Since everyone is talking about the emotional, physical, political and economic effects of covid-19, I guess this is a great time to avoid all that junk and focus on the important stuff. By important I mean the essentials – food, water and shelter!
I would hope that by now everyone has organized their garden plans complete with seeds and soil preps. Though still a bit early for outside planting of most seed crops, it’s just the right time for onion sets and seed potatoes. Also time to start your indoor seedlings such as tomato. Now, as I’m the livestock and infrastructure guy, our broiler chicks are developing really well in the brooder. They are over a pound each after their first ten days and I only lost one the first day when he drowned in one of the waterers. The baby goats have all been disbudded and tattooed as they progress towards that ‘big day’ of getting to join the rest of the herd upon being weaned, at which point all the milk is mine!!
The well house has been placed up by the new pasture gate and awaits a dryer spell of weather to get an excavator up there to dig the well. In the mean time I’ll be stringing fence wire and spreading some soil amendments along with seed in advance of placing cattle there. Speaking of cattle, we have a new white-face steer scheduled to arrive the beginning of June. We put a deposit down on a new Nubian buck who will also arrive in June when weaned. He boasts truly excellent genetics and will probably be as popular with the does as with folks seeking to purchase his future offspring. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have him join our herd.
We’ve started cutting and splitting firewood in preparation for the coming Winter. It’s interesting how Winter weather varies so much in New England… one year we’ll burn three cords of firewood and then the next requires six cords! Hopefully we’ll get that all securely stacked before haying season commences. The weather is so unpredictable. It’s sort of that way with freezer space too. We have several relatives who decided that it would be a good idea to put away some food – “Just in case”, only to discover they are too late! No freezers available at any of the big box stores.
For my local farming friends who have never read Ol’ Remus’ WOODPILE REPORT, you might enjoy – Have you ever wondered what a collapse would really look like? It’ll make you feel happy to be a farmer!