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Sunday, August 22, 2010

Harvesting

Friday was chicken harvest day at the farm.  We are now down to 17 pullets … besides the 12 laying hens in the older flock.  Friends will be taking 5 of the pullets, which will leave us with a laying flock of 24 over the winter.  The pullets should start laying eggs in about 4-5 weeks.

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This is the last batch of cleaned and bagged chickens to freeze.  We started around 12:30pm on Friday and finished up the bagging at 10pm that evening.  We processed a total of 35 (33 cockerels and 2 runty hens).  Note to self:  Do NOT attempt more than 35 in one day, and less would be better!  Not too bad for our first year.

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While we wouldn’t normally work out in the garden on Sunday, but the plums needed harvesting, too.  Eric mentioned that he’d seen red fruit the other day, so after brunch, I drove over to check for ripeness.  The first tree I checked was filled with plums ripe enough to fall into my hand.  Dash, Angelina, Zeke and I drove over and harvested a five-gallon bucket of fruit.  Some fruit is ripe, some will need to wait a few days.  Jelly and syrup making is in our future … YUM!

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The larger plums were ripe enough to eat.  The skin is tart and a bit thick, but the flesh is wonderfully sweet.

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