Is It Fall?

Hello dear readers! Another week on the farm has gone by already. How did that happen so fast?

I’m starting to see signs of fall rapidly approaching. The air feels different, the temps have dropped back to the high 70’s to low 80’s instead of the scorching 95+ we had. One tree has yellow leaves already! Just a few, but they are there. The main pasture is pretty well grazed down and the sheepies are now on the side yard and around the house. That should give me about a month’s worth of graze before we had to put them back on hay.

Speaking of, I finally found hay for winter that I can afford. It will be here next week, and this time it’s delivered!!! No more stressing over having to haul it myself this year. Keep your fingers crossed that it’s enough to get us thru the cold months.

The boy child and I gave the tractor the once over this morning to make sure it’s ready to unload the hay. Tires aired up? Yes! Oil topped off? Yes! Antifreeze and hydraulic fluid filled? Yes!! Painfully hard seat on my broken tail bone? Ya betcha! Me looking forward to the pain this will cause? Not a chance in hell!

Once we get the hay taken care of, we will be spending more time getting winter firewood ready. We have a few trees already down, they just need to be cut to length and split/stacked for use. The loafing shed still needs some attention to the roof. Plus a few other clean up/fix up things that will make winter easier on us.

I suppose it’s time to think about washing the winter farmer clothes and digging out the gloves pretty soon. I suspect I may have some time before I actually need them.

It looks like I’ll get at least one batch of the gherkins out of the garden, and the pumpkins are already turning orange on me. The sheep have had some of the bigger over ripe cukes and they did enjoy them very thoroughly.

Am I looking forward to winter? This year, not really. They just seem to get harder each time one comes around. Both on wear and tear on equipment and my body. Some of the long-term weather predictions I’m seeing have me concerned for sure. Colder and wetter than normal seems to be what’s coming. Of course nobody can say that for sure until it gets here. We have been lucky the past few years with just enough snow and only a limited number of severely cold days.

For now, I’ll try not to stress over winter and just enjoy the cooler fall days that are coming.

I was remiss over last week’s pickle post in not sharing the recipe. I just use the one from the Ball Blue book for Dill Pickles. Here’s a run down of the recipe.

You will need 8 pounds of pickling cukes, and slice them into slightly larger than 1/4" pieces.

Combine 3/4C sugar, 1/2C canning salt, 3T mixed pickling spices in a bag, 1 qt water and 1 qt 5% acidity vinegar into a pot. Bring that up to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes.

Put your cuke slices into your hot jars and ladle your liquid over them leaving 1/4" head space. If you have fresh dill, add one head to your jar. I did not have fresh dill so I used dried dill weed 3/4 t per jar. I also did add some chopped garlic to my liquid.

When you have your jars filled and in your pot of hot water, bring that up to a boil and leave them in for 15 minutes. Take out and let them cool.

Blessed Be!

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I have a few wool winter hats still available! These are 100% hand spun and hand knit Merino wool from my flock. This is no itch wool! Super warm on the coldest of days. No popoff with proper care. Fits 21-24” heads size. All colors are natural from the sheepies. Moorit, moorit with a stripe, and black. Each hat is $100.00 an includes shipping in the USA.

UPDATE: grey is sold!

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I want to thank everyone who has become a paid subscriber or generously giving a donation to the sheep and myself. Your help has ensured that I am able to buy the hay needed for this coming winter to keep everyone fed. I am grateful for your support. Thank you, I would not have been able to get thru another winter without you. You are all the best of this world!