November

We are now hauling the pumpkins back out to the field. It will be good to get the yard cleaned up and mowed one more time.

Mike checked the moisture of the non-gmo corn yesterday and it was still at 33%. We plan on picking it on the ear but still that is really wet. "Dry corn" is at 13%. Our hearts go out to the farmers who will have to pay lots of money to get their corn dried.

Our Turkey Sale and Open House (at our Farm and Geneva Winter Market) went extremely well. The weather was wonderful and everyone who came to the farm really enjoyed the animals.

One of our Turkeys was featured on a video on how to Brine andGrill a Turkey from Movable Feast in Geneva, IL. Chef Matt also bought other turkeys from us to serve! It is exciting to have a chef as a customer.

We now are trying to get our corn picked. We use our antique machinery and pick the corn "on the cob" and put it in a circle of snow fence as our "bin". The corn is extremely wet (still at about 23%) and picking it this way it can still "dry down". We will start shelling and using this corn soon for our animals.

Speaking of the animals...our gilts came home from being bred. The smallest Berkshire gilt is due Dec 23...guess what Cindee will be doing Christmas Eve!

October 15, 2009

Today we had 13 baby Berkshire pigs come to our farm. They weigh between 40-50 lbs each. Berkshire pigs usually have only 8 piglets per litter so this is a really big litter. We are very excited about our new arrivals.

Baby pigs are just like anyother baby, they need to be watched for the next several days to make sure they do ok coming to our farm. We check them each night to make sure they go to bed in their nice warm, straw filled huts. We also go out and start scratching thier backs so they get used to us. They are so funny at this age!

We picked up 4 newborn goats from the neighboring goat dairy today. They were born over the weekend, but the they kept them until we got done at the Autumn Drive in Marengo, over the weekend. These kids are soooo cute! They are Lamancha's so they have no long ears, just short ones. They are drinking well from a bottle. They were bouncing around when we checked on them.

Update October 25, 2009

The baby Berks are growing fast! They are so funny when they run! Our older Berks are still out on pasture. The pasture is a muddy mess because of all of the rain. We are going to bring those pigs up and put them in pens soon if it doesn't stop raining.

Every animal is still healthy inspite of the wet/rainy weather we have had.

We are now up to 8 baby goats from the Dairy. We have one all black one! This is the first black one we have ever had. They are all drinking really well out of the bottles. They are getting the milk from my does that I am still milking. (5) I'm milking once a day and we are getting 1 1/2 gals. What I don't use, I am putting it in the freezer and to feed the kids later!

Thank You for Saving our Meat Business

We here at R Family Farm would like to Thank each and every one of our customers for purchasing our Meat. By purchasing our meat either at the Farmers Markets or at our Store, you have all helped save our Meat Business. Animals take a huge amount of Feed and care and the costs are huge. Each one of you has helped us to be able to continue to raise our animals and be able to provide you with quality meat. We truly could not have been able to continue if it hadn't been for you. So, again, Thank You from the bottom of our hearts!