Enjoying the mundane, class tomorrow

Victoria is picking up Gemma this morning. Mama made the trip with Gemma to the vet without incident yesterday morning, the surgery was completed easily and not Gemma is released to come home. She will be in some discomfort for a couple days and may have a shield around her neck to keep her from licking the wound, but she should be back to full activity by the weekend. Dogs rarely take long to heal, and she is a very active dog. In her absence through the day and overnight, I believe she was missed by Sam and Sasha.  We are putting her in the back yard for the day to limit her activities. We will see how that works out.

Since Mama has been relieved of the obligation of getting Gemma, she is heading to Muenster to pick up the lambs we had processed. One will be placed in our freezer. The other will go to Alex and his family. I do not know if the meat is for them or another family, but they are anxious to get the meat. We had our lamb processed into ground lamb. Nothing else. I did have the processor save all the bones for us so we could use them for broths and to share with our Chinese friends. Mama and I will probably use the same process in the future of buying grown lambs, keeping them for a few weeks, then taking them to be processed. It worked out well this time and it saved us getting attached to the animals.

Over my lunch hour I will install a small panel under the little coop that will prevent the young chickens from getting into that area when Mama allows them access to the “yard” attached to the small coop. That yard is the 10 x 10 kennel we kept with the building when I repurposed it as a coop for us to raise our chicks in. That repurposing has worked out very, very well. We have twenty chicks in the coop right now and they are almost completely feathered out. Covered enough that Mama feels comfortable letting them explore outside the building they have been raised in. It will be fun to see their reaction when I open the little door that will give them access to the outside. It may be less fun getting them to reenter the building after they have had their time outside. Getting them into that routine will take a few days but once they acclimate to it, they will go through their exit and entry without any outside help.

I went with the utility trailer to buy panels to complete the pig enclosure and the feed store was out of all the various types of panels. They had nothing I could substitute to make the enclosure so I started using pallets to make the walls that would line the pig pen I would like to get this pig into. I need to get her into an enclosure that will allow Mama and I to feed and water her without getting slimed by her as she is able to do right now since we have to enter the pen with her to care for her. It is not a big deal. It would just be more convenient to have the larger pen in use and the smaller area open to us for other uses. I would prefer to avoid the mud in the pen while caring for the pig. Mama would like that as well.

I am getting some upgrades done to the fencing along the back of our property so that we have a greater defense against the easy incursion of coyotes from that fence line. In February Mama and I are picking up our mini-Highlander bull from a breeder in Plano. We are looking froward to raising the small animals. Our long-term plan is to have three cows and this bull. There are two other families at church who are doing the same thing with the mini-Highlander cattle so we will eventually be able to swap out bulls in our breeding program. That will be a help as we raise the individual herds. For two of the families, these will be yard ornaments. For us they will be both property decorations and meat. We should be able to process one in a couple years. That will be good timing for us since we will be processing the calf we are now raising late next year. Such is our mundane life here on the farm.

I will be teaching tomorrow. It has become a regular Wednesday event, which is reflected in the class schedule for the first quarter of next year. My company is thrilled with the schedule since each class brings in a significant amount of revenue. We have found a niche market and are capitalizing on it. It will not be long before our competitors squeeze into this online market for instructor led classes, but for now, we are able to get there first. Plus, it meets the needs of our clients in a very direct way. If we keep the classes to one per week on average, I can manage. When I end up with back-to-back eight our classes my voice is seriously strained. I do not talk loudly through the classes, but just having to do all the talking for seven hours is a stretch for my voice.

Next week I have classes on Wednesday and Friday. That will be a challenge, but I have done it successfully before. Those will be my last classes for the year. The week after that, Christmas week, I will be on vacation.

I am looking froward to that.