New Farm Toy

We bought a new toy yesterday for the farm. It is actually not really a toy but something we need. Whenever we have to haul a cow somewhere or a bunch of goats we have to find someone who has a stock trailer who will haul them for us. We have even had to pay someone to haul cows for us before. We have been thinking for a while that it would be nice to get our own small stock trailer. But they are usually really expensive and more than we are willing to pay. Well, one came for sale on craigslist that fit our cheap budget so we got it. It is actually a two horse trailer but we are going to use it as a stock trailer. It is in pretty good shape overall. It needs a little work like replacing a couple boards on the inside, fixing the light wiring, and fixing some slow leaks in a couple of the tires. It could also use a new paint job at some point. We are very happy to have it, it will be very helpful. If anyone needs to borrow it just let us know.

Fishing

Something that I have never really got in to before is fishing. I don't know why but it is just something I have never really done much. Last Friday morning I had a day off and I was looking for something to do so I decided to go fishing with one of my friends, Luke. He really likes to fish and does it pretty often. We went out to Lake Elmdale in Springdale which is just a fishing lake. Neither of us have a boat but Luke has a canoe so we took it and just paddled around the shore. I have to say that I had a really good time. It was nice being out on the lake and we both caught several bass. I think I may try to go more often and make a hobby out of it. We will see how it goes. Here is a pic (with a cell phone camera) of the biggest bass I caught. In fact, I think it is the biggest bass I have ever caught.

Garden Update - The Drought

I don't know if we are officially in a drought or not but it feels like it to me. We have had very little rain with high 90 degree temperatures for the past month. Several things in the garden are really struggling. I have even had to start watering the garden which I have never had to do here before. It is even getting to the point that the grass is dieing and I am going to have to start feeding hay this week to the animals. It also seems like the bugs are a lot worse this year than before. I am not sure if that is caused by the dryness or not. I have been overrun with squash bugs and they have killed most of my squash. Even with all these problems the garden is still doing pretty good. We canned approximately 50 jars of green beans and 15 jars of pickles. We canned our first batch of spaghetti sauce yesterday and it made 7 jars. We hope to can some salsa tomorrow. We also ate our first corn today which was really good. We will have a lot more in the next couple weeks so we will be freezing it. We have been getting a few blackberries as well, not enough to really do much with, but enough for Margo to eat a handful of them every couple of days. We have small watermelons getting bigger by the day. Another week or two and we will have lots of them. I also planted some fall crops last week, hopefully it will rain soon and get those going good. I planted some winter squash (butternut and spaghetti) and some indian corn. I am hoping to plant some fall tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and potatoes as well. Sorry, but I don't have a lot of pictures of everything. But here is one that I thought was cool. This is our picking bucket (aka old 5 gallon paint bucket) after we went out and picked the garden yesterday. I thought it was cool because of all the different things in there. Maybe we could have a competition on here to see who can name all the things you can see in the bucket.

4th on the Farm

Last Saturday was our second annual 4th on the Farm celebration. We really like the Fourth of July and have decided to have an annual celebration. We invite friends, family, and coworkers to come celebrate with us. This year we had 58 people which is basically double from last year. I decided to try and smoke a whole hog this year. I have never done it before but I thought I would give it a shot. I built an above ground smoker out of concrete blocks and smoked it for about 8 hours. It was a lot of work but it turned out really good. We had potluck side items and homemade ice cream for dessert. We had lawn games, fishing, and let people pet the animals. At the end of the night we had a fireworks show which turned out pretty good as well. It was a really fun event, I think everyone had a good time. I was so busy while it was all going on that I did not take many pictures. But here are a few.

This is the pig while it is smoking. I had it butterflied so it would lay flat and cook easier.


Here it is after it is done smoking


This is us getting all the meat off the pig. Everyone came and watched us cut it up, it was quite a show. It was a 50lb pig which I was worried about being big enough, but it was more than enough to feed everyone.


We had like 15 young kids at the party, this is some of them feeding the goats. I think the kids really enjoyed seeing and petting the animals.


I am hoping to get some pictures of the fireworks from a guy who took some. As soon as I get them I will post them on here.
We are already starting to plan our celebration for next year.

Completion

About a week ago, we bought two more nanny goats. We needed a couple more to complete our herd. These two that we bought are Nubian cross. Nubian goats are dual purpose breeds but tend to be used more for their milk than meat. Since they are not full blood nubian it is hard to know if they will be useful as milk goats or not. We think it would be nice to have a dairy goat at some point in order to have some goat milk. Who knows, maybe one of these will turn out to be a good milker. They seem to be really nice goats so far. One cool thing about these two is their coloration. Here are some pics.

My favorite is the black one with brown markings, her coloring is really cool.


Here is a close up of the black one.

More Veggies and Heat

The garden has just started to get really cranking. We have canned 40 cans of green beans so far. We have also been getting squash, zucchini, peppers, and cucumbers. Hopefully we will can some pickles this weekend. The tomatoes, corn, watermelon, and cantaloupe are doing really well also. There is only one problem. We are having one heck of a hot and dry spell. The weather right now is more like late July or early August. It is like 10 degrees hotter than normal. We have been in the upper 90's for over a week now and it is supposed to continue to be that hot as far as the meteorologist can foresee. This would be ok if we were getting rain but we are not and once again the meteorologist does not predict rain any time soon. The garden and plants are really starting to dry out. Usually I don't have to water for another month. Even our grass is starting to die. If we go a couple more weeks without rain I will have to start feeding hay in the summer.

Wanted

I am in need of some concrete (cinder) blocks. I need about 20 total but any amount would help. I am going to try to build a smoke pit using them. I thought some of you that read this and live around here might have some laying around that you don't need and might give to me. I figured it was worth a shot to ask. Thanks.