Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[CntryBoy777]

Everything just always looks so neat and tidy there...and I know for a fact that it doesn't stay that way without a lot of hard work and sweat....with a few blisters to boot. You and Teresa sure deserve a big pat on the back for all y'all get accomplished there....I'm always amazed at the fruits of your labor.....

 

[Mike CHS]

We have about 20 of those the neighbor used when he was gardening on our big garden. I prefer using sisal. It only takes about 10 minutes to weave it around that group of tomatoes and you only have to do it 4 or 5 times a season. All of the beds that have posts are permanent. Those that have post and wire are also permanent and we rotate between them. The cucumber bed this year will be pole beans next year.

 

[Mike CHS]

I love your land! What a beautiful thing to wake up and see everyday!

Thank you. If we ever take it for granted we will no longer be fitting to have it.

 

[Mike CHS]

We had built another hutch and pen area for the turkeys thinking they might be better off separate from the chickens in the long term. That didn't work out as they were stressing themselves out trying to get with the chicks they were raised with. The Rhode Island Red eating with the turkeys in the picture is two weeks younger than the turkeys. We have some chicks that are 18 weeks old in with these 8 week old chicks and no problem with pecking order. The turkeys won't let the big chickens pick on the small ones and they all love watermelon.

The other is a "just because" they are so darn cute picture.

 

[Bruce]

The turkeys and chickens don't know they aren't all the same family

How many sheep do you plan to take through the winter and how long do you have to feed them hay? 60 bales doesn't seem like a lot for the quantity of sheep you have now but of course you have a much longer growing season (broccoli ready to harvest? I haven't even gotten around to planting it yet!) and a much shorter winter "no grass growing" season. We've been getting asparagus for a couple of weeks and it looks like the rhubarb is ready for me (since no one else is the family likes it). I make rhubarb sauce - LITTLE bit of water, stalks chopped up and sugar.

Love to hear that Maisey is being such a great dog

 

[Mike CHS]

I would have a hard time adjusting to your short seasons. As it is I'm still learning the somewhat shorter season here compared to South Carolina and for 20 years before that, the Florida Panhandle.

60 bales is just a WAG based on what we used this year and for the numbers we anticipate carrying through this coming winter. Even during two winters that we had drought here we had plenty of pasture for up to 80 sheep without a problem. They are completely on grass now and rotating them through 4 paddocks the grass is staying ahead of them. We are shooting for 30-35 ewes as our base number but that may take two or maybe even 3 lambings to stabilize at that number. We will probably be selling or culling up to a 3rd of our current flock depending on how the next two lambings turn out plus we want to get 5 or 6 more Katahdin ewes.

We harvested the rest of the broccoli yesterday since they all looked like they wanted to bolt. The sheep made short work of the broccoli vegetation.

Teresa just planted some rhubarb about a month ago that is doing great.

 

[Mike CHS]

Yesterday it was raining off and on all day but we got the boys electric netting moved to give them some fresh grass. The area that looks freshly cut is where the fence was until then. I'll feel better about using this fence once we get the perimeter fence all done but the sheep are easy enough to get back in since there is so much available browse all around their pens. The way our place sits is literally a bowl shape with no place to go if they did get out.

The other pictures are pictures of a Challenge Coin Rack that I use to do as a sideline until it got to be too close to full time. I thought of @greybeard when I came upon these. I'm only adding the project pictures to our journal since now that we can almost see some light at the end of this long tunnel, we are starting to set up to start doing these for some upcoming craft shows.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Nice!

 

[dejavoodoo114]

You do beautiful work. Wish I had enough money to pay you to build my book shelves!

 

[Mike CHS]

We got our cantaloupe, Crimson Sweet and Sugar Baby watermelons planted today from our seed starts. We still have a half dozen Rattlesnake melons and a lot of squash to plant still. We had a dozen okra starts that also got into the ground. Lat year we only had 4 hills and wound up with several gallon bags full for the freezer plus that used in gumbo that we like to make.

Corn is up in the big garden but we had to fill in a lot of blank spots that we reseeded. I think I was moving too fast to allow the seed to get out of the planter correctly.