Summer of '16

Having gone back to work at the beginning of summer, I still feel that it was a decent one on the farm.

From the garden: I canned a few tomatoes, ate a few, froze some zucchini bread and fried a few.  I had one cleome/spider plant to survive and thrive.  I canned jalapenos and cooked up quite a few.  I had enough green beans to cook one pot.  No cucumbers-again.  No green peppers to speak of.  I did get cayenne peppers to dry.  

Mollie did pretty well with milking until July when I let her dry up because I was only getting 1-2 cups a day.  I did freeze two quarts of her milk either for ourselves or if needed for new baby goats next spring.  We drank several quarts to gallons and I did make one batch of yogurt.  I, however, did not get to make cheese.  The kit I ordered was on backorder and I did not receive it until after we started drying her up.  

We butchered several rabbits, some being almost 4 pounds, and put in the freezer.  We butchered several roosters and still have a few left in the freezer.  We actually still have about 3 or 4 more to butcher within the next month.  

The chickens did not produce eggs very well at all this summer.  Our temperatures were in the 98-100's most days.  We also switched to a locally milled laying mash that I don't feel had adequate nutrition for them, especially the ones that are about 18 months old and should have been laying very well.  The temperatures are still hot here, in the mid to upper 90s still but the nights are cooler.  We have also added an organic laying pellet to the mash along with sunflower seeds and a few extra "scraps".  
Finally we have some progress! 

We have let the remaining two rabbits out to free range in the garden, along with the chickens and goats to begin the cleaning up process.  

It is time to start thinking about breeding the goats, combining all the chickens and consider incubating for the fall, combining and containing the ducks, preparing the bees for the fall (find the reducers, purchase some extra pollen and non-gmo sugar for emergency feed), clean up all the grass and weeds that have been left to grow and that no animals have eaten and start a new compost pile for next year's garden. 

I will admit because of the hot weather and my getting used to working full time again some of the projects that I wanted to do did not get done.  We didn't repair and repaint the deck and railing, the house didn't get washed, the shutters didn't get repainted.  With a little experience under my belt now, I can get back to planning and setting a realistic time frame for these projects before the winter hits.