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Tag Archives: farm

Power is out.

Again.

Wind storm tonight, first quarter moon and overcast so it’s really dark. Odd day it’s been,  started off with a pretty good little earthquake. Temp got up to 44° today, really Old Man Winter?? First time I’ve seen the end of October this warm.

Felt this one really good.

We were working up the last of our meat chickens, that we slaughtered on Sunday evening, we were on the second to last one when the final flicker happened. Thankfully I had filled some reserve jugs of water earlier and with what capacity we have in the lines/pressure tank we had enough water to finish the job.

I already had the canner prepped with a batch of canned chicken meat (I had run a batch of chicken broth this morning!). Propane cooktop still works, just have to manually light the burners. We know how to make do!

Chicken broth in progress, made 2 gallons.

So here I sit in the darkness, with a headlamp on for light when I need it, a phone with half a charge, listening to my canner weight dancing around its 11# psi. Watching the blue glow of the burner flame faintly illuminating that portion of the kitchen. While the dog prances around wondering why it’s so dark. Waiting for my 90 minute timer to go off.

Power should be restored by 3 am the Power Company says. Not that I’ll care at that point, hope to be sound asleep before then.

I probably should consider a generator for times like these. However inconvenient losing power is, it kinda brings a sense of calm, a slowing down, a moment of pause . I’m not so sure I want that generator after all.

I remember back when we were kids, living on 6th street, when the power would go off we’d get so excited! We busy ourselves with grabbing the candles and lighting them only for the power to always come back on within very few minutes (our close proximity to the hospital meant we were never down long).

Awww, those were the good old days.

#alaskalife #canning #poweroutage #foodpreservation

We were pushing it but thanks to Old Man Winter for delaying his arrival we managed to get all of our birds dispatched and into the coolers! We started at Mo’s house and her 30 birds then moved over to ours and our hodgepodge of  18 or so birds. Nearly 50 birds done, mess cleaned up and only one minor boo-boo. (I cut my finger a little!) All finished before it started to freeze.

Good job!

#Relieved #grateful #fillingthefreezer #stockingthepantey

Mo’s happy hens

Spent the afternoon at my friend Barbara’s White Gold Farm observing her milking operation and made mozzarella cheese. She has dairy goats as well but we focused on the Holstein side of things this time. She has two cows in milk, Sadie and Sally.

Barbara is our 4H Leader in addition to being our friend for our entire tenure here in Alaska. I met her through an ad I ran for childcare way back in the day. She’s been a constant ever since!

Before we got started on the mozzarella she let us sample a Monterey Jack cheese she made back in January. So good. The flavor is just so much better than commercial/store bought cheese. We are inspired to try making some different types of cheeses now!

While there, we got to see the cutest little calf ” Sir Loin” 😁. He’s about three weeks old and belongs to Sally. Nothing cuter than a baby cow. 😍 Except maybe a cute little boy experiencing a cute lil calf for the first time.

Cowlicks
Sadie, she’s a big girl!

The kids got to experience the shear size of these cows, much larger than previous experiences! And learn a few things about milk production. The cheese making was the best part, because it tastes so good!

Good food and good company, nothing compares!

Six baby Bronze Turkeys to add to the flock.
All snuggled up!

It’s been a couple Sundays since I’ve posted. And for good reason, it’s summer and we’re wasting daylight. We’ve been putting in the hours. Winter is coming!

From house decluttering and moving the boys into their new shared bedroom, to tearing out damaged fencing around the goat barn and replacing it, we’ve been doing the things.

We still have some chicken wire to put up, the new electric fence and charger to install. A covered hay feeder to build. And a house to finish. Grass to mow. General maintenance to perform. Normal every day stuff to do.

Plus, there’s other projects to get done, some side jobs and company is coming! And projects to finish at the cabin.

I need a clone of myself.

Doing all this farm stuff for these guys.

I picked up a bale of “local” Delta hay last Tuesday and it cost just over $30, one 60# bale. And that’s for the rabbits! It should last well into the winter tho. These goats, they can put the hay away. They cleared out the barnyard in like two days. Time to start staking them out around the place.

Gotta watch for bears tho.