They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
We salted and hung five wraps of duck prosciutto on June 3rd. We came back from our Tennessee Travels on June 18th, so I checked on the Prosciutto, June 19th. Initial weights were written on the tape attached to each breast, but I did not record them here so I will have to check on… Continue reading Duck Prosciutto, Part 2
Like I mentioned in our last post, we have never gotten so many goumi berries at once before. Goumi berry is a nitrogen fixing shrub with a medium sized single-stem branching habit in the family Elaeagnus multiflora, which produces edible red berries in early summer. The berries are sweet, slightly-to-moderately astringent with a chewy pit… Continue reading Goumi Juice
Uncle Adam got out early on Friday morning and moved the sheep. After two weeks in separate paddocks for a quarantine period, we now have the sheep on the south pastured, following the steers. Two mature Katahdin Ewes. The white one is Edna, and the brown one is Eunice. Eunice's lamb is a little brown… Continue reading Sheepies on Pasture
We have been gone from the farm for almost two weeks, due to National Guard and a wedding in Tennessee. That's right, all the Kraeger men are married now. No more available in this batch, you'll have to wait until the next batch matures. We returned to a somewhat neglected garden. Some sort of animal… Continue reading Family Garden Day
This post was accidentally sitting in my draft queue for the last three weeks. Here it is, the end of May. Look who decided it was time to sit on her nest. She's been laying eggs since the beginning of March, but not sitting on them. We stopped taking the eggs at the beginning of… Continue reading Bye Bye Geese
The last sheep were so easy to raise, and so tasty, that we decided to get some more sheep. This time, we want to get ewes so we can breed our own sheep instead of buying feeder rams every year. The initial expense is greater, but over the next 2 years they should pay for… Continue reading New Sheepies!
The neighbor to the south is not really able to maintain his property anymore, so there is a little cottonwood forest grown up in it. That is, when you look at it from a distance it appears to be mostly cottonwood, but when you look at it up close... Before Boom! Poison hemlock. Not to… Continue reading Welcome to the Jungle
Caution. This post is about where food comes from. Proceed accordingly. The meat ducks reached a healthy (and hefty) 8 weeks old, averaging 8.4 Lbs (this might be a slight overestimation, as they sometimes bounce around in the bucket while being weighed). We ordered 20 ducks from Meyer hatchery, they shipped 21 on April 7th.… Continue reading Processing the Meat Ducks.
Last Tuesday, we managed to get into the garden a little bit during the day. Winnie and Daddy put twine on the bean trellis. They beans are starting to come in quite nicely, but we actually ran out of twine with two trellises left to go. We have more twine now, but haven't gotten to… Continue reading Garden and Orchard work
Our egg ducklings are now three weeks old, and the weather is nice and warm. We are moving them out of the brooder! By the bucketload! They will be locked in the duck-mobile for the next couple of weeks, though. They are too small to be running around without overhead cover. They are just snack-sized… Continue reading Moving the Egg Ducks
