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This weekend is wide open. Might be rearranging the garage after using up most of the stored concrete on the milking shed floor. Might be carrying on with gutting the main bathroom. Might be delivering a calf. Might be hanging some more cupboards in the temporary kitchen. Might be loading some stock onto a truck.
We're building up our herd from two original females that were 3 months old (Tiger) and 9 months old (Sweetcheeks) when they first came here. They each had a female (Adeline and Annabelle respectively) last June, and Sweetcheeks is due to have her second any time now. Next season we'll have 3 to breed (Tiger, Adeline and Annabelle), and we'll go up from there.
We hand milked Tiger and Sweetcheeks at first, but after a few months we left the calves to feed from them and let them wean naturally. Annabelle was weaned about 6-8 weeks ago, which is good because Sweetcheeks has time to recover. Tiger is barely putting up with Adeline feeding, so she'll no doubt kick her off shortly. The calves are now at least as big as their mothers.
The milk we get from them is just glorious, very creamy and "soft" since it hasn't been through industrial decomp/recomp processes. We strain it through cheesecloth and put it in the freezer for 3 hours to kill any bugs, then bottle it. It's like drinking ice cream.
Calling it a "milking shed" makes it sound more grand than it is, it's just 3 stalls in a rarely-used pen in the stock yard that I built a roof over earlier this year. The idea is to put a cow in each of the outer stalls so we can milk them while sitting on stools in the middle. It's not glamorous but it's better than last Winter when we had to pin them in the crush, then squat/kneel in the mud and rain. At some point we'll get a small milking machine, and once I've moved the stock yard up to near the road we can look at a bigger, better long-term solution. This little herd-to-be is more of a hobby/learning experience than a living at the moment.
We also graze beef cattle, we've had up to 70 weaners on the land for a few months at a time, although last year it was 36 young bulls, which was a bit of a handful at times. Over Summer we normally lease the land out for cropping. Last Summer we decided to try hay, which wasn't as good a return as cropping but still gave us an income.
Last edited by Hertz Donut; 07-03-2023 at 03:21 PM.
You can't tell I did anything but it was a ball-busting day cleaning my garage. Rolling out everything that rolled and stacking everything else. Then power washing the floor, removing serious rubber stuck to the floor from a few winters, then drying everything so there was no standing water under cabinets that could not be moved. And finally power washing everything that did move outside and putting everything back.
I finished putting the pavers between my house and my neighbors house. I also finished installing landscaping lights in the planting bed in memory of my Patty. All that is left is the inscribed stone which I hope gets done soon. I do still need to level the bench but that will have to wait.
I sat on my ass and did nothing. I did mow the lawn on Friday using the riding mower but even that was sitting.
We entertained two guests on Sunday and that was it.
One week and counting before we go in for the next angiogram/angioplasty and it can't come soon enough.
I'm rather useless until we do.
Picking up my Dad on Friday he will be staying with me for three weeks. Spending the next few days making space for him. Haven’t seen him since last summer.
07-03-2023, 02:48 PM
