Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

We are having a rest day today and doing a number of things that aren't physical. I stripped all of the pepper plants and should get a couple more gallon bags of chopped peppers so we have enough to last till next summer. Anything else that comes on now will be left to turn red and we will pick all of them and roast them before we get a frost.

I pulled all of the squash and melon plants and will prep that bed for some broccoli and cauliflower plants. That bed is going to be turned into a hoop house garden bed as soon as I pull up the okra plants. We eat a lot of cajun food and usually go through 6 or 7 gallon bags of okra over the winter. The okra is maxing out now and I'm getting a gallon bag every three to five days so we are getting enough to freeze as well as give to the neighbors. We didn't plant any purple hull peas this year so we are swapping okra for peas with one of the neighbors.

The garden square footage this year is a fraction of what we have used in the past but production has been the best ever. We have twice as many canned tomatoes, squash, pickles and relish of various kind than we could possibly eat between now and next year. We have one large chest freezer that is dedicated to frozen vegetables out of the garden and it won't hold very much more. What is even better we have two neighbors that are unable to garden any longer and we along with other neighbors have been able to provide much of what they wanted to process. The only disappointment this season has been the melons. We have had plenty of tasty melons but they never got as big as you would expect.

 

[Donna R. Raybon]

Genetics as well as management plays a role in temperament! Katharine rams do seem to be much less human aggressive than wooly breeds. I think the fellow who created the breed culled hard to get more docile rams.

 

[Mike CHS]

There are exceptions but the few Katahdin rams that I have seen with people aggression are on farms where they take a hands off approach. Our mentors from quite a few years ago started working with rams almost from the day they are born. They weren't treated as pets but they were shown that they didn't have a choice in the matter. It makes life so much easier to be able to walk up to my ram and raise a leg to check or trim his hooves right there in the field.

 

[Baymule]

It is wonderful that the neighbors are sharing their produce with the two that aren't able to have a garden anymore.
good neighbors are a blessing.

 

[Mike CHS]

It is wonderful that the neighbors are sharing their produce with the two that aren't able to have a garden anymore.
good neighbors are a blessing.

I have made friends everywhere I have lived but this location has more of a community feel than I have experienced before.

 

[Baymule]

I have made friends everywhere I have lived but this location has more of a community feel than I have experienced before.

Same here. We thank God every day for us being here.

 

[RollingAcres]

It is wonderful that the neighbors are sharing their produce with the two that aren't able to have a garden anymore.
good neighbors are a blessing.

X2!

 

[Mike CHS]

We loaded up the last wether and the 3 month old ram lamb and took them to the auction this morning. This sale barn is in Columbia and is fairly close so we brought the trailer home and went to O'Charley's for lunch before going back to watch the sale. We were able to talk to the grader at the barn and he spent a lot of time showing us what they look for and how to get the best prices on the various categories of sheep and even goats although we don't have any. There was a little over 500 head at this sale.

Our 5 month old ram has a spot as a commercial herd sire for one of the neighbors and I'm glad to see him have a bit more of a future than the other two. This is the last of the sales unless we decide to cull some of the 12 lamb ewes which I don't expect any but we will see.

Our numbers are down to what we want to take through winter and once we grade the ewe lambs we can merge the two herds back into one so we can get back to a better pasture rotation. It's harder to do when you have rams in multiple paddocks.

 

[Mike CHS]

One thing I forgot to post about - I usually work the chute but Teresa got in there this morning and could have gotten hurt so we won't do that again. The boy that got wild is a wether but he was still 150 pounds of muscle that was determined he could jump over that almost 5' gate and tried more than once. He hurt his head and wound up with a swollen eye that I treated but we will be more careful from now on.

Another thing I thought was great about this stock yard was how they started the sale. The manager walked out and gave his brief about what they had going and then stopped so he could say the Blessing. He covered most of the major events going on in the world and amazingly, everyone in the bleachers had heads bowing and nobody protesting. I later wondered about how many places that would not be tolerated.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Really glad that Teresa wasn't injured....sorry the sheep was, but he did it to himself....just hope it didn't affect the price too much for him....sounds like ya had a pretty good day....