Monday, October 28, 2013

Raw Milk for Sale!!


Jeff making butter with his grandmother's antique butter churn-It took us years to find the a replacement jar for it. When we got it-the jar had long been gone! Homemade butter from your own milk cow is one of the most wonderful tasting stuff ever!

The four little pigs we bought-Shorty bought 2 and we got the other 2. We bought them way too soon-they should have stayed with the sow for a few more weeks-but Shorty insisted on getting them! So, they have been enjoying lots of excess milk! And they are growing like weeds!
 And Jeff working his bees-this hive has been down close to the creek all summer and isn't doing very well. We had 2 hives there-but lost one. It hasn't been a good year for the bees in the area :(  We haven't harvested much honey at all. Jeff and Shorty tried to capture some wild bees a few weeks ago from a house-we actually thought we had them-queen and all only to realize 2 days later they were gone. I'm sure we will try again. We did buy 1 more established hive from around Huntsville and they are doing great-coming and going loaded down with pollen!

Picture of us on vacation in Arkansas in July. We had been staying at Caddo Lake with Sheila and Alfred and when it was time to go home-we decided we weren't ready to go home-so we drove to Washington State Park for the day.

OK-back to the milk! We are drowning in it! We are selling it for $5.00 a gallon if anyone in the area would like to try some out! Jeff's still milking twice a day-and we've weaned the calf-so we are getting around 4 gallons a day! Sad thing is-we are having to feed it to the pigs and chickens-well, that's not so bad after all-it sure isn't going to waste!
The young pullets have started laying-YEAH! We have 10 of them left-and only 2 from the old flock and are getting anywhere from 4-7 eggs a day. So either some aren't laying yet-or they are taking turns! One is laying a dark green egg-and we are getting a pink one! Most are pretty shades of green and blue. One of the older hens is a Rhode Island Red-so she lays a pretty brown egg.
We've been staying so busy I haven't had time to post and not much time to even take any pictures. I've been working some Saturdays. Church has been keeping us busy. And some of the best news-our daughter Alana is getting married on Nov 23rd! It will be a private small ceremony with a reception at our Church fellowship hall afterwards with BBQ and all the fixins. Her and Ricky have 2 little girls together so we are glad they have finally decided to do the right thing.
I'm still working on mastering the cheese making-I'm not having a lot of success-don't know what I'm doing wrong-but I do have an idea that I'm gonna try next time I get a chance. Jeff is going to make us a cheese press when he gets a chance so we can try our hand at cheddar cheese. He just finished building a new shed to milk in that is connected to the barn, so when it's raining, he doesn't have to carry the milk in the rain. I got a pic of it when he started on it-just gotta get down there for a pic of the finished shed-along with the concrete slab! Hopefully it won't take me 2 months to get back to posting!
Have a good evening!