Making a Homestead Work...

There are always tough decisions that have to be made when you are trying to keep your property and animals going. This year we had to make a lot of those decisions when it came to the goats. We sold 3 of our adult goats over the last week, and all of our kids except our 3 keepers. We still have 3 kids from our sister herd here to sell, but other than that I think the selling is done for now. We sold our big horned buck, Tucker...he's been here since he was a bottle baby and gave us many wonderful kids. We sold Nikki, Ben's goat...Ben is moving on with his life and has no time for her, and she just didn't fit into our breeding plans. And we also sold my dear Blessing. I kept a daughter from her this year, and had to decide where we are going with our herd. Blessing was not only beautiful, she was a good milker...but it was time for her to move on and be a good milker for another family. It has been a hard week.

Both of Faith's kids sold, which means we are now getting between 9-10 pounds of milk from her per day. She's the only one that was nursing kids. With selling Nikki and Blessing we are down to 4 milkers now. We still have Annie the llama taking 6 bottles/day....and 5 kids on 3 feedings/day and 7 kids on 1 feeding/day. We have not yet had any milk for us...but we are getting close!

Our pigs are doing great. Butterfly (the girl), is a bit smaller, but she is younger and also a girl.

And then Sirloin (the boy)....he mostly roots and eats...then he takes a nap, scratches and roots and eats more....what a good little piggy!I also got another meat bird into the freezer.... we are down to just a handful left....
And Rebekah and I starting making sausage with the venison from last Fall. Today we made 10 rolls of Summer Sausage, which will go into the smoker tomorrow..... Doesn't she look thrilled?
Once we grind and season the meat, it has to be hand stuffed into the casings. We don't have a stuffer with the sized orifice needed for summer sausage...so we hand stuff them.
They will stay in the fridge tonight and go into the smoker tomorrow.
We also made some "slim jims" ... snack sticks. These are venison/beef mixture and they are so good that I never tell anyone when we are making them.
They look so bad...since I don't buy sheep casings, we just hand roll them....
And they bake on a very low heat for a long time until they look like this....
And OH MY are they ever good! They just scream for a sharp cheddar complement and wow! They will keep vac sealed and in the freezer until the goat cheese is ready!