Hi steemians,
I’ve been hit with pneumonia the past few weeks so I had to suspend most homestead activities. I still have no clue on how I caught it. Nothing much you can do about it, it is what it is.
Meanwhile the weather has changed to low temps, a lot of rain and very windy. Most of the tomatoes and squash have given up. Since I can’t really work in the garden in this condition it’s a sad sight seeing half rotten plants lying on the ground. I made a mistake by thinking I could at least clean up a little bit outside only to find myself in worse condition afterwards.
I should stay put and let things be, this is hard..
Luckily I can see my goats from the house which gives some comfort just watching them. Breeding season has begun so our little buck can enjoy himself with the ladies. We’ve given them a large piece of pasture connected to the barn so they can stay there for a while since I can’t move them daily like I used to. I have not seen any signs of heat in the girls. They are not very obvious about it and our buck is a very quiet guy too. I’ll leave him in with the ladies for two months to ensure two cycles unless I can spot them doing it but i think there is a high chance I won’t see it. Some bucks prefer to do it at nighttime, mine might be one of those.
I look forward to baby goats, I already wonder how many we will get. We need a lot more goats to keep the vegetation down.
The pigs are still here and probably go to freezer camp next week. We had to postpone our plans but the weather has been merciful and we still have plenty to eat for them so all is good. We have favored the Mangalica over the Husum red pied, there seems to be less of a drive to “get to the food bucket” in the Mangalica. Both are friendly towards humans but to best describe it: a Mangalica will say hi first and then go to the food, a Husum red pied would get to the food first and say hi afterwards. That might be the best way to describe our experience with them. It’s nice to have a large pig that is so friendly, he is even more loving than our Kune.
We’ve also made new plans to fence in a piece of our property. High material costs prevent us from fencing in everything at once. We have to go piece-by-piece but the next section that is on our list is a big one since it’ll keep most strangers off our property. We have issues with new neighbours that cannot keep their animals on their property, or their kids or their stuff. So, fence, dogs, period. We’ve been over there several times and we’re sick of it.
Somehow if you don’t put up a fence it’s a free-pass to destroy other people’s plants and pastures. I do not want my property to look like a prison camp but I guess I’ll have to. Even if they are trespassing the police won’t do anything, “owning” a piece of land doesn’t mean anything anymore. We’ve experienced that more than once.
Well that’s it for this update. I need some rest now but hopefully I can take you out to the garden again soon!
