Just been a bit busy.
My Kid had her wisdom teeth out, so aside from chores, life has been working around her recovery.
And WordPress is being stubborn about uploading pictures…
So the best I got for you today is one of the 3 stooges.
😉
Sable did not want her picture taken…lol
I’ll be back next week with regular posting.
🙂
I had a bit of a giggle at Hubby yesterday…
We went to do chores and throw hay for The Merry Mares, and like always at this time of year, while he tossed hay I went in and scratched and petted everyone.
There’s a reason for this…aside from the general love I have for the equine brats. 😉
Scratches and pets also let me make sure everyone is is good weight for the impending cold weather.
As coats thicken, if they’re not getting a bit of a fat layer, or if they’ve lost, that can be hidden under that thickening coat.
So, hands on is the easiest way to tell…
So while I’m scratching and poking and prodding, Hubby says to me he’s glad to have our hay home now, because he’s been worried about how much the mares have been eating.
I did a quizzical doggie head tilt at him…
Really?
Worrying about weight and if they’re getting enough is totally my thing.
Almost all year long, I’m worrying about making sure they’re in healthy weight.
He says to me, “well from here, I can see Astrid’s ribs”
I laugh and I’m like, “uh, fucking where???”
😂😂😂
So I get him to come into the pasture and I show him…if you try to feel ribs, you can’t.
But looking from the angle he was standing it, it looked like she was ribby because of her hair pattern and the dirt in her coat.
Then I took him over to Sable, and showed him the same thing…find the ribs with your hands, through the coat.
Once into the coat, you find she has a nice pad of fat over her ribs…not so much that she’s overweight, but enough that she’ll do just fine with good hay to maintain her.
And Ruby?
Still getting people stopping to find out when she’s gonna have her baby.
😂😂😂
I laugh and say, “no babies here…that’s a food baby!!”
Chubby monkey napping in the sunrise, pre-snow fall.
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That’s what I did yesterday.
After much searching, I found a website that takes posts and turns them into a .pdf.
I did that a while back with a couple years worth of old posts.
Now, I’m working on deleting the posts and images (which means there might be a broken image here and there, if I reused one in a newer post).
This way, I have space for new images to go in new posts.
Because I refuse to go to a pay-to-blog platform.
It’s just not gonna happen…and I didn’t want to move to a whole new blog while trying to encourage followers to come along.
Naw.
Easier to save and delete.
Well, as easy as something so darn tedious can be.
😉
The positive part though, is new images…and they are *much* faster to upload with space!
Which is good, because I managed to get out with the camera Saturday morning, and a bit yesterday too.
Sable
Funny thing is…I’ve been waiting for a Saturday morning sunrise like this for a few weeks now.
I’ve an idea in my head I want to shoot, but need this light and Hubby.
Where was he Saturday when the light looked like this??!?
In a tree stand, hunting deer.
🙄🙄🙄
Fingers crossed we can get another chance before the snow flies and stays.
Then yesterday, knowing that below zero overnight temps. were coming, Hubby cleaned out the maceration tubs.
What is a maceration tub, you ask?
Well, it’s a bin that holds whatever skulls and bones we want cleaned and a whole lot of water.
That’s it.
Nothing high tech or fancy.
Just bins/barrels/tubs of bones and water.
We had Cookie’s skull and bones finishing cleaning…because our warm weather doesn’t last long, it can take a little longer here to clean a skull.
I *should* invest in a fish tank heater to speed thing up a bit, but we don’t keep the tubs anywhere near an electricity source.
If you’ve ever smelt a working maceration tub, you’d understand why they aren’t real close to the house.
😂😂😂
Anyway, Hubby pulled Cookie’s parts out and we had a bit of a surprise…
😍😍😍
We were a bit surprised, to say the least. lol
So after I grabbed the camera, I hit the skull cleaning forums on FB.
And it turns out this is nothing to panic about.
It likely happened because I didn’t change the water enough…though a deer leg in with her *didn’t* go black like this.
🤷♀️
She may stay darkened like that.
She may not.
She’s ready to go onto degreasing – which is exactly what it sounds like.
Bones hold fats in them, and after maceration, they go into a water/dish soap combo to soak, which draws out the grease.
If this isn’t done, your bones could get stinky (prolly will) and might start to break down as the fats get gross.
If the colour holds through degreasing, then she’ll be left like that.
I could put her into peroxide for whitening, but I love the way she looks dark, so if it stays, it stays.
Hubby also pulled out the giant tarp and tossed it into the garden.
It was too windy to spread, so there’s still that to do.
Hopefully we’ll have a day this week to get that done.
Honestly, I’m ready for spring, seed catalogs and planting the new garden.
lol
I know, I know.
The land needs to sleep first.
I do know that.
I just don’t want to deal with winter.
I will…but I don’t want to.
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🙂
Sorry for the silence.
It’s been a busy few days.
Pigs are done.
It’s all over but the cut and wrap.
That’s my task for the next day or so, plus canning up some of the meat, making bone broth, prepping and brining bellies for bacon and getting the winter cat food made.
So, Ima be scarce for the next week.
But when I’m back, I’ll post the final numbers…from what we put into the pigs money wise, to our cost per pound.
And our plan for next year.
Until then, here’s a lovely picture of our sweet CinderBella having an early morning nap as the sun rises…
The prettiest Palomino on the prairies.
❤
Except for it wasn’t.
😦
We weathered the storm.
It was a mighty one, to be sure.
We lost power Friday morning, after losing internet a few hours before that.
I crocheted a whole lot.
Got a blanket about 1/3rd done for The Kid.
We sat under blankets to stay warm.
Had buckets of water for the necessities.
Watered animals with water from the rain barrels.
Poultry stayed locked in their coop.
Horses ate a whole lot of hay…and beet pulp and oats and alfalfa cubes.
Plus Tums for Sable, to keep her tummy happy.
When all was said and done, we had power back on by Friday evening, though there were a few blips and outages for another day or so.
We had a lot of snow.
Way more than a 1st snow storm should drop.
But, by the time we were able to get out to assess any damages, it was already melting.
And melting fast!
Pawing through the melting snow…
I don’t actually know how much snow we got, because of all the winds.
Holy. Moly.
It was windy like crazy, and the snow was wet and heavy.
I do know in the pic above, it had melted down by a 1/3rd (or more) already when I took that.
The week ahead looks nice though.
Thank goodness.
Because the date is set for porcine Freezer Camp.
I’ll be happy when it’s over and done with.
This round of pigs, while growing amazingly well, have had their challenges.
So much so that we’re thinking of taking a year off of raising pigs.
We have an opportunity to put a yearling steer into a pasture with a couple others and it won’t cost us anything for feed.
It means we can grow out a beef for the cost of the steer only. And because we do our own processing, we won’t have to pay those fees either.
We’re thinking of doing that next year.
And I’ll put all my other time into the poultry.
Meat chickens, and incubating eggs.
So we’ll still be able to fill the freezer very well.
I just need a year without pigs.
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🙂
Life without liberty
is like a body
without spirit
~ Khalil Gibran
Sharing for Wordless Wednesday.
I’ll update when links are available.
Like this post?
Feel free to buy me a coffee.
🙂
In an effort to make sure I can continue to give y’all posts when my brain is not wanting to work, I’ve looked for a random word generator.
Y’see, WordPress used to do this with The Daily Post.
Give us a word and we could choose to use it as a prompt to create a blog post around.
And then they stopped…
I loved The Daily Post.
Some days you just don’t have the inspiration to create *something* without a little prompting.
So now I can do that for myself.
Because we should be able to do these things for ourselves, yes?
And an online random word generator is so much easier than pulling out the dictionary, flipping to a page and blindly pointing to a word…though I’ve done that too. 😉
So today’s word is feature…
Her most amazing feature is her kind, generous, beautiful spirit…that it is wrapped in the gorgeous packaging that it is, is simply a bonus.
❤
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🙂
