Hello beautiful peeps,
We are inviting all of you to come and visit us on Saturday, November, 26 between 12pm and 4pm. That’s Saturday after Thanksgiving. Bring the family. We will have baby goats to visit, chickens, and calves. We will have cheese for tasting and all sorts of jams, jellies, salsa and relishes available for purchase. Christmas gifts for the hard-to-shop-for person. Grass-fed beef and lamb will also be available for your holiday dinners. We’d love for you to shop with us instead of those boring chain stores. Or just come out and have a good time on a Saturday afternoon.
How about some homestead updates?
HOMESTEAD UPDATES
Sheep, Goats, Finn, Charlotte and Mack
It has been six months since I last sent out an email. How do I know? Because in the last email Finn had disappeared and not returned. Well hallelujah, he showed up again — after six months. He is a little worse for wear, but doing well. He is in charge of the two doeling goats we recently purchased. And doing a fantastic job, I might add. He is not really trying to escape. I’m not sure what has changed and it may not last. Right now I feel blessed to have him back and satisfied to stay home.
Mack is hanging out with the main cow herd and doing well. Charlotte does not stay contained where I put her. She goes pretty much wherever she wants. Fortunately, she wants to stay pretty close. I actually like that she can go where she needs to in case a predator comes too close. She’s not waiting until they are right there in the pasture.
Not much to say about the sheep. They are all doing really well. We have one ram lamb that is keeping company with the buckling we recently purchased. The does are too young to be bred so we have to keep him separate for a few more months.
The goats are the Kiko goats that I’ve spoken of in past newsletters.
Cows
The cows finished the artificial insemination process a few weeks ago. We had such a problem getting them pregnant via AI, we finally purchased a bull to get the job done. He is a gorgeous Guernsey bull. We may have three that were artificially inseminated. The final results will be revealed in the first week of December. Ferdinand will take care of the rest of the girls. Calving is going to be late next year. It’s always rolling with the punches on the homestead.
Chickens
We no longer have quail. The chickens I hatched have been reduced to 7 American Bresse and 8 Black Copper Marans. We had 8 Bresse, but Mack played with one a little too hard. That’s why he is with the cows at the moment. I’m not getting nearly as many eggs as I thought I would. Look for changes in that situation in the spring when we start hatching chicks.
Creamery and Scott’s Other Stuff
Scott is getting closer and closer to finishing the creamery. We can hardly believe it has been nearly six years since we broke ground. It’s a beautiful and very functional building. I hope you’ll come on Saturday and take a look at all of his hard work. The electrical is about half done. The floors are nearly completed. The plumbing has yet to be started. That’s a job Scott is not looking forward to doing. He was going to contract it out, but the one bid he was finally able to obtain was way outside of our budget. Scott is a trooper and he will make it happen whatever it takes.
Garden
The garden is put to bed for the winter. Nothing to say there. It produced well throughout the summer. Which is why I haven’t been putting out emails. I simply did not have the time.
That’s it for farm news.
Our Locals.com Community
Though I have been AWOL, Scott has continued to make regular posts on our community page https://peacefulheartfarm.locals.com. This platform is designed to be a community and to be able to support itself. Not only will Scott and I post, but as a subscriber, you can post as well. You can view content without becoming a subscriber, but there are significant benefits to taking the subscriber route. To get you started, here is the promo code for a 30-day free trial. FREE30 is the code to enter when registering.
I have a few areas of subscriber-only content that I am in the process of creating. Right now two are still only “in the mind” stage of development. One is short presentations of various types of cheeses. The other is short presentations on various homestead medicinal herbs. I do have one “subscriber only” playlist started. It will be three different mental exercises to improve your mental health. Concentration, memory, and imagination are the areas I address.
After the FREE30 days, it is $5 per month to become a subscriber. Subscriber status gives you access to ALL content, including the subscriber-only content I just mentioned. Additionally, Subscribers can make posts and comment on our posts or any other post in the community. Start conversations around local food, homesteading, cheese or any other topic of interest in this realm. Maybe ask a question about an issue you are having with your home and/or homestead. Get feedback from me and the entire community. Think of it like Facebook groups without the trolls. I post and we all comment. You post and we all comment.
The pay wall does more than support your local food chain and our farm, website and podcast, it also keeps out those trolls. Anyone who wants to post in the community pays a nominal fee. Those who only want to be angry and destructive will not usually invest any money to be able to post their tirades. There are too many free ones, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, and who knows how many others, where anyone can make any comment without fear of coming in contact with a real person. You know what I’m talking about. People saying things they would never say to a person in a face-to-face interaction.
In any case, check out Locals and let me know what you think. Here’s the link again: https://peacefulheartfarm.locals.com.
ITEMS OF NOTE FOR SALE AT THE OPEN HOUSE:
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Medium Hot Salsa (pint jars)
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Various cucumber and squash relishes (1/2 pint jars)
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Spiced pear jam – a hint of ginger and cloves (pint jars)
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Apple pie jam (pint jars).
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Cherry Jam (pint jars).
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Pickled pepperoncini (pint jars). I have a variety with red pepper if you like a bit of spice.
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Pepper jelly in 1/2 pints. One hot and one super hot.
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Eggs by the dozen
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Grass-fed beef (Roast, Steaks, Brisket)
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Grass-fed lamb (Chops, Roasts, Leg of Lamb, Frenched Rack of Ribs)
Herd Shares
Pickup locations are at the Independence Farmers’ Market on Wednesdays 3 pm to 4 pm or at the farm Saturdays 3 pm to 5 pm or Wednesdays 10:00 am to noon.
I still have raw milk cheese shares available. Contact me via email (melanie@peacefulheartfarm.com) or phone (276-694-4369).
Please go HERE to learn all about Herd Shares.
Peaceful Heart FarmCast
The latest podcast “I’m Back From My Podcast Vacation” is an update on goings-on here at the homestead. Per usual, there are lots and lots of changes. This podcast covers a lot of ground. Listen to this latest one to get many more details on what’s been going on around the homestead.
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
