Hey June.

With the weather finally breaking at the end of last week, we are now in the throes of haying. We have three fields to hay this year, the same ones we did last year but already it seems as though the grass in the top field is longer and thicker, meaning we should have a much higher yield than the 244 bales we managed last year. We'll be working in collaboration with our neighbor, the doctor. He will be using our cutter and our fluffer/rake and we will be using his round baler, although the smaller of the three fields will likely be done in square bales - the clover content is higher and the grass isn't as long, but the protein value looks better. Square bales are easier for me to feed the sheep with whereas the round bales are more along the lines of what people want to buy. Thankfully then we can produce both.

The inspectors from the Department of Ag returned on Tuesday and we now need only to supply them with a milk sample for our license. they'll be dropping by next Monday to pick up a sample, which means we have had to round up the 8-10 ewes that are still feeding their lambs and ensure they haven't fully dried up. This afternoon we milked them (and will do so once each day now so we can give the Dept Ag a milk sample) and were surprised at the volume we got. Even just a weeks worth of one milk session per day will provide us with several gallons of milk to make some more cheese in the coming weeks.

A couple of weeks ago we acquired a couple of pigs. They are both around 250 lbs so we are just putting a few more pounds on them before we have them slaughtered. Looking forward to lots of bacon, pork chops and a couple of good pork roasts. Marlowe can't understand why they don't fear him like the sheep do, and Byron just wants their ears!..

This weekend the last of the wethers will head to the scales and we will be left with our 70 ewes. We are also hoping that in between baling the back field we'll have time to paint the milk barn.