Farm Notes

Despite a week of rain, there are still no significant mushrooms (of any sort) in the woods. Even if it’s too late for the trumpets, there are many late fall species which are making themselves conspicuous by their absence. The exception is the honey mushrooms on the stumps in the clearing. Unfortunately, we don’t actually like them. There are enough though that next year I think I’ll try them on the pigs.

We started feeding the chickens again yesterday. They’ve clearly been having trouble finding enough bugs, and they really don’t like the Country Acres All Stock that we’ve been giving everyone. So we bought them a couple bags of real chicken feed (Purina Layena). They do seem to like it better than the All Stock, but it’s also quite clear that they would rather have real grain than any sort of pellets. The sheep are little crackheads, so we’ll get the chicks real grain and let the sheep finish the chicken pellets.

Hen in the nesting box Our broody hen will also hopefully give us a chance to see how cockerels turn out when fed on grain rather than bugs in their second (and subsequent) months. The pullets this summer started laying right on time while living on forage. We didn’t slaughter the boys until five months however, and they were still a pound small. They are delicious but rather tough. Research is needed here. If we have to buy summer grain, we will: In all my years in engineering I never met debuggers like those chickens. Between that and the eggs, they’re worth some serious subsidy.

Big log on the sawmill The final upshot of the sawmill saga is that despite the website, it is not supposed to work with 13’6″ blades. (The owner’s manual doesn’t specify the length.) I ordered a batch of 13’3″ blades and they’re working. They do still start to wander when they get dull, which !@#$% did not used to happen. It would get hard to push, and eventually the blade would snap, but it did not wander. Oh, at least we have wood again.

Incidentally, M. Gilbert warned me that if I brought my mill up to Quebec City for refurb, I would probably not be able to get it back into the US. I want my country back, damm it. Besides being the most incompetent administration since before the civil war, they are against everything that I always believed America was about. George W. Bush is an evil doer. The decider decides wrong. And his English sucks.

More notes anon.

1 thought on “Farm Notes”

  1. Frank:
    My husband is constantly “irked” by bush’s poor English too. He is particularly annoyed by the word “merica”. That would be America to you and I—the country that is changing in a not so good way.
    Good luck with your saw mill.
    Monica

    Reply

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