A new journey into homesteading "pic heavy"

[baymule]

Those tall weeds look like giant ragweed. I have them, the sheep love them. I read that the seeds are 40% protein so no wonder that your chickens love them! I pull them out of the garden and the sheep wait at the fence and yell at me for more.

 

[sumi]

It's lovely seeing and hearing how productive your garden's been And with you and your wife's hard work preserving the harvests, the bunnies and chickens, you are not going to go hungry any time soon!

Those tall weeds look like giant ragweed. I have them, the sheep love them. I read that the seeds are 40% protein so no wonder that your chickens love them! I pull them out of the garden and the sheep wait at the fence and yell at me for more.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? You do not need a whole lot of space for sheep and there is a lot of food there...

 

[sumi]

Another thought that goes through my mind when I see good produce like that is pigs. A pig needs little space (compared to most other animals) and not a lot of time and work. Basically food twice a day and water at all times and the odd pen clean out for garden gold (pig manure is AMAZING fertiliser). They will dang near eat anything from the garden and will happily turn any and all unwanted, damaged, stung, rotten, excess etc garden left overs and produce, food scraps, extra eggs, etc into nice home grown meat for you and your family. You can raise one to decent slaughter size in about 6 months and time it so it will grow during the time when the garden produce is plentiful and slaughter in time for winter.

You're going to need to add on a pantry to that house soon

 

[Chic Rustler]

a freezer full of pork would be nice!

 

[sumi]

And home grown pork is soooo good! We have a few bacon makers here on the forum that can give you tips for that as well

 

[baymule]

We turned the sheep in the garden last fall to do clean up, but this year I might not do that. I dunno.

Raising a pig is great! We just butchered ours first of June. Already planning for a couple more over the winter!

 

[Chic Rustler]

well bad news. my great Pyrenees wondered off....or worse. he s been gone for 2 days. I don't think he s coming back. poor little guy is still a puppy he won't fair well.


in other news my aunt gave us 100 or so mason jars today. pretty good deal for a dozen eggs and some extra produce from the garden. there was a bunch more, a couple barrels full, but we didn't have room cor them all today. she's 76 and her health is failing her. she doesn't bother with canning anymore

 

[NH Homesteader]

So sorry! Losing a dog is tragic! I hope you have a pleasant surprise and he comes back, your kids must be so sad.

 

[Chic Rustler]

they will get over it. shame tho. he was a good one.

 

[baymule]

I am so sorry about your pup. We fenced our place with 2"x4" non climb horse wire. It felt so good to get the front closed in so we didn't have to worry about them. Hopefully someone has picked him up, have you advertised a lost dog?