What a busy week!

This week has been a whirlwind! Ton of things happening here as summer winds down and fall says hello. Last Sunday the farm welcomed the birth of 10 Guinea Hog piglets by a young gilt. As so often happens 2 did not survive the week, but we have 8 healthy and active babies as of today. They are ranging all over the pastured lot with momma promising to be good foragers and great additions to lucky farms. I was blessed with the opportunity to glean all the sweet corn I wanted to gather by a local producer as he was done selling. I’ve picked 1/2 a pick up truck load, shucked most of it and have it drying. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it to successfully dry and store it for winter feeding. Yesterday I tried out my new feed grinder from Tractor Supply. True to the reviews it does a great job grinding corn finely for pigs and chickens. I’m attempting to modify one of the screens to be used for cracking the corn for the goats. The modifications I’ve made so far (I drilled several of the holes out to almost 1/2”) is better but still producing more powder than I want, so I’ll continue working on it. My goal is to purchase corn direct from local farmers like I am my oats, so I want to get the grind correct. Next year I’m going to focus on growing more of the heritage bloody butcher corn variety where the goats can’t break down the fence and help themselves to the growing plants like they did this year! Ugh. The young Dominique and Plymouth Rock roosters have been separated and I’ve started to feed them with an eye to getting them to processing weight in the next 4-5 weeks. Fall is the time to be filling the freezers and jars with winter time meals in mind and I’ll be doing just that. I picked the last of the blackberries today too. The plants have been producing steadily for 6 weeks now, while I hate to see the end of the fresh berries, I have no complaints on this year’s yields. I hope you had a productive week, and are planning on having another one this week as well. Stay busy, stay safe, stay focused!