Independence Days Week 4

This has been a slow week between allergies, out of town guests and rain. I didn't get nearly as much done as I would have liked. Oh, and getting the cow this weekend kinda blew lots of other projects as well, especially since Jim spent yesterday morning restretching a fence he hadn't planned on doing. But it's all good and everything will get done in its own time.

Plant:
Helped Julia plant her garden. Jim planted pumpkin patch.

Harvest:
Harvested romaine, cilantro, radishes, spinach, thyme, chives, sorrel, green onions, red salad bowl lettuce, strawberries, endive, beet leaves, chard, black seeded simpson lettuce, tarragon.

Also harvested another piglet and milk. I figure those things count, too.

Preserve:
I really slacked on this front. We didn't preserve anything really, nor did I clean stuff out of the freezer. But I have been getting stuff together to preserve some of the milk we're getting.

Store:
Added 14# peanut butter and 4 gallons white vinegar to the larder.

Prep:
Got a milk cow on Saturday, who will feed not only my family but also our pigs and chickens, so she's a huge help around the farm. Figuring out how to work with her and integrate her into our homestead has been paramount this week and will probably continue to be for a while.

We also picked up 20 Narragansett turkey poults since our hens did not set successfully. *sigh* Hopefully next year. And ordered 25 buck-eye chicks to round out our breeding program.

Manage:
Organized and cleaned out larder since Jim got my new shelves in last week. Also took inventory.

Installed second honeybee nuc on Sunday and inspected hives on Saturday. Both look good and seem to be drawing out the small cell foundation nicely, which will hopefully aid in organic control of varroa mites. Pulled the IPM board for mite monitoring to try to get a baseline for both hives, but I'm not good enough yet at recognizing mites—need to work on that. Observed a definite head start in the first hive, as they already had honey stores going. I saw pollen in both hives and found both queens, who had both moved off the original nuc frames and onto new foundation, which is hopefully another good sign.

Unfortunately, the eggs in the incubator did not develop. Not sure whether they were infertile to begin with (note to self: candle before incubating) or if the temps were too low on the outer edges.

Jim tilled between potatoes and hilled them.

Cook:
I didn't cook anything new this week, but Jim made some lovely Caesar salads. Mmmmm. Not new, but first of the season.

Add:
CSA delivery to three families: mixed baby greens, black seeded simpson lettuce, red salad bowl lettuce, swiss chard, cilantro, thyme, tarragon, sorrel, chives, strawberries.

Reduce:
Reduced packaging and travel of dairy products by getting our own cow. Reduced the amount of feed I'll need to buy for other animals.

Learn:
Well, I learned all about milking machines and routines this weekend, trying to figure out how best to make our situation work. Spent time figuring out how best to store and preserve the milk. This whole cow thing is going to be a pretty big learning curve, no doubt, but I feel like it's going relatively smoothly. The machine, while frustrating in its own right, is far less frustrating than trying to train her to hand-milking since she stands still for the machine.