Tuesday, July 22, 2008

back online

my modem bit the dust a couple weeks ago during a lightning storm. we got a new modem last night but i'm still having problems getting the wireless to connect. i'm getting very frustrated with it.

the past few days have been busy though...

*saturday, i sold 5# of lamb's quarters and 1# basil to a local chef

*sunday, we butchered our 11 broilers that were ready. friends who wanted some for themselves came and participated and got to take home 2 each for $10 each. we put 5 in our freezer for ourselves. they weighed in pretty good sized but it was disappointing to go from 30 down to 12 birds

*sunday afternoon, we picked up our 2 great pyr pups. they are working out well so far. i've been feeding them raw scraps of chicken and goat meat.

*have another sick goat - lung worms. it's been a bad year for them. i didn't know until today that they are caused from the goats eating slugs. ewww. we must have a lot this year due to all the early rain. i haven't seen any but then, i don't go around looking for them either.

*i'm considering signing up for the master naturalist program. it is 3 months of fridays but i think i could swing it provided i could secure a babysitter.

*the sheep are warming up to me. sassafras actually bleats at me any time she sees me. betony is still very skittish but probably because i love on sassy more since she is more receptive. i need to work on betony.

*greg and i have been discussing starting a different kind of csa - a subscription to our animal products. so far, what we've come up with is interested participants pay $25 per year to subscribe. that gets them first dibs on limited amounts of eggs, milk, honey, chickens and goat meat. they will still have to purchase those items. the $25 goes into 'renting' the animals so they can have a 'share' of the end products.

*sage decided it would be fun to throw 3 dozen eggs onto the floor yesterday while i was outside watering all the animals. i was not very happy with him, especially since we are trying to fill our weekly store order and were already behind. kids!

*i've been lusting over handmade homes again. luckily i have a lovely handmade home book full of pictures to drool over. sigh. someday.


by the way, if anyone is still interested in signing up for the gift package giveaway, tomorrow is the last day! sometime wednesday night/thursday am, i'll draw a winner. i think i'll end sign-ups by 7pm. and ron, i promise, no poisonous shrooms will be included.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't been online much either. Too much to do outside, although not as much as you. I have been completely neglecting my xanga.

I'll sign up for your gift package. That is a lovely idea. I should do something like that in the fall when I have more time.

Jederah said...

Didnt realize you were in Southern IL too! Im up in DeSoto. My bush green beans are not doing well either. The pole bean took off but alas I didnt get tall enough poles they are kinda drooping now.

Gina said...

Hey, I teach a Master Naturalist course!! (The insect one, of course!)

I have wanted to actually become a MN for some time as well, but never have the time.

The animal CSA sound interesting. I saw an interesting concept that I have been discussing with Sr where people "adopt" a fruit tree and self-harvest it during season. For example, if they "adopt" an apple tree, they would have a certain window of time to come harvest whatever fruit they need off of it and I think they still pay a "per pound" price as well. They just don't have any competition for the harvest.

I am making grand plans right now, but we'll see if I have time to have any come to fruitition.

I bet your idea would be popular.

Gina said...

OOPS, excuse my typos. I am going on about two hours of sleep.

MMP said...

I'll be interested to read more about your ideas on your CSA. My wife and I are working on starting our own CSA. My wife is reading "Sharing the Harvest" which has a couple of different CSA models as examples. We're mostly going to be vegetables as opposed to meat. But we might sell eggs, milk and honey also. We're trying to mix the CSA with farm and store sales. I think it will involve dividing all the produce into shares and having a set number of shares for retail sales and a set number for CSA members.

MMP

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