Although our day length is not as variable here in Hawaii as it is in more Northern Latitudes, it has shortened enough that it is fairly dark when I leave home and quite dark when I come home. This means when I visit the animals, it is by flashlight, the out door garden has to wait for the weekend, and the greenhouse has this bizarre fluorescent light. It's nice that my husband is home to feed the sheep, chickens and horse. It was never fun to do it in the (relative) cold and dark by flashlight.
It's a good time to start planning what should be done when there is more light to do it by. Next year, I want to raise turkey poults. I had been thinking meat chickens, too, but actually, we could put the current aging and much less productive hens in the freezer and concentrate on egg layers, as well as the turkeys. We definitely need to build a ram pen and probably need to buy a new ram and sell some of these. The bottle lambs will have a home when they're weaned, but I have two more wethers to deal with - sell or put in the freezer. Currently, my freezer is full of that quarter cow and some fish we bought from a fisherman up the road.
I always would like to expand my garden, but to be honest, I am not able to keep up with it with my job. Maybe if we put in a new, bigger greenhouse with artificial light to work at night it would be more feasible.
On a different note, I have decided to can this year's turkey frame soup instead of freezing it. When I froze it last time, the veggies just got a little too mushy. I am going to see if pressure canning will preserve the texture better next time. Anyone have any experience with this?
2 comments:
We get home at dark now also, here in Oregon. Feeding sheep in the dark, and often, cold, windy rain is not fun. I'm ready for bed by the time dinner is done.
I know just how you feel, Ruth.
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