Hello beautiful peeps,
We are doing well and hope you are as well. I’m getting lots of things done these days. I still have a long way to go but this week I canned pepper relish, salsa, and cream. It seems like there was something else I canned this week but I am not recalling at the moment. I still have a freezer full of tomatoes. I’ll be canning lots of salsa in the coming weeks. I’m also looking to make some spiced pear jam. It was a favorite recipe of my mother and we loved it as kids. I can’t wait to pass it on to all of you.
INDEPENDENCE MARKET CHANGES: I’m still waiting to find out my place for tomorrow. Perhaps I will be in the same place three weeks in a row. We shall see. On another note, we have just 4 more markets including tomorrow before closing for the season. The last outdoor market will be October 8th. I will be moving my products to the online market just ahead of that. Herd share folks, I will continue to meet you in the same general area even though there will be no other vendors.
Sheep and Mack
I was wrong about the sheep with a growth. It is not really a growth. It looks more like a bag of accumulated fluid. The vet should be here tomorrow to drain it and give us her opinion on what is going on there. Everyone is still hanging in there. Coyotes just showed up on the game cameras — again. I’m sure Mack has this under control.
Cows
When the vet comes tomorrow another of her tasks will be preg checks on all the girls. I’m so excited to find out who is and is not pregnant this go round.
Buttercup has injured one of her back legs. Likely she got it stuck in the mud by the pond and sprained it while pulling it out. Goodness knows I have trouble keeping my boots on when I walk back there. The mud sucks onto the boot and out comes my foot while the boot stays firmly stuck in the mud. I carry a walking stick to lean on to keep from falling face first into the mud. Anyway, the vet will take a look at Buttercup’s leg as well.
The rest of the crowd are doing very well. The steers are really growing. I’m amazed at how much they’ve grown. Princess was born first but is smaller. She is a Jersey and the others are Normande. The size difference is to be expected. Still Princess is nearly as tall as her mom, Rosie. Remember Rosie was very young when she had Princess and therefore quite small. She still hasn’t grown much. She may always be small. The early pregnancy may have stunted her growth. We shall see. Violet had a calf nearly as young as Rosie and she turned out to be quite large. She is so large that I call her fatso. Being a cow she doesn’t take offense. She likes being big and round.
Quail
Last time I was Debbie Downer about not getting the new genetic stock for raising quail. Just goes to show you, patience is a virtue. I got a notification on Monday that the eggs were on the way. We got them yesterday and I immediately put them into the incubator. That thing is humming along nicely right now. A little over two weeks from now we will once again begin hearing the cute peeping sound.
I’m looking for the first eggs from the youngest group currently hanging out up there in the penthouse. Over the next few weeks we will be inundated with eggs. I’ll be making lots of pickled eggs. Look for them at the market. I’ll be bringing some pickled eggs to the market from earlier in the year.
Creamery and Scott’s Other Stuff
Scott has started his daily radiation treatments. All is going well. He is getting into the routine. It is an hour each way to drive into Winston Salem. Besides the time cost there is the cost of gasoline. We never paid much attention to our personal use of gas, only the business side. It was eye opening. We are estimating this additional cost to be about $100 per week. In the old days — the days before we stopped working for someone else — we never gave a second thought to the amount of gas we went through driving back and forth to coastal South Carolina. These are the seasons of our lives.
The electric plans are about to be put down on paper. Scott was talking about it just this morning. He is ready to make those drawings. I can’t wait to see his artistry with this task. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the beautiful structural drawings he created. Over and over again he drew out on paper the plans for the barn, milking parlor, creamery and commercial kitchen. He’s really very good at it. The detail is exquisite.
Garden
My poor garden is drying up. We haven’t had any rain for weeks. The pepper plants are starting to droop. I’m not too concerned with because I’m so done with peppers.
The basil has gone to seed. It is past time to cut those down and hang them up to dry. I’ve also got some parsley that needs to be cut and dried.
That freezer full of tomatoes is still waiting on me. I cleaned out a lot of the onions and green peppers to make the salsa and pepper relish. But those tomatoes are still sitting there. Currently I’m using fresh tomatoes from the stash I still have on the ripening shelves in front of the windows next to the wood stove. I’ll need to make another batch of salsa with those before getting into the freezer.
Scott cleaned the tomato plants though they haven’t made it to the compost pile. There are piles of tomato plants in between the raised beds. The only other thing to be left growing in the garden is the crowder peas. They put on a bumper crop and it will be a couple of weeks for all of those pods to mature.
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.
NEW ADDITIONS TO THIS WEEK’S MARKETS: Medium Hot Salsa in pint jars and sweet and sour pepper relish, also in pint jars. And finally, I have pickled quail eggs in 1/2 pint jars. There are three flavors; curry, sweet & sour and pickling spice blend.
I have apple pie filling, peach pie filling and blueberry pie filling. A deep dish pie requires 48 oz of filling. I’ve got you covered. Two 24 oz jars or a quart and pint jar.
I’ll have the pickled pepperoncinis in pint jars and a couple of jars of pickled banana peppers.
As far as jam, I have pepper jam in 1/2 pints. I also have strawberry jam and apple pie jam in pint jars.
I will have a couple of dozen quail eggs and definitely will have quail meat in 1 lb packages.
We have ground goat (approx 1 lb), 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, my location at the Independence market is still unknown, but I will be there — somewhere close by some of my previous places I’m sure.
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.
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 I’m re-running a previous podcast I did a couple of years ago. “Cheese Makes You Happy” is all about the brain science surrounding cheese. And yes, it can affect your mood. It is a fascinating look at how this age-old food helps maintain the brain.
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
