Wow,
it is hard to believe that it has been nearly a year already since the last
time I updated the blog! We've been so busy since last February with all our
garden and livestock plans, that I have had precious little time to write.
Here's
an update on what has been happening the past few months at the farm:
In
April last year, we finally got our bull. He is a registered Jersey named Happy
Painter. Happy is a good name for him as he is a good-natured animal! In a
previous post, I mentioned that we were using AI for our girls. Unfortunately,
two different attempts failed. So, we got Happy Painter and now all the girls
are pregnant and everyone is happy! We are expecting new calves between now
(January) and March. We had one calf born early, but we think the neighbor's
Hereford bull helped with that one!
Remember,
with our herd of Jerseys, we only use antibiotics if one of the girls (or guys)
is ill! No regular rounds of antibiotics for us!
In
spite of this year's drought, our garden is doing well! Yea!! Some months are
lighter than others, but our overall production is up to 30 baskets a week. Which includes 3 donation baskets that we have been able to bless others with, which has be an educational experience for us and them learning to cook what is in harvest is no easy task! We
are now celebrating two years of continuous production! That big Christmas
storm destroyed our greenhouse, but we were able to get it back up within a
couple weeks! We are now in the process of planting our spring crop!
From
last season's harvest, I canned 54 jars of spaghetti sauce and 78 jars of
pear sauce. Whew! When the veggie production gets a little light, I may just
throw in some of our products as a bit extra for our customers.
This
is our first year for pickles. I am very excited about trying new products! We
also can jam when we can get a hold of fresh naturally grown fruit! We are trying to build up fruit available on the farm, so look for strawberries in your baskets soon! The first one is changing colors now.
We
struggled a bit with our egg production this last year...mostly because of the
raccoons. But we finally got a "chicken tractor" that we can move
around the farm and the hens are now laying up to a dozen eggs a day! Our
turkeys are beginning to hatch chicks. We currently have two chicks and we hope
to have enough new ones we can grow and process them for later sale around
Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!
We've
also been working very hard with our bee hives for the past two years. This
spring we got our second batch of bees and soon we hope to "split" the
hives and start more growing! We also harvested our first batch of honey this fall! It is an exciting process for us to see our hives
coming along and producing honey!
I
plan to write more this year and keep our customers updated on the progress and
all the new projects here at Cox Family Farm! With all the "Firsts" last year will hope to have more this year and for the farm to keep growing. I hope you'll check back often to
see how our garden is growing and what new products we have to offer!
