2 day weekends are junk. There is hardly enough time to really get started on anything, let alone complete a project. If we always had Friday to get ready for the projects, and Monday to wrap them up, we would get a lot more accomplished around here. Instead, Friday I was at work (all day) and then loaded the barn with hay after I got home.
Anna did some running around on Saturday morning, so I was basically inside watching kids. I did help with some cleaning in the house.
Saturday night was date night at the Dolphin Scholarship Auction. It was a lot of fun and we even bought a couple of things for ourselves (including a wine tasting at Jonathon Edwards Winery just around the corner from our house).
We had chicks hatching this weekend, unfortunately, the results were quite poor. I recently completed build a new hatcher for the chick operations. This was the first batch to hatch inside, and we discovered some design flaws. Monday night is overhaul for the hatcher because the next batch will move in for hatching on Tuesday.
2 rabbits had litters on Saturday and we have 9 new additions to the rabbitry. That’s actually low because 1 doe had 11, but only 2 survived. We are not sure what the issue was, so we will be monitoring her performance carefully on the next litter. You know what they say about meat rabbits: you can always eat the mistakes.
Sunday morning was spent working on some chores/cleanup around the farm until Alex and I went to the Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts where Alex received his Bear rank. We also had 2 customers over today for buying chicks. I love having other people who are interested in the self-sustaining movement out to our farm, and while they might show up to buy chicks, we end up talking about goats, rabbits, vegetables, and everything else.
Tonight was project time on the whizbang chicken plucker. It should be complete in another day or so and then we will give it a test run. I plan to have video of the first use.
See what I mean? 2 days didn’t hardly get anything done.
I agree. It sucks having to work a full five day week. There is never enough time to get everything done. How close to self-sustaining is your farm?
The farm is a long way from completely self sustaining. For example, I do not expect to every grow our own grains for all the animals and we definitely don’t have enough land for hay. However, we haven’t bought chicken in the store since last summer, and the only meats we have purchased in the winter are pork products. Instead of beef, we usually eat venison (but that supply is almost exhausted). A larger garden this year be used to learn canning and preserve more for next winter.