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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Drying Up and other ramble's.


While some of you may think I'm talking about the fact we haven't been getting much rain the past three or four weeks (which has been helpful for people getting hay in, but it's a bit long for the crops that need moisture...even after all that rain we had this spring) with the title of my post, that's not what I am talking about.

As you probably know...from the photo...I'm meaning that we think Button is drying herself up slowly...thankfully it's slowly so far and not quickly, getting ready for her calf that she will hopefully have in a few more months. Not exactly sure when, as I don't know how far along she was suppose to be when we got her...but she was suppose to be bred when we got her, so we think we should have a calf sometime towards the end of the year.

I'm so not ready to stop getting so much cream!  LOL  After the long dry spell we had last year, I wanted to REALLY stock up on butter and ghee...not to mention sour cream, so hopefully we didn't have to buy any before we start getting it again, but...guess we will get what we get.  The worst part about it is, with hopefully Daisy being bred too, I'm not sure if we will be getting ANYTHING come thanksgiving...so that means no fresh whipping cream that doesn't bother my tummy like the store bought does.  *cry*

I'm going to look into seeing how whipped cream freezes (I know the cream doesn't freeze well if you are wanting to whip it later...but maybe already whipped cream would work...we will see)...but if that doesn't work real well, guess we may be having to resort to that nasty stuff in the store, and I won't be able to enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner quite as much as I usually do.  I tell you, this year the breeding schedule just didn't work out to well!  :-((

Speaking of cows and hay...this last weekend we did get all our hay moved over here to our farm, from the farm we bought it at. We SHOULD have plenty for this winter, even with several cows and a horse...but we would like to find some Alfalfa bales, just not sure if we will be able to afford them.  They may be stuck with Alfalfa cubes, which they don't enjoy near as much as they do the hay.  LOL  I'm just glad we got the cow's winter food supply here now...even if it does still need organized and covered, once the tractor gets repaired.

It just figures that the tractor would die at a BAD time...we had to roll the big bales of hay off the trailer and let them lay where they landed, cause the carburetor went out on the Tractor (the good thing is it's under warranty, cause DH just replaced it last year!).  Some of those big bales were HEAVY...so it was a pain to get them to roll off the trailer, but we managed it!  Dad helped with my brothers tractor, to get them loaded over at the other farm...otherwise they would still be over there where we bought them.  It will be good to get them lined up so we can cover them...but I'm really thankful that at least they are HERE!  :-))

In other news...the peaches are getting ripe here.  Unfortunately, we have a problem with ours this year.  I picked several the other day, cause they were getting soft, and went to fix them for a pie, and found out they had worms in them.  I could cut around them, and eat the rest, but the peaches are really small, so it turned out we didn't get to "save" very much of each peach, which means it wasn't worth the hassle, least in my opinion.  I'm so bummed that we don't get to enjoy these yummy peaches this year!

Last year we didn't have that trouble, and the ones we had in Nebraska didn't have that trouble either...so I didn't know anything about needing to spray the tree or anything.  I'm going to try and come up with a more organic way of treating for the worm...as I really don't want those nasty chemical's on our place, but we gotta find something to solve this problem, as I don't want to have peaches growing and not be able to use them every year.  Guess I'll have to start researching THAT now...*sigh*  as if I didn't have enough other things to do.  LOL  Darn bugs!

Thankfully we found out a local Amish store will be getting some in, and if they are the price people say they were LAST year, we will be able to get several that way...enough to put several pie's worth in the freezer, and we will see what else I can do with them!  A bushel of peaches for less than 15 bucks is a pretty good price to my way of thinking...even if they are 2nd's!  Here's hoping they aren't much more than they were last year!  :-))

Speaking of fruit, we DID finally get enough blackberries picked for a cobbler!  YUM!!!  Thankfully hubby found a nice big patch down to the east of the house, otherwise we would have had to make a tiny cobbler since the patch in the barnyard didn't net us as many as it did last year.  Unfortunately for him, this new patch he found is out in the pasture, which I avoid in the summer cause of the fear of running into poison ivy (since I get poison ivy BAD if I get it), so...he has to pick them.  I'm hoping to get some more for the freezer, but will see.  Even just enough for one cobbler for the freezer would be nice, as it adds a different kind of yummy desert for the winter!

Other than that...not anything major going on here.  The weather has been cool enough to turn off the air and open the windows, and it's been SOOOO nice to have that fresh air in the house!  Today was suppose to reach 85 and be the hottest day for the next week...not getting out of the 70's on Saturday and maybe a day or two after that...sure hoping it really happens, I LOVE having it cooler for a change!  Praise God for the nice temps!

2 comments:

  1. We lost our peaches, too, Hon. All this weather chaos is beginning to create problems of many different kinds, I guess. We ended up with w bacteria taking out our peaches, from too much rain. We've decided to take the tree out, treat the soil. We'll be investing in one of those round rubber mats and trying again.

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  2. How long to cows gestate? It's probably longer than we do, huh?

    http://multipleblessings.wordpress.com/

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