A New Start

Well i got sick and had to sell the place in texas , and moved to northern californa . living on a small homestead out side of red bluff , snow covered mointoins all around . my email srh@juno.com Thank's

life changing event

Hi everyone , Thank You All For All Your Help . Sorry it has taken so long to get back on here . On 8-1-11 i had gone to work at brookshires working in the veggy depatment , 2 hours no problem , then my stomic started herting . i went to hospital and thay sent me 2 hours , to a bigger hospital . I woke up a week later and thay sead i had cancer and need to go on dieaises . The last few years have been hard , a few verynice people have come to help , and then the last 2 people have been very bad , mostly drinking them self to death . but thay have moved on . Now it just me the dogs and chicken .The oxen and dairy doats i had to sell , i was not able after coming out of the hospital to care for them , and i had no help . If i cant find some partners soon , this place too will have to be sold . If you can help you can call me at 409-625-3641 or sabine homestead , PO Box 5 , hemphill texas 75948    THANK YOU ALL ,  mike  , PS my cancer is in remishen and im feeling and doing much better , call partnerships needed

www.sabinehomestead.org

If you have not seen are web site take a look , www.sabinehomestead.org . The garden is starting off well , planted Tomatos , peppers and cellontro in to bigger pots . The baby chicks [ barred rocks ] have grown in to some nice big birds and hopefully will start laying in another month .

Spring has sprung

I shure am Thankfull for the trees and shrubes that the peple living here planted , that are all in full bloom . Not having the money for flowering plants , would not have planted them , enstead l panting fruit tree , with what money i had , but it shure looks and smells very Nice .

New milking stand finished

The new milking stand is finished and the 7 gallon cheese Vat for making biger batches of cheese has arived . the 5 doe babys are almost weened . Its time to try making hard sharp cedder cheese , now that i have every thang . Tilling up the garden and planting , but slow going with just me , shure need some help . Now have all fenceing for new farming area , just got to get it up . Looks like we will need to set up Hog Trap , saw new hog rooting in new farm area .Lake has come up about 6 feet and the fishermen are realy here , all boat ramps full , and im hering the fishing is real good . Leaveled out the milking loffing area and put more cement pavers down . It Shure is nice to get some more rain .

Projects for this year

* Contenue to , test making cheeses
* set up hoop green house
* grow vegys for are farm stand
* Grow bigger patch of surghum to make about 10 gallons surhup
* set up surghum mill
* train oxen to mill
* build new chicken house
* canning unsold vegys
* plow farm area with oxen
* set up 15 ft swimming pool with rain water catchment , back up water for garden
* set up garage for sales area
* build green house
* build fence around farm area
* log fire wood for next year out of forest with oxen
some of these are alraedy started or we have most of what we need to start them . What would realy help is some investores , partners , or others that see what im trying to set up here , a place of safty , well being and secquity of working together .

I made Some Lemon Cheese

Today i tryed making some Lemon Cheese , it was very ezy , Just 1/2 gallon Goat's Milk and 1 Lemon . It is very good , im realy looking forward to making sevral kinds of cheddar cheese , like jalapena cheddar , also i would like to make some wheels of monterey jack and parmesan . That will have to wait untell i sell all the baby bucks in about a month , then ill have lots more milk . Did some weeding on the carrits and roman lettice , those baby carrits are real good tasting and tender , Thanks Frank for planting them .

last of the girls to give birth

Poppy had 2 baby girls , so thats 5 girls and 6 boys for the year .

The Goat Rodio and my first cheese

Well training the goat for the milking parlor has been a rodio , but there gitting better . A few days ago i made some whole goat's-milk ricotta cheese and that was far out . the baby goats have been playing out in the pasture in this very nice spring like weather we are having now . The baby chickens are getting biger , and the layers started laying agean , all that warm weather we are gaving .

The Milk's here , So its Cheese Making Time

Theres 9 happy goat kids playing in the pasture , and the milk is here . So its time to learn to make cheese . I have been reading up on cheese making and looking at a few DVD's that i found on cheese making . Over the last few years i have been collecting the equiment i could find , stanless steel cheesepress , pots . cheese cloth , laddles and slotted spoons ,stainless steel cheese prep table, ext. ext. So i have most that ill need for that , now getting the milk in good order , up to now i have been milking outside in the dirt or rain and mud , trying to get the money to finish milking parlor , but the milks here , so im just going to have to go with what i have , and finish it later . This will be nice , milking indoors , no bugs , theres lights ,water , heat and soon A/C too . A dream coming true .

The Good And The Bad of the last few days

The twines had there babys , one had one , and the other tryed to have two at the same time and thay died and i had to pull them out . Poppy is very ready to have hers , maybe today.
Im going to sell the oxen , i dont have the feed for them and $10.00 a bale for grass hay is just to much , it hert but i need to feed the goats .

Another Wild Day ,,,,

Carmel had a baby , Star had a baby and little girl had 2 baby Goats today . I hauled 3 loads of leafs home , put one in the goat barn for cleaner badding . Im very tired , but got to go out in a few hours and feed a few bottles to a few babys . 4 more moms will be having there babys too , soon .

Yesterday , what a day ,,,,,,,,,

This morning i found a surprize in the goat pen , baby pumkin , that is not even a year old , having a baby , a baby girl . Thay are ok , but pumkin has no milk . So i went to town and got some Colostrum milk at the feed store . Got home and feed her , Then i got a call that a nabor had about a truck loud of leaves , that we need for the garden and the chickens . It tuned out to be 4 truck loads , but we need it , and im very tired . I went out to the barn to give another milk bottle to the baby , and could heir more babys criying , but not at the barn , way out in the nabors pastune , where the heard of goats is . The herd gets back by the time im finished feeding the baby , and i can steel hear babys in the pasture , so i walked over there and find 2 baby bucks , dryed off and ready to go home . Poppys doughter had them , but isent giving them milk , so i milked her , and feed the babys , then feed all the other animals . I cant tell you how tired i was then , but i went to bed after all that , this morning im steel feeling it .

Another Buitiful Day in are wild paridice

Augest 1 2011 ,it started off as a nice day , went to work at brookshine brothers in the produce depratment . About 2 hours later i stated filling bad and gitting worse . So i went to sabine hospital , where thay only did a bunch of test on me , for a bigger billing , then thay dident even treat me , or give me eny pain medicen , thay just call a abulences ,' more money . And sent me 2 hours to a bigger hospitle . I was there almost 2 week . Thank You Frank , For Frank was there to take care of everythang and to help me when i got home . Thank You Frank ,,,,,
Im feeling a lot better and getting ready for a biger better year . I have been ordering seed and a few more trees , clearing more of the farming area and burning the slash . All 9 girl goats are pregnent and well heve there babys in a few months . Also working on a fence around the farming area , or the wild hog well till it up after we plant it . After i got to feeling better Frank headed south to be with his ralitives for the hollidays and to help his Dad . We fineily got some rain , but to late for all the lone leaf pine trees we planted , thay all died and untell are drought is over im going to hold up on replant . The lake is starting to come up , but steel 11 feet down , i think the next nice day i may go fishing . This year im going to learn how to make cheese and may raise up another set of calf to tain as oxen ,with all the milk , it has been very hard to keep up with the cost of Feed . I was getting grass hay for $3.50 abale now its $10.00 . Im also working on setting up a farm stand that we can sell out of this year . So that we would have more eggs for salling i got another 25 pullits that will start laying this spring . Thay arived in the US mail and have grown out most of there feathers , so ill move them out of the brooder soon . A few people have wreton , but so far its just me here .

Garden and Seed Saving Updateand a Thank You

Hello I wanted to give an update on the state of the garden. Currently the garden is in a transitional phase. The items currently growing are bell and jalapeno peppers, watermelon, sorghum, asparagus and tomatoes. Garlic and potatoes have been harvested and are making excellent meal contributions, onions are done growing and are good to eat. The squash and zucchini had a tough time fighting the squash bugs and got pulled up but had provided some good food for the time they were going. We harvested the corn, carrots and beets and got them put up in the freezer. Some of the corn had been eaten by corn earworms but most of it was salvageable, next corn planting we will be more prepared to combat the worms. The heat and lack of rain has been taking it's toll, but at the same time showing which plants are more resilient to lack of water and forcing us to contemplate more efficient watering methods.

So now the garden work is focused on weeding and preparing plots for planting of pumpkins which Mike plans to have ready to sell for Halloween. We want to thank the visitors we had, Eli and her friend, for coming out and helping weed the garden, it was a big help! We also got a chance to pick peaches which Eli used to make a great pie. They were also nice enough to leave a generous donation, THANK YOU

I have the results of the seed germination test. So far about 5 of the romaine seeds sprouted, 13 of the mustard seeds and 2 of the kale. So this was out of 14 of each of the seeds showing 35.7% of the romaine sprouted, 92.8% of the mustard and 14.2% for the kale. I'll try the kale and romaine again to see if I can get a better germination rate.Allrighty I also harvested about half of the okra seed pods so far and got some sorghum seeds. Here's a few pictures of that, left to right, okra seeds and pod, okra seed up close, sorghum seeds. Thanks for reading, have a good day!