ahhhhhhh Thanksgiving

Phew, what a week. Process turkeys. Deliver turkeys. Meet customers - well, that part is always a lot of fun. A big thank you to all the terrific people who bought a turkey this year. And for those customers that we were unable to supply, fear not, for next year we will be increasing our flock of turkeys to better meet the demand for local, free-range Thanksgiving turkeys. But not so much that we cannot maintain the high standards we have set. The added exposure we received thru the Washington Post and Local Harvest was tremendous. We also had the Frederick Gazette do a nice story on the farm and turkeys.

On Thanksgiving day, WTOP radio's Kate Ryan came out to the farm for a visit and a story. She was terrific and we had a lot of fun. The written story and one of the radio clips is available at their website . We will see if we can make the rest of the clips available off our website. Several of them are pretty darn funny.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Gobble, gobble, gobble

Well, all the turkeys have been dressed and sold. We had such a huge demand this year that we are thinking of doubleing or tripling our production for next year. Perhaps space out sizes better as well. We had a lot of requests for 12 -15lbers, as well as 20lbers, so we will be lookin got add a lot more turkeys in that weight range. Might need another goat or two to keep up with the milk requirements. As we head into the thanksgiving holidays, the day to day chores have lightened up - no more turkeys and meat chickens to feed and water. Still have goats to milk and feed twice a day, pigs and laying hens to feed and water. Unfortunately, it does not make for any less work overall. Now is the time for pasture redesign, now fencing, repairs, rewiring, etc. Plus we have 2 of the fainting goat does due to give birth very soon.

Aside from the turkeys, we spent most of the weekend building a new, easily accesible, very secure paddock. 15 hand dug post holes - very good exercise. The post are in, the boards have to go up and a 12' gate hung. We'll run some hot wire along the bottom and top and it should be an excellent area to keep pigs about to be moved to market, goats about to give birth, bucks in rut and whatever other use we can come up with.


Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Mud!

Baby goats are great. This was Geraldine at just a few days old. We should have newborns coming in less than a month.


Well, Tuesday was finally a dry day. Lots of rain Saturday night, all day Sunday, drizzle and showers Monday. Rain this afternoon and 1-3 inches thru Thursday. Add to that windy with gusts up to 60mph. There is a general worry about trees uprooting due to the wind blowing on roots weakened by the rain. We'll have to batten down the hatches tonite.

The turkeys and chickens dislike the rain. The goats really hate getting wet. I don't enjoy doing chores in a downpour becuase all the animals get a bit disagreeable - goats don't want to come out to be milked. The only really happy ones seem to be the pigs. They just curl up in their house and wait for a til it passes. Then they are as happy as.... well, as a pig in mud.

Rochelle hides in the kids' playhouse after getting free following the morning milking.

A strange weather weekend. Sat was in the mid-70's, sunny and very warm. Shorts and a t-shirt weather. Clearing trees and splitting firewood in the morning, digging post holes for the new holding paddock in the afternoon. Sunday could not havbe been more different. Rainy, overcast, upper-40's. We went from the AC on Sat to a fire in the woodstove Sun. On the plus side it allowed one of those rare occasions that we get to relax all day, watch some movies and read some books. Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein - big hit with the kids. And hearty homemade soup for dinner. mmmmmmmmmm

Correction on Fainting goat due dates. We checked the farm log and Gigi and Harriet are due Dec 4th and 6th respectively.

Gotta get back to writing

The kids getting ready for trick or treating at Grandma's house. Butterfly, Ninja and Cowgirl.

It's been really busy since August and the next several weeks are about the busiest we have all year. The week before Thanksgiving is turkey procoessing followed by pickup and deliveries. Follow that with the pigs going to the butcher on Dec 7. On the plus side, we get to slow down after that. Relatively speaking, of course. We have two thirds of our does bred, 1 or 2 more to get bred this month. Fainting goat babies will start coming around the end of February.

Just so we don't get soft over the winter, LOTS of projects scheduled. Everything from clearing more pasture to redesigning the pasture layout to a new paddock/holding area.

jim