Living history

[Montegriffo]

Did you raise the pigs and cattle yourself or buy them in to butcher?
What do you do with 25+ eggs a day?

15 of those chickens are nearing 4 years old and at the end of their productive egg laying. We'll start to cull some of the me in the Spring, and in the Winter chickens slow down on laying. But when we they are all laying well its 18-20 a day. We give a lot away to friends, I eat an avg 3 eggs a day, the wife sells some. Her hairdresser trades haircuts for fresh eggs.

I found a great local hog producer, it would be hard to beat his product within the price, $1/lbs. I've mastered breakfast sausage and Canadian Bacon, regular bacon is pretty good too.

My beef comes from my brothers ranch. I buy from him and feed them out. Another brother has a wheat/grain farm. We just ground a 2200 lbs of feed, current batch will be ready for late March slaughter.

I've been pretty lazy this year. I did a stint at the local nuclear power station at the beginning of the year. Feeding the maintenance crew during a shutdown for re-fuelling. 60hr weeks for a couple of months on silly money. Then a couple of weeks doing crew food at a local folk festival in the summer.
Not done any film and TV catering since before lockdown and my kitchen truck is out of commission.
Spending most of my online time on a UK forum these days where I'm a moderator.
Had another successful juggling convention on the farm. 25th anniversary next year.
Not a lot more to say really.

Cool.

Now, you have spot in France too, right ? How's that going ?

Not so good. I've not been out to France since 2019 and the house is in a poor state. It needs a new roof.
I think it's going to be a retirement project for me.

[C-Mag]

Not so good. I've not been out to France since 2019 and the house is in a poor state. It needs a new roof.
I think it's going to be a retirement project for me.

That sucks.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how important the roof is. As far as the exterior it's the most critical element there is.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Outstanding brother, I'm very happy to talk to you again.

Quick rundown on the homestead.
- I'm better at animals than gardening.
Garden is doing ok, but if I had survived on my gardening skills it would be a near run thing

- animal production is great.
We now are up to 28 laying chickens
My butchery is comfortabley putting out 4 hogs, 3 beef, and about 6 deer/elk per year

Meat production is a very efficient thing for me


How are things going for you

Holy hell that’s a lot of meat.

We’ve gotten very good at chicken processing. My first 2 hogs are nearly finished but I’m sending them off. I’ve never processed a large animal, and I don’t wanna fuck it up without getting hands on first.

They’re just about done tilling my garden space for spring.