I received my meat grinder last Friday. After looking at several different models I chose LEM #8 .35hp.
I ground a couple of briskets with it Sunday evening and I was very impressed. I think this grinder is going to work out very well this fall when I harvest a couple of hogs.
As I was roaming around outside today in our lovely west Texas spring wind, I noticed a few of my Mississippi purple crowder peas had popped up.
More of my io chief corn had came up. I’m hoping this drought resistant corn does well.
I need to get my large patch of black-eyed peas planted and my field corn also.
Hercules is doing well and is very talkative, anytime I walk close to his pen he starts grunting and meets me at the gate to be rubbed. I’m excited about the piglets he’s going to produce, he’s a good looking hog in my opinion.
Well it’s been awhile since I’ve update on B-K Homestead, so here’s what’s been happening.
I’ve recently added a new hog, Hercules a 5 month old Hampshire boar.
He should be a good addition to my breeding later this summer.
I’m also going to pickup a Chester white gilt this weekend that’s weaned and ready to go.
I’ve planted most of my garden, I still have some to go though. Its about a 50×50 with two rows of potatoes, one row of onions, 4 rows of sweet corn, five rows of crowder peas, four rows of green beans, 1/2 row of bell peppers with zucchini in the other 1/2, about 15ft of speckled butter beans, 5ft of cukes, and 9 tomato plants if last nights freeze didn’t kill them. I also decided to plow up my larger field since it had been grazed to bare dirt by the previous owner. I’ve planted about 200 ft of field pumpkins and another 200 ft of big max pumpkins, 100 ft of black diamond water melons, 100ft of desert yellow water melons, 100 ft of Israel melons. I’m going to plant 200 ft of black-eyed peas and the rest of it will be disced and sown with Bermuda grass and I’ll also come back and plant field corn in with the grass just to let dry on the stalk and use as feed. As soon as the weather gets a-little warmer here I’ll plant my okra. Pray for rain!
I lucked out and was able to get 5 round bales of coastal hay for free from the company I work for. That saved me about $500. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some more.
The weather here has been kinda nuts. In the 90’s one day and 50’s the next with below freezing temps that night. I’m hoping that was our last freeze for the year.
Furor Growing Against Obama Over ‘Monsanto Protection Act’
By CONNOR ADAMS SHEETS | MARCH 27 2013 4:55 PM
Anger is growing against President Barack Obama the day after he signed into law a spending bill that included a provision opponents have dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act.”
That bill, the HR 933 continuing resolution , was mainly aimed at averting a government shutdown and ensuring that the federal government would continue to be able to pay its bills for the next six months.
But food and public safety advocates and independent farmers are furious that Obama signed it despite its inclusion of language that they consider to be a gift to Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) and other firms that produce genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or genetically engineered (GE) seeds and crops.
And protesters have spent the past couple of days demonstrating in front of the White House , first calling on Obama to veto the bill, and now criticizing him for his failure to do so.
The protests come on the heels of a massive petition campaign organized by the advocacy group Food Democracy Now , which gathered the signatures of more than 200,000 people who wanted Obama to veto HR 933 in order to stop Section 735 — the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act” — from being codified into law.
But Obama ignored it, instead choosing to sign a bill that effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of GMO or GE crops and seeds, no matter what health consequences from the consumption of these products may come to light in the future.
“This provision is simply an industry ploy to continue to sell genetically engineered seeds even when a court of law has found they were approved by USDA illegally,” the petition stated. “It is unnecessary and an unprecedented attack on U.S. judicial review. Congress should not be meddling with the judicial review process based solely on the special interest of a handful of companies.”
Many food safety advocates maintain that there have not been enough studies into the potential health risks of GMO and GE seeds and crops, and the judicial power to stop companies from selling or planting them was one key recourse they were relying on to stop them from being sold if health risks come to light.
But the “Monsanto Protection Act” — referred to as the “Farmer Assurance Provision” by its supporters — removes that course of action, and those who are angry at Obama for signing the bill are also incensed with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D- Md., who is accused of failing to give the amendment that inserted the language a proper hearing.
“In this hidden backroom deal, Sen. Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety , said in a statement . “This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Sen. Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.”
A number of the provision’s vocal opponents allege that it was quietly inserted while the bill was still in the Senate Appropriations Committee, which Mikulski chairs, and that her committee did not hold any hearings on its language. They say many Democratic members who voted for the bill were unaware.
Source URL: http://www.ibtimes.com/furor-growing-against-obama-over-monsanto-protection-act-1156459
Well I had to move our 4 ducks out of the chicken coop and in the pen with my bottle baby goats. The ducks started getting their wing feathers and with the Pekings white feathers all the pullets started pecking at them. It looks like they are going to heal up fine. I’m thinking of moving them into the back yard for now so I can move the bottle babies over to the goat pen an move my boer buck over to that pen. He’s getting a little to mature for my doeling. And she needs some more time to mature.
It’s been awhile since I’ve updated, we’ve been very busy moving and trying to get everything situated.
I went and picked up our weaner pigs a couple back on the 13th. We have 4 gilts, one of which my brother in law and nephew are going to split. Out of the 4 I’m going to choose one to keep and AI this fall for a spring litter. I’ll prob keep one or two out of that litter and sell the rest.
I also got my old tractor running to start on my garden area for this year. This has been a fiasco. My dad and I bought a ford n series tractor about 14 years ago that he used to shred around his antique store. We’ve slowly accumulated various implements over the years. About five years ago we had the engine overhauled, but the old tractor has just been sitting for the last two or three years. So I go and get it jumped off and let it run for about 15 min. One of the front tires won’t hold air so I decide to pull it up to a clear spot to pull the tire and take it for repair instead of pulling it in the grass burrs. Pretty uneventful until I show up a couple days later with the new tire, battery and my 17 year old daughter to load the tractor and implements on a trailer to move to our new place. We get there and I notice I’ve left the gas valve open. So we get the new tire and battery put on and crank it over. Just as I thought its flooded. So I tell my daughter to back my truck to the front of the tractor, and chained the two up. I tell her she’s going to pull me around the property slowly. All’s going well and after a couple of laps it’s trying to catch. That’s when a splice in the chain snaps. So I rehook the chain and have her slowly ease forward to take the slack out. When it’s starting to get where I want it, I yell whoa. At this point let me remind you of a quick safety note. Turn the switch to the off position. I failed to do this. So I yell whoa, she hears go. She takes off, the tractor roars to life, she slams on the brakes and the tractor slams into the back of my truck which kills the tractor, and shoves the radiator in to the fan. So antifreeze is running out, radiator is shot. So we get out the come alongs and wench it up on the trailer and move it to our new house. I find a new radiator online for $200 delivered. So yesterday my daughter and I tackle taking it apart to replace it and try to straighten out as much of it as we can. By that evening we have it running. And I’m listing the garden area, until it starts dying. From the way the fuel filter looks I think it’s starving for fuel. I’m going to grab some new filters and some sea foam and see if this helps. By the way the years composted horse manure in this pen is going to make an awesome garden area.
I have mostly finished the chicken coop at our new house and have moved our 2 hens and all the chicks out there. The coop is 12×10 and the run is 42×12. The chicks are loving having all this room in the coop to run and flutter their wings.
I bought two bottle baby milk goats last sat. they are saanan cross but are larger framed than the Nubians that she also was selling. I think they will cross good with my boer buck. Their names are Daphne and Maris from Frasier.
Part of the deal we made when buying this house was that they would leave a horse. He team ropes and his family breed their own horses. So the horse he’s leaving hasn’t been broke yet and it’s been 20 years since I’ve broke a horse, so I found a 3yr old filly that some people were selling. It was their daughters horse that she rode in play days. She decided that she wanted a bigger horse and I figured this would make a nice addition for my girls. Meet Socks.
We have had no more losses with the chicks, hopefully we’ve gotten over the major hurdle of them getting settled.
I saw on Craig’s list awhile back that a lady was selling 3 sows about an hour away from me. I sent her an email last night asking if she had any young pigs. Well long story short, she informed me that she had a litter of 12 born Monday. They are Hampshire/Duroc cross. I reserved 3 gilts for myself with the plans of keeping the best of the 3 for my homestead sow, I will artificially inseminate her instead of keeping a boar. The other two will go in the freezer. My brother in law and nephew also reserved one that they are going to feed out and split. I’ll go to pick them up in about 3 weeks. My homestead is quickly coming together.
Let me start by backing up some. I want you to meet our original 4 chickens.
Here they are as young non laying pullets, before we lost two of them to a dog.
And here they are all grown up.
Now for the rest of the story. So far out of a total of 38 chicks and 4 ducklings we have lost 3, all buttercups. My wife is mad to say the least, and I don’t blame her. The buttercups were her only request of breeds.
The rest seem to be doing good, all fluttering/running around the brooder, carrying on like chicks do.
So yesterday I bought the 4 ducks at tractor supply for my two youngest daughters. 2 pekins and 2 rouens, thinking that each girl could have one of each. Well it turns out Emma likes the yellow pekins and Ella likes the rouens, but I guess either way it works out. Emma already has one that if she sets it down and walks away it chases after her chirping. So far the girls love them.
I got a call this morning at 5am from the post office saying my chicks had arrived. It worked out that I was just getting off work at that time, so here I went to the post office and picked them up. Got them home and mixed up some electrolytes and water in the waterer, I removed them one at a time, dunked their beaks in the water and released them in the brooder. I loved watching each one acclimate to the brooder, huddling under the heat lamp getting warm, stretch, and take off at top speed.
So far we have only lost one, although it was one of my wife’s buttercups. Which she and I were disappointed with, why couldn’t it have been one of the reds, I could’ve went to tractor supply and easily replaced that breed.
Which brings me to my trip to tractor supply, where Millie and I only went to pick up, dog food, cat food, another bag of chicken starter, and a roll of net wire field fencing. So as I take Millie for her first trip to tractor supply, we get one of the carts for hauling feed sacks and has the small basket. Millie’s happy to go in, not being left in the truck this time, but as we get into the store she changes her mind and freezes. I end up having to set her in the small basket part of the cart.
As we meander thru the store, we slowly make our way to the brooders. I look at the babies chirping away, right then I see the sign for the generic pullets and think, she would kill me if I bring home more chicks after having to deal with 32 already.
Then I see the ducks, and then I start to think, what’s a homestead without a few ducks. Just then a lady asks if I needed help? I quickly say, yes let me have 6 of these pullets, 2 yellow ducks, and 2 of the black ducks. I then tell her that I have a few other things to get and I’ll pick these up at the register when I check out.
So Millie and I head over to the feed section and grab a 50lb bag of starter, 40lb bag of puppy food, 20lb bag of dog food,and a 16lb of cat food. After this is stacked on the cart Millie decides she’s going to stand with her front legs on the feed sacks with her back legs in the basket and navigate. We make our way outside and make sure they have a roll of the fencing I need.
We come in and head to the check out. We get there and the ladies working the counters have to pet and ohh,ahh over Millie which she thoroughly enjoys. After the feed is scanned she decides just to sit on the feed sacks, everyone is commenting on how well she’s behaving. And I have to agree she acted very well for her first shopping trip.
Here’s her picture as we leave the store and head to the truck.
B-K Homestead Blog 