Agriculture Notes

After encouragement to advocate for Agriculture by posting ag related things daily on 'Social Media', I thought I would add the posts from Facebook on here. Just for your daily ag notes !!
I'll just put a few days worth in each post, and try to put a picture in once in awhile.

My contribution to being a voice for Ag. I just read and article in Progressive Farmer that encouraged everyone in Agriculture to spend 20 minutes a day informing the public. Maybe 2 minutes so y'all don't get bored : )



Friday - Today we sheared our sheep flock. The sheep do not have to die to have the fleece removed !! Shearing the sheep gives them a chance to be cooler in the coming warm days, we hope ! Plus we can inspect them eaier to see when they will lamb, l...ambs can find their meals easier, the ewes will seek shelter to protect them and their lambs when they are sheared. This is controversial as people who shear later in the year say the lambs just snuggle in the ewes fleece, sounds cozy !!


Plus, the wool gets converted into nice, warm yarn to be used to keep people warm. So there you have it, your lesson on the benefits of shearing sheep !!!
Comment from my friend Monica ...The rest of the story is if the ewes still have their fleece on when they lamb they don't give off body heat when the lamb lies next to them their fleece insulates them only. They also have no feeling in their fleece and are more likely to lay on their lambs thus accidentally increasing the mortaliy rate.Pretty interesting !!
Saturday - Ok, my ag moment for today started yesterday >> The broccoli, cauliflower and such is sprouting nicely in my countertop garden. They are planted a bit thick so I was thinning afew yesterday. As they piled up on the countertop, my thoughts were with the people of Japan...
It came to mind that sprouts of broccoli and such were first promoted as food from Japan and the Orient, which made me wish I had container ship loads of sprouts to send those people. But then, again, what do the sprouts taste like anyway, so I bit off a few of the leaf ends and ........ yum !!! A few bites of Cabbage sprouts, some celery and parsley, with a bit of onion sprouts on the side. My health food of the day. Pretty easy and quick food, relatively speaking.
 
Sunday - We have just broken several composting rules in the greenhouse !! 1. Add compost in the fall so it has time to breakdown. We just added it yesterday.2. Compost chicken manure for a long time before using. Just took the chickens out of the g...reenhouse last weekend.


This is the first time the chickens have been in the greenhouse, and the first time we've added compost in any great amount since we built it. I'll keep y'all posted !!!!!! Will anything grow ??
 
Monday - Ag moment of the day - While planting leek seeds today, i was struck that the plants to produce these seeds were started themselves 2 years ago. The leeks overwintered, then flowered the next summer, seeds collected at summer's end, cleaned, sorted, etc and packaged available for sale this year. That's some planning ahead !!