Hello beautiful peeps,
Joyous good news!! It looks like we have found our livestock guardian dog. Mack will be coming to his new home on Saturday. I’ll be at the market and look forward to meeting him when I get home. Yippee. We are so happy!!
Sheep and Goats
We can start moving forward with research on finding the perfect kiko goats for our farm. It will take a little bit of time for Mack to get adjusted to our farm and to learn about us and what animals he needs to protect. That’s great because we need some time to locate the best goats for our purposes. Then there will be the challenge of introducing Mack to new animals.
The sheep are peaceful at the moment — all four of them.
Cows
The cows are apparently all pregnant (except for Violet) but we won’t know for sure until we do preg checks in a few months.
Violet is past her time to come back into heat after giving birth. We may have to move forward with artificially stimulating her into heat. It is really important to get her back on track with the rest of the herd where they can all be bred at the same time. Our time window on that is to get her bred in the next three weeks or so. We can push it a little past that, but now would be ideal.
Quail
The incubator is humming along and the eggs are in “lockdown”. I took out the automatic egg turner. The peeping will begin on Friday evening or Saturday morning at the latest. We had a power outage for a few hours on Monday. We had to crank up the generator and plug in the incubator to keep the temp and humidity regulated. The temperature was quite low and the humidity high but it leveled out pretty quickly. I’m thinking it was less than an hour of temps and humidity out of range. You’ll hear the results in the next newsletter.
Creamery and Scott’s Other Stuff
Still no change with the creamery. Maybe next week he will be able to get started on figuring out the electrical stuff.
Garden
The green beans are coming on strong. Scott and I picked three 5-gallon buckets full this time. We got rained on and quit for a little bit. When the rain let up, we finished up. Though the rain started up again, it was pretty light.
The crowder peas finally have blooms. Looking forward to picking those in the near future.
I have lots of small tomatoes. The green bell peppers are nearly ready. We are enjoying fresh banana peppers every day — They are a great additional to eggs. I am stocking up on pepperoncini peppers. I have plans to make pickled pepperoncini and bring it to the market for you guys.
That’s it for farm news. Now on to the farmer’s market update.
Independence and Wytheville 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’ll have GREEN BEANS and blueberry and blackberry jam at both markets. I’m still out of strawberry jam. Maybe next week I’ll have some again.
I have quail eggs and quail meat in 1 lb packages.
We have ground goat again. And we have grass-fed ground beef (approx 1 lb) and ground lamb (approx 1 lb). I also have a very limited amount of lamb cuts. Loin chops, rib chops, stew/kabob meat and two lovely petit legs.
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.
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, “What I Love About Homesteading” is the topic. There have been so many downer days with predator attacks, I just wanted to set the record straight. Life on the homestead is not always this way. There are so many blessings. I’ll give you some ideas and also ask you what you love about reaching for your dreams.
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
