Down and Out

I interrupt our regularly scheduled break from blogging with a weekend report. I mentioned in my last post that we had some sickness about-well it hasn't abated. I think it's the flu and for some, it has now been over a week. Some of us recovered and then relapsed. This morning Mrs. Curley and I (neither of us very well) and our youngest feed and watered all the animals and checked for eggs. I seldom go near the chicken coops, so it was "fun" for everyone.

We are getting over a dozen eggs a day now (the Rhode Island Reds are almost at full production and the 2nd year Buff Orphingtons are at 50%). We have another 8 or so assorted pullets which will start to lay in another couple months, and we are planning to get some Golden Comets in March.

Mrs. Curley and I have been thinking that an excess of eggs is not a bad thing because as cash gets tighter, our pigs will love those eggs we can't sell or consume ourselves. So we may get more layers than we originally planned. And we certainly want to hatch out our next year's crop.

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Welcome aboard! We had two goat kids on Thursday evening. Even though we were sick, Mrs. Curley and I was on hand for the birth (just in case I had to play James Herriot.) (Pictures will follow, I am too sick to bother with downloading, etc.) One billy and one doe. These are the first goat kids from our own breeding. We expected them in February, but forgot to write down the breeding date. Mrs. Curley, earlier in the day suspected Jill was not too far from delivery. They are cuties.

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I'm in re-runs..... If you missed it 2-3 years ago you can read my exposition on Ephesians 5 here . (For some reason the main page at CatholicExchange isn't loading properly.)

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One of my gilts is refusing to let Tarzan (the boar) do his job. She runs from him. Have called my extension agent, and am waiting for a call back.

Speaking of that, we were supposed to take delivery on our family cow today. But with us all on our backs, we didn't get the new pen and barn ready. The owner has agreed to put off delivery for another week.

In the meantime, Mrs. Curley called our extension office and dairy expert with some questions. His advice: "Buy your milk from the store." I couldn't believe it.

Now back to the business of recovery...Oremus pro invicem!