tomatos and peppers. Friday night the 28th we got a killing frost and everything we planted in the garden is 100% dead now with the exception of maybe the onions but they look pretty bad. All my herbs and strawberries along with one cherry tomato I planted in containers by the front of the house look fine except one type of basil isnt looking so hot.

Here are my herbs and stuff at the front of the house.
Left back to right front: Flat leaf parsley, Greek Basil, Dill weed, Garlic chives, Sage, non-bulb Fennel, dwarf greek basil, savory, lovage, summer and winter thyme, rosemary, mini mint. I still need to pick up cilantro.

Sungold cherry tomato, Honeye Strawberries, english lavendar, and overwintered chives.....and no one sees that grass filled flower bed

 

[misfitmorgan]

Since you asked a million years ago Bay! This is the high tunnel we built last fall, currently no birds live in it but they did nice things for the grass. They never actually spent much time in it since there was a nofence. We need to put up turkey fence, the poultry net, and install the roll-up sides. We have the stuff for the turkey fence and poultry net, just need time to put them up. Eventually there will be a door at that far end where it is framed in too and those old crank open style windows we salvaged from a camper above the doors on either end. The plastic is used, we got it second hand from our friends who own a greenhouse business and when it needs replaced we will be using white plastic.

This is our new pasture seeding coming in, hopefully it gets going good before those bigger weeds take over. Thankfully the frost got those bigger weeds and not our new seeding coming in so buys a little more time. The turkeys, ducks, rabbits, and other birds got a lot of our seed so we will be seeding it again in the fall.

 

[Baymule]

Wow! Super nice hi-tunnel green house! That’s too bad about the plants you set out. Gardeners are forever optimistic, freeze, drought, floods, bugs-we just don’t quit!

Rattlesnake in the house! Good dog! Hope you gave her a treat!

 

[misfitmorgan]

Wow! Super nice hi-tunnel green house! That’s too bad about the plants you set out. Gardeners are forever optimistic, freeze, drought, floods, bugs-we just don’t quit!

Rattlesnake in the house! Good dog! Hope you gave her a treat!

It is nice and only cost us $800-900 for a 12x32 hoop house. Kind of annoying we need to replant and lost the money for those flats, luckily we are friends with the greenhouse owners where we buy and get a mandatory 50% discount......not our idea.

Yeah I was pretty shocked to see a snake in the house let alone a rattlesnake and really wonder how it got inside! She got treats and lots of praise.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Today is picture day!!

This is one of our steer calves, the smaller of the 2.

Some of our ducks enjoying the weather.

My house elf spending some time outside with the lambs. The big metal thing is a creep feeder for the lambs.