What’s going on
What an odd “winter” we are having…
I’m not complaining but it still makes me a little apprehensive.
Kinda like is this too good to be true??
Are we gonna pay for later with a late actual spring or a really hot dry summer??
We were listening to our favorite audiobook series, Little House on the Prairie (for the 100x time), in the car on the way home from school pickup this week when the story really grabbed my attention.
In the book On the Banks of Plum Creek the Ingles family faces devastating times after the grasshoppers completely destroy their crops.
The winter before the grasshoppers came, there was no snow by Thanksgiving, the days were warm and the nights were just chilly, no rain, no frost.
The old timer Norwegian farmers had called it Grasshopper weather but because the Ingles didn’t speak Norwegian and their neighbors didn’t speak English, no one explained what that meant.
The following summer was very hot and dry.
But the crops still looked promising until an estimated 1 trillion Rocky Mountain locusts descended onto the Great Plains in 1874 covering an area of 2,000,000 square miles and ate every crop, grass, leaf and all vegetables in sight.
Luckily, those grasshoppers became extinct in the early 1900’s so even though this weather is eerily familiar, I reassured my children that we don’t need to worry about that.
We did have to put a halt on bale grazing as it’s just too muddy out there but hopefully we can resume once it freezes over or dries up again.
Sadie’s sledding birthday party was postponed due to the snow melting and the boys (Justin, Weston and Grandpa Al) are bummed that not much ice fishing happened this year.
I have seen my local maple syrup friends struggling with deciding on when to tap their trees too.
How’s this weather affecting you? Comment below and let me know!
Pig Update
3 of Weston’s pigs are due to farrow (have their babies) 2/12.
We are officially on baby pig watch!
We have the farrowing room all set up and are just waiting until the sows show a little more signs that they are close before moving them in there.
Weston is signed up with our local 4H club and plans to keep at least two of the piglets to raise and show at the county fair in September.
The rest of the piglets, we have no idea how many there will be, we may sell some to other farmers or 4H children and then raise the rest for you to purchase in our subscription boxes or to fill your freezer with a half or a whole in the fall.
Once we have a better idea of how many piglets we have, I will keep you posted so you can get your spot.
In the meantime, we do still have subscription boxes available that you can sign up for that will get you the delicious pasture-raised pork you need until fall.
Strawberry update
I’m so thankful that we had a great snow cover for the really cold weather in January. That helped keep the strawberry plants insulated and protected them from cold damage.
We are still planning on harvesting the sweetest strawberries in June and I promise to keep you posted as the spring progresses.
Cow update
Now that our lease with the neighbors is over, we were able to buy our own beef cows again!
We brought them home in January and it feels so good to have our own cows here.
We didn’t buy too many as this spring we will need to plant all of the fields that the renter used as crop fields into pasture. It will take a few months for that to grow and get established before we can have the cows graze it again.
A few of the cows are due in March to have a calf so we will be on baby cow watch soon too and I will get to be a “cow midwife” again soon.
Dinners/Meal Service update
Phew, we’ve been busy…
But we’re also making great progress on bringing this idea to life as well.
The business plan is done.
We are working on a lease for a commercial kitchen to use.
We have a survey for potential customer feedback.
We have a chef who is interested (and excited) to help us as well.
I still don’t have an exact timeline yet but hopeful that it will all come together before summer.