Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

I posted not long ago that we have a new locally owned meat market near us that we are really enjoying their products. I don't know how they age their meat but everything we have tried is great. We made hamburgers out of their ground beef tonight and we won't be buying anymore ground beef at the grocery store.

 

[Baymule]

Grocery store meat is mass produced and quality suffers. That meat market sounds wonderful!

 

[Mike CHS]

We haven't been able to see the Northern Lights with just the naked eye but they show up really well using a phone or camera. Down on the horizon here looks like day light.

 

[Mike CHS]

I need to change the oil on my '04 Tacoma. It has only been around 1000 miles since the last oil change but it has been three years since it was changed and it just looks old. We used to put a lot of miles on our vehicles when we lived in South Carolina but that has sure changed. The Ram that we bought almost four years ago just went over 16000 miles and the majority of that is Teresa going to visit her family in Missouri several times and trips to visit the children. The Tacoma went over 265,000 about the time we bought the ram and that 1000 miles since the last oil change puts it at 266,000. We kept the Tacoma to use as our farm truck when we bought the ram since it hasn't given any problems in the 20 years that I have owned it and it would not have brought in much on a trade in due to age.

I still use the Tacoma to go down to the state line to buy feed if there is any chance of rain since it has a topper on it that is pretty water tight.

 

[Mike CHS]

We just got an email with some pictures of the ewes that we just sold. They were already tame and their new home went out and bought Animal Crackers on the way home so they are already trusted.

 

[farmerjan]

Great on the ewes and the animal crackers !!!!! Sounds like the people are happy with them.

Yeah, those older vehicles are sure good to have around... a little maintenance goes a long way... I used to have a small toyota pu back when they had those R22 4 cylinder engines.. They ran forever... Loved mine... totalled it in the bad accident in 1989....

 

[Mike CHS]

This picture was just taken a few minutes ago and it is pushing 10:00. We don't have the swirling lights but there is a complete light that you can see with the camera but not by eye.

 

[Mike CHS]

We will be doing some movement with the netting tomorrow. I want to leave Oshi and Pete in the paddock that they are in and move all of the ewes on to fresh grass tomorrow. The lambs have all fallen into our method and give us time to watch and plan on replacements. There are several lambs that I really like and to keep our numbers controlled, we have a couple of nice ewes that need to be culled but we will advertise for a time first. The move will give the ewes and their lambs three paddocks to rotate on which will let us rest the other two for winter stockpile since I need to cut them.

Once we get all of that done, we can move the ram lambs back into the nursery paddock so we can sort and decide who will be market lambs. There are 19 ram lambs now but that includes Shadow who will be a wether. If nothing else, that will give me a break from grass cutting since I have been cutting grass and feeding it to the ram lambs and they have been going through a bunch of bagged grass.

 

[Mike CHS]

Things didn't quite work out like I wanted today thanks to Mel. It was in the low 80's today so Mel decided to stay out under a big shade tree in the middle paddock which is not where I want to put Oshi and Pete. They all come in for morning feed so I can close the netting gate then. This paddock has almost three acres which is plenty for two sheep.

We really want to get everyone moved this weekend so I can quit spending half of my time bagging grass for the ram lambs. I have two big trees down from all of the rain saturating the ground and heavy winds and they won't get cut up as long as my main time is spent cutting grass.

 

[Mike CHS]

Teresa and I did spend most of the day moving netting and mowing grass to make better contact with the netting. From here on out I'll be spraying to kill the growth but that spring super growth is hard to keep under control. We always have a good time working together and it always brings a bunch of smiles since we do it so well together. This woman is a super woman and we just keep getting better.