Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[farmerjan]

It's great that you and the neighbor can help each other. Here everyone pretty much work other jobs, so then everyone is pushing to get their stuff done... we do some custom cutting and baling for one guy. We inherited the job from our friend that passed away from cancer and we helped him the last year and then have rented his place since. We also bought most of his equipment, set up on payments at a very low interest rate by him when he got bad, in order to make sure his wife would have a regular income. There was alot of equipment, and it is a good size farm 125 acres for her half, and 125 acres for the other brothers' half; who passed away the year after and we rent the whole place. But there aren't many around that are close enough and we are a pretty big operation so a little help between neighbors takes on a whole different perspective. We do have another friend that is close to my son's age and they do trade back and forth, but he also farms land his grandmother has and has a lawn mowing business and a large fertilizer speader truck.

GB is right, it is hard to always hit the "sweet spot" with size and such. And since you do not castrate as we don't, you do have to consider when they have to come off the ewes. They do grow faster if left intact.
Our bull calves also do grow better when left as bulls. We will castrate them in the 3-400 lb range, when we don't do them as small calves going to pastures that we can't get them in as easily; as steers USUALLY bring more... Our sweet spot here is usually in the 425 to 550 weight on the calves, but a lower price per pound on bigger animals is not always so bad. We do have one buyer we talk to regularly, and we have been holding some back and weaning and selling that way. As far as the lambs, we do sell according to the holidays, but we do have a few places to move weaned lambs to, so that we can get them away from the ewes, and then put a little more weight on them if it isn't near a holiday.
It is great if you are getting the heavier weights on mostly pasture with them not wanting the creep feed. Good grass does real good to put weight on them and it sounds like you have got your operation pretty fine tuned for the amount of grass/pasture you have and needing some for hay.

 

[Mike CHS]

Thanks Jan. We have had some good mentors on pasture management and we are still adjusting our numbers to keep the pasture healthy.

 

[Mike CHS]

Our Farmers Market starts tomorrow for our county so we are getting a large number of our bedding plants ready to go to sale. We have both veggies and flowers that all are looking great.

 

[Bruce]

Our farmer's market started today. Bought a gallon of maple syrup. $35.

 

[CntryBoy777]

No wonder we made do with Log Cabin........that's a bit pricey....I'd surely have to lick the plate when I was thru, so none would go to waste....

 

[Baymule]

Our farmer's market started today. Bought a gallon of maple syrup. $35.

That is a good price. When I look online, it is twice the price. Or we can buy a little 12.5 ounce bottle at Walmart for $7.98. Needless to say, we don't have it very often.

 

[Bruce]

The smaller the bottle, the more it costs per oz. LL Bean sells a quart for $30. There are advantages to living in the state that makes more maple syrup per year than any other. And second only to the Province of Quebec (which makes 10X Vermont's output I think).

No wonder we made do with Log Cabin....

I grew up with Log Cabin. Back then I think they could call it maple syrup. Now there are laws to protect the real stuff so the corn syrup with a bit of maple flavor (sometimes actual maple syrup) is called "breakfast syrup". I thought LC was maple syrup until I moved to Vermont and had the real deal. One of the "guilty pleasures" now. I won't touch the fake stuff for love nor money. I also only buy real butter though I grew up on Imperial margarine. Other than those 2 things, I do check pricing and look to save money on "unimportant" food.

 

[Mike CHS]

We only have access to the maple syrup in the stores but we use a lot making my BBQ sauces. The taste is hard to beat also which is a plus.

 

[Bruce]

Yep, there is pure maple syrup and there is
Actually there are grades of maple syrup. The darkest and "strongest" commonly found is now called "Robust", DW's preference. That used to be "C". The old names from lightest to darkest were Fancy, A, B, C. Now they are ALL "Grade A" which is stupid if you ask me. For breakfast I prefer the Fancy, AKA "Golden color, delicate taste". But for cooking, "Dark color, Robust taste" adds more flavor.

 

[Mike CHS]

We learned quite a bit at the Farmers Market today. For one I was about two weeks late on all of the plants I had started but we sold enough to pay for the supplies and a little bit of profit. I already have all of my garden plants in which was included in this bunch so that's about $150 worth of plants that I had instead of buying.

We did make some new friends and potential barters down the road which is mainly what we wanted anyway.

I'll put what we have left in the garden beds and start a bunch of clones from the suckers on the tomatoes that are getting too big that we can sell as fall tomatoes in July since nobody has them around here at that time so they won't be wasted.