Hello beautiful peeps,

I got so much done today. Besides the unexpected need to care for a couple of our cows that have contracted pink eye due to the massive amount of flies, I made three pounds of butter and two batches of jam, one blueberry and one strawberry. Before all of that, early this morning I went out and harvested some fresh herbs.

More on the fresh herbs and the jam in the Market section of this newsletter. Also, if you are a herd share owner, check out that section below for a new delivery location option. 

Sheep and Goats

Treating the cows and calves gave us the opportunity to check up on the sheep and goats more closely. I checked famacha scores. Looking at the color of the mucosa just below the eye tells us whether they are being affected by a parasite load that could potentially kill them. Due to our great pasture management, no issues yet again. It has been a very long time since we had to use any kind of chemical worm medicine on the sheep or the goats. They are all so healthy. Lambert is really fat. I hope he can still do his job. He has 4 or 5 girls to which he must attend so that we can have lambs in the fall.

We found that one of the goats (the one that escapes and goes wherever she wants, whenever she wants) had a big gash on her shoulder. Probably the result of scooting under a fence somewhere to get into another pasture. We treated that as well.

Cows 

Newton is doing well. No signs of pink eye there. Virginia needed treatment. We caught it early and it looks like she will be fine. Antibiotic directly on the eye and an injection. Perrin had it in both eyes. Poor guy was having lots of trouble seeing. He is a two-year-old bull, but we were able to restrain him for treatment. Surprisingly, he held still for most of it. He is much larger than Virginia and had to have four injections. She only had two. Not fun but he stood still for the most part. We treated Wendell prophylactically, just in case. It seems to happen most often in the younger cows. Last year we treated Luna and she made a full recovery. With pink eye there is always a danger that they will not fully regain their eyesight. I believe Virginia and Perrin will be fine. We will check on them regularly to make sure.

No signs of any of the milking girls coming into heat again after their initial AI experience. It will be a couple more days before we can be certain they are not going to come into heat indicating a likely pregnancy. Fingers crossed. 

Quail

This evening I started collecting quail eggs for hatching. The next cycle is about to begin. I will be loading up the incubator on Wednesday.

There are still 22 little ones out in the brooder. They are really starting to crowd that space. They grow so fast. It is likely that they will move to the penthouse on Friday. Because there are only 22 of them, they will only occupy one side of the penthouse. We will keep the extra egg layers on the other side for six more weeks. 

Creamery and Scott’s Other Stuff

Still nothing happening with the creamery this week. Scott repaired the deer fence around the orchard and garden. He replaced several fence posts that have needed his attention for a couple of years. Today he is mowing the orchard, the garden and a little bit around the house. He has spent lots of time moving the cows, training them, treating them for flies, etc.

We have had such a time with the flies this year. Unfortunately, we were forced to resort to a stronger pesticide. We try to be as organic as possible. Sometimes you have to do what is necessary, such as the antibiotics I mentioned earlier. The animals’ health is our responsibility.

I did find out that the next step with the creamery is the electrical system. Scott said he has a lot of work to do just figuring out on paper how it will all work. 

Garden

I finally finished canning the peas. In the end, I canned 28 quarts and 18 pints of green peas. They are really yummy. Just to keep you updated on our “movie watching while shelling”, after finishing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, we moved on to a re-watch of Sherlock Holmes – the Benedict Cumberbach version. We were most of the way through the second episode before completing the pea shelling. Still more to go on that series.

As a side note, did you notice Perrin’s name? Perhaps you wondered how we came up with that name. If you watch Amazon Originals, you will find out in the fall (at least I hope that is still the time frame). My favorite fantasy book series, The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, is being released on Amazon video. Perrin will be a prominent character. The book series is a prequel and 14 volumes. Tune in and see why we love this story so much.

Ok, so that has nothing at all to do with the garden, but I’m going to leave it in this section anyway.

The green beans get a weekly milk fertilization and they are loving it. I have a podcast coming up next week that will explain that in detail, so tune in for that one. The beans are just beginning to bloom and we should have green beans in a week to 10 days. The crowder peas are doing well but no blooms yet.

There are a couple of tomatoes already on the vines and lots of blooms starting up. Same with the peppers. The banana peppers are nearly ready for picking. The green bell peppers will take quite a bit longer. The pepperoncini will be ready in a week or so. I’m so excited to try pickling these great little peppers. Look for them at the farmer’s market soon.

The yellow onions are winding down. The red and white onions may go another week. Once the tops fall over and begin to dry out, it is time to dig up those beautiful onions and get them ready for storage.

That’s it for farm news. Now on to the farmer’s market update. 

Wytheville and Independence Farmer’s Markets

I will be at the Independence Farmer’s Market on Friday 9-1 and at the Wytheville Farmer’s Market on Saturday 8 – 12

Are you ready for that blueberry jam? I’ll have that and the strawberry jam at both markets.

I’ll also have fresh basil, in packages designed for making pesto. I’ll have some smaller packages as well. Fresh oregano and thyme will also be available. 

I have quail eggs and quail meat in 1 lb packages.

We are out of ground goat but have grass-fed ground beef (approx 1 lb) and ground lamb (approx 1 lb).

Herd Shares

Herd Share Peeps, I’ve set up a delivery point at the Independence market. Let me know if you want to switch your pick up to Independence.

I’ll see you in my usual location at the Wytheville Farmers’ Market.

Add on as you desire. Yogurt, milk and all cheeses and butter are at your service. Looking forward to seeing you on Friday, Saturday and/or Tuesday. 

You can pickup at the Independence Market on Fridays between 9 am and 1pm, the Wytheville Market on Saturdays between 8:00 am and 12:00 noon, at the farm Saturdays 3 pm to 5 pm or Tuesdays 10:00 am to noon. Email me to let me know if you want anything extra this time. 

I still have new raw milk cheese shares and a couple of milk shares available. Contact me via email (melanie@peacefulheartfarm.com) or phone (276-694-4369).

Please go HERE to learn all about Herd Shares.

Let’s Get Together

As always, we love meeting you in person.  You can find us at the Wytheville Farmers Market on Saturday from 8:00 am to Noon. We are at Independence Farmers’ Market on Fridays from 9:00 am to 1 pm. Masks are no longer required at the Farmers Markets. 

As always, you may visit us at our dairy farm in Claudville, Virginia Tuesdays from 10 am to 12 noon and Saturday afternoons from 3 pm to 5 pm. Find out how we raise our animals and why you will love the taste of tradition that is inherent in all of our products. Herd share holders will be able to see up close how their cows are cared for and the cheese operation and where it is stored. 

Peaceful Heart FarmCast

In this week’s podcast, “Canning Peas” is the topic. What else would I talk about other than peas, peas and more peas? I go over the steps needed to can vegetables focusing on peas. My method is to break it down into five easy groups of tasks. Starting with preparing the equipment and finishing off with getting the jars out of the canner. I hope you enjoy this yummy podcast.  

Free Downloads

I want to follow up on my previous FarmCast, The Taste of Cheese where I talked about developing your expertise with using descriptive words. The FREE downloads of Classifying Cheese by Type and Category and Expand Your Cheese Vocabulary are still available at our website. Please stop by and get your FREE resources. 

You can LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE. Or, if you have an Alexa device, just say: “Alexa, play podcast Peaceful Heart FarmCast.”

And don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to the Peaceful Heart Farm podcast on Apple Podcasts, Android, TuneIn, Stitcher or Spotify

Hello beautiful peeps,

Sorry for not getting a newsletter out last week. Life happens. I’m back on it this week.

We have been really, really busy shelling peas. I canned 14 quarts of green peas today.   

Sheep and Goats

The sheep are contentedly grazing on grass each and every day. I wonder if the girls are pregnant. We have never tried to have lambs in the fall. I checked the calendar today and, if all goes well, we will have lambs the last week of October or the first week of November. Some sheep will not breed except in the fall for spring lambs. Our katahdins are supposed to breed any time of the year. We shall see.

Cows 

We named Violet’s calf Newton. At first he was “new guy” but that just wasn’t a good name so Newton evolved from that first cute name.

The twins have moved on to another home. Every day, while giving them their bottles, I would wonder, “What are we going to do with these guys?” Out of the blue, we were blessed with a phone call from someone in need. A farmer less than an hour away was desperate for a calf to nurse his cow. She had just lost her calf that morning. By nightfall, Hansel and Gretel were on their way to a new home. We suggested he take both of the calves as the cow was a Holstein and they can produce lots and lots and lots of milk. This was a win-win for all concerned. Hansel and Gretel are always looking for more milk to drink. Now they will have their fill and more.

The artificial insemination was completed a couple of weeks ago. We are standing by to see if any of the cows come into heat. I don’t know what the odds are of having all seven impregnated the first time. Less than 100% I’m sure. Let’s see if we can beat the odds.

Quail

We had a pretty good hatch from the incubated quail eggs. Unfortunately we made a large error in keeping them warm. Putting the brooder boxes on the concrete floor was a huge mistake. Even with heat from a light we lost half of them. We think that too much cold came up from the floor. Anyway, we have 22 right now. They all look to be quite healthy. We live and learn. 

Creamery

Still nothing much happening with the creamery this week. Scott is still really tied up getting other things done. The hay is in but the deer fence around the orchard needed to be mended. The game cameras indicate there are two deer consistently munching on the blueberries every night. Scott is also helping me with shelling peas and he trimmed donkey hooves. The donkeys are all getting spruced up for the sale barn. We will miss them but they will be out of a job once we have a dog for livestock protection. Let us know quickly if you are interested in any of these great animals. Anyway, not much happening with the creamery. It may be another week or two before he gets back to it. 

Garden

I ended up pulling up all the peas and laying them on the floor in the living room. We spent days getting the pods off the greenery. In the end, we filled five 5-gallon buckets with pea pods. The last three or four nights we have been shelling peas in front of the TV re-watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy – extended version. Over 9 hours at this point. We are going to have to pick something else later tonight as we will have finished LOTR.

The resident deer that I mentioned above ate some of the green beans. Yet another reason to get that deer fence mended. The crowder peas are doing well as are the tomatoes and peppers. All need to be fertilized. Perhaps I will get to that tomorrow. We shall see.

That’s it for farm news. Now on to the farmer’s market update. 

Wytheville and Independence Farmer’s Markets

I will be at the Independence Farmer’s Market on Friday 9-1 and at the Wytheville Farmer’s Market on Saturday 8 – 12. 

I have quail eggs and quail meat in 1 lb packages.

We are out of ground goat but have grass-fed ground beef (approx 1 lb) and ground lamb (approx 1 lb).

Herd Shares

Herd Share Peeps, I’ll see you in my usual location at the Wytheville Farmers’ Market. Add on as you desire. Yogurt, milk and all cheeses and butter are at your service. Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday and/or Tuesday. 

You can pickup at the Wytheville Market between 8:00 am and 12:00 noon or at the farm Saturdays 3 pm to 5 pm or Tuesdays 10:00 am to noon. Email me to let me know want anything extra this time. 

I still have new raw milk cheese shares and a couple of milk shares available. Contact me via email (melanie@peacefulheartfarm.com) or phone (276-694-4369).

Please go HERE to learn all about Herd Shares.

Let’s Get Together

As always, we love meeting you in person.  You can find us at the Wytheville Farmers Market on Saturday from 8:00 am to Noon. We are at Independence Farmers’ Market on Fridays from 9:00 am to 1 pm. Masks are no longer required at the Farmers Markets. 

As always, you may visit us at our dairy farm in Claudville, Virginia Tuesdays from 10 am to 12 noon and Saturday afternoons from 3 pm to 5 pm. Find out how we raise our animals and why you will love the taste of tradition that is inherent in all of our products. Herd share holders will be able to see up close how their cows are cared for and the cheese operation and where it is stored. 

Peaceful Heart FarmCast

In this week’s podcast, “Canning Peas” is the topic. What else would I talk about other than peas, peas and more peas? I go over the steps needed to can vegetables focusing on peas. My method is to break it down into five easy groups of tasks. Starting with preparing the equipment and finishing off with getting the jars out of the canner. I hope you enjoy this yummy podcast.  

Free Downloads

I want to follow up on my previous FarmCast, The Taste of Cheese where I talked about developing your expertise with using descriptive words. The FREE downloads of Classifying Cheese by Type and Category and Expand Your Cheese Vocabulary are still available at our website. Please stop by and get your FREE resources. 

You can LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE. Or, if you have an Alexa device, just say: “Alexa, play podcast Peaceful Heart FarmCast.”

And don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to the Peaceful Heart Farm podcast on Apple Podcasts, Android, TuneIn, Stitcher or Spotify

Hello beautiful peeps,

So much to do, so little time. That’s the name of the game for us at this time of year. Scott is off picking up hay and hauling it back home, day after day after day. That puts us behind on so many things. General maintenance tasks like fly control, donkey hoof trimming and mowing the weeds down around the house. Well, soon it will be done and things will return to the normal 60 mph instead of 100 mph.

I did get the peas picked and will have them at the farmer’s markets on Friday and Saturday. These are shelling peas. They look really great. There is nothing like fresh green peas in the summer.   

Sheep and Goats

The sheep and goats continue to enjoy the benefits of more grass than they can possibly eat. One thing I did notice today is that the goats really like hanging out on the island. Our large pond has an island. It used to be covered with nothing but wild blackberry bushes. Now they are all gone. It looks like a park out there. I’m glad they like to eat blackberries and briars. It makes fishing out there much more pleasurable without all of those thorny blackberry bushes. Thank goodness for goats.

Cows 

Violet had her calf. All went well. No issues at all. We are so blessed with the way that these cattle deliver their calves. No huge vet bills this year (or last) as in previous years. We were disappointed again in that she had a bull. But he is healthy and gorgeous. Really showing those beautiful Normande characteristics.

The preliminary steps for artificial insemination are complete and the real deal starts tomorrow. After that, we wait three weeks to see if anyone comes back into heat. We pray that everyone takes on the first try. We are still rather new to this procedure so I don’t know what the likelihood is of that good fortune. We shall see.  

Hansel and Gretel are still competing for bottles. Now they have a third wheel with which to contend. Well, not really at this point. We are feeding him off to the side. But soon they will all be lined up along the fence. Currently the twins have bottle holders that attach to the fence where they can freely drink their milk and push each other around vying for access to a bottle that actually has milk. They are so funny. Yesterday Hansel drank about half of one bottle and moved on to a second bottle. Meanwhile, Gretel finished her bottle and then moved on to the bottle that Hansel abandoned. That left a lonely single bottle that needed to be split between the two of them. It was actually quite comical to see them pushing each other off of the nipple, circling around and then pushing again. In the end, Hansel did end up getting his other half of a bottle. I wasn’t sure that was going to happen as Gretel is bigger and smarter than Hansel. 

Quail

The extra quail girls are producing lots of extra eggs that we will have at the farmer’s market. And the eggs in the incubator go into lockdown tomorrow afternoon. Then in two days we should hear peeping again.  Fingers crossed and prayers for a better hatch rate.

Creamery

Nothing much happening with the creamery this week. Scott is really tied up with getting that hay. Not having it delivered is really setting him back in completing his To-Do list items. Even after completing the hay storage there are many other tasks that will take away from time he might otherwise be spending on completing the creamery. Helping me with the peas and trimming donkey hooves come to mind. 

Garden

The peas are coming in fast. As I said above, I will have green peas for the market. I ended up just pulling up the plants, peas and all. This evening Scott and I will be pulling the peas off the vines while watching the latest episode of the The Chosen that is being released tonight. It’s always fun to spend time together in front of the TV but still getting some work done. It’s a joint project and we work well together.

We have lots and lots and lots of green beans and purple hull crowder peas coming up. It will be a couple of months before they are ready, but they sure do look good so far.

The strawberries are being eaten by squirrels and birds and whatever else is out there. That is another project that will take some time to complete. Scott will need to build some sort of cover for the strawberries or we will never get a single one. On the upside, the apple trees are actually producing fruit this year. Yay! Finally!

That’s it for farm news. Now on to the farmer’s market update. 

Wytheville and Independence Farmer’s Markets

All of the plant starts are gone. In the end, they were either sold or planted in our garden. This week look for those luscious peas as well as the honey. I’m also bringing back my apple pie jam. Hope to see you at Independence on Friday or Wytheville on Saturday. 

I have quail eggs and quail meat in 1 lb packages.

We have all of our grass-fed meats available – ground beef (approx 1 lb), ground goat (approx 1 lb), and ground lamb (approx 1 lb).

Herd Shares

Herd Share Peeps, I’ll see you in my usual location at the Wytheville Farmers’ Market. Add on as you desire. Yogurt, milk and all cheeses and butter are at your service. Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday and/or Tuesday. 

You can pickup at the Wytheville Market between 8:00 am and 12:00 noon or at the farm Saturdays 3 pm to 5 pm or Tuesdays 10:00 am to noon. Email me to let me know want anything extra this time. 

I still have new raw milk cheese shares and a couple of milk shares available. Contact me via email (melanie@peacefulheartfarm.com) or phone (276-694-4369).

Please go HERE to learn all about Herd Shares.

Let’s Get Together

As always, we love meeting you in person.  You can find us at the Wytheville Farmers Market on Saturday from 8:00 am to Noon. We are at Independence Farmers’ Market on Fridays from 9:00 am to 1 pm. Masks are no longer required at the Farmers Markets. 

As always, you may visit us at our dairy farm in Claudville, Virginia Tuesdays from 10 am to 12 noon and Saturday afternoons from 3 pm to 5 pm. Find out how we raise our animals and why you will love the taste of tradition that is inherent in all of our products. Herd share holders will be able to see up close how their cows are cared for and the cheese operation and where it is stored. 

Peaceful Heart FarmCast

In this week’s podcast, “Cheddar Cheese” is the topic. We make the best cheddar cheese. I thought it would be a good idea to let you know some facts and history about this great cheese. You’ll be craving some of our wonderful cheddar cheese after finishing this podcast.  

Free Downloads

I want to follow up on my previous FarmCast, The Taste of Cheese where I talked about developing your expertise with using descriptive words. The FREE downloads of Classifying Cheese by Type and Category and Expand Your Cheese Vocabulary are still available at our website. Please stop by and get your FREE resources. 

You can LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE. Or, if you have an Alexa device, just say: “Alexa, play podcast Peaceful Heart FarmCast.”

And don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to the Peaceful Heart Farm podcast on Apple Podcasts, Android, TuneIn, Stitcher or Spotify