Prep of The Day Thread

Dunno. I can't see my breath though. Maybe 40-45F And there's about 8" of straw hand hay I gave her this week to nest in.

I have a plant nursery warming pad in here under about 4" of straw as an interim. My heat lamps are in the other hut because my other Sow Smudge popped 6 days ago. I gotta go get two more lamps once she's done ejecting them.
 
Got 7 healthy piglets. 2 still borns. Fed her some warm chicken broth diluted in 4 parts warm water which she happily drank. Taking a shott nap then I'll get heat lamps in there. Left the garden nursery silicone heating pad in there for now with fresh straw on top. They are good to go for a few hours.

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Christian said:
Just a heads up @Cowgirlup, the Mountain House site still has the November Veterans Day sale up with cheaper pricing(didn't check everything though) if you've got any spare scratch left over.
mountainhouse.com

Military Rations

Authentic Meal, Cold Weather (MCW) rations we make for the United States Armed Forces. Formerly known as Long Range Patrol rations or LRP’s (often confused with the military MRE), rarely are these genuine military meals available in the civilian market.
mountainhouse.com mountainhouse.com
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If I'm wrong let me know but if you open a large can of goods, how long is it good for ?
 
71montess said:
If I'm wrong let me know but if you open a large can of goods, how long is it good for ?
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I've yet to open one up but if I, for some reason didn't use it all in one go, would just repack(vacuum seal) the unused portion.

If you don't end up using it all MH states to just chuck it into the freezer and treat it like you would anything else(I'm guessing if all of it was rehydrated).
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I've lost 4 of the 7. Not to cold but to crush injury. We inslated the culvert and I installed infrared lights.

I need to build new, dedicated farrowing huts in the spring. Probably with a human fold out bunk platform so we can take shifts for the first 48hrs to limit crushes. Some painful learning lessons for our first litters.

On the culling side, we processed 68lbs of breakfast sausage today. Italian sausage work tomorrow night, i think about 35lbs. We also got 32lbs of bacon and ribs. I haven't weighed the hams yet. Pretty good for how early we harvested those two. I have preferred to go two more months, but just not possible with the new litters.
 
The three remaining for Blueberry made it through the night and were not shivering when I checked on them at 6am despite it being 2F at my house. I noticed they scurried to the corner near the infrared when she stood up so they appear to have learned.

The three Smudge had are doing fantastic. They have visibly gotten larger and stouter in the week since they were born.
 
Drew up plans with the wife for new farrowing cabins. Finished all of our sausage processing. 111lbs and 179lbs total meat from the two 7-ish month olds. Would like to have gone 9 months and gotten more meat, but a decent haul given the piglet births necessitating the cull.
 
xtry51 said:
Got my Ham call sign from the FCC today
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[thumbsup]
Explode Freak Out GIF by Instacart
 
Palladin said:
anyone been storing bread flour???

If so, where do you get it in bulk? or are you just buy 5lb bags and store from there?
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Probably easier to just use 5lb bags, vacuum sealed (food saver) and keep a couple in the freezer.

I have a high quality grain mill (manual or motorized) and lots of wheat. Easier to store wheat long term in nitrogen purged, 7 mil mylar bags in buckets with O2 absorbers.

I've cut my consumption of breads and such over the past few years so I don't prioritize the wheat anymore, but it's there if needed.

Bulk sales: https://shop.honeyville.com/shop-by-category/bakery/flour.html
 
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Palladin said:
anyone been storing bread flour???

If so, where do you get it in bulk? or are you just buy 5lb bags and store from there?
Click to expand...
I have a couple of cases of flour got from the Bishop's storehouse in Worcester. A case costs $37.
Each case has 6 #10 cans. Each can holds 4 lbs of flour.
The can says that the shelf life is 10 years. It also says that you should empty the can and air out the flour for a couple of days before using it.
The oxygen absorbers in the can give the flour an off odor.

They also sell cans of wheat, that have a shelf life of 30 years, but I have read that wheat will store indefinitely if you keep it dry.
I have a few cases of wheat, but I haven't yet purchased a mill.
 
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I just did the math on the flour.

Bishops storehouse---- $1.54 per pound
Market Basket-------------$.40 per pound-----$2.00 for a 5 pound bag.

I think it would be worthwhile to do what xtry51 did, you would save quite a bit.
 
clampett said:
I have a couple of cases of flour got from the Bishop's storehouse in Worcester. A case costs $37.
Each case has 6 #10 cans. Each can holds 4 lbs of flour.
The can says that the shelf life is 10 years. It also says that you should empty the can and air out the flour for a couple of days before using it.
The oxygen absorbers in the can give the flour an off odor.

They also sell cans of wheat, that have a shelf life of 30 years, but I have read that wheat will store indefinitely if you keep it dry.
I have a few cases of wheat, but I haven't yet purchased a mill.
Click to expand...
Reminds me to pull a couple cans and use them.
I typically buy the 5lb bags of whatever is on sale and vacuum seal them. I don't keep a huge amount because it doesn't store forever and we don't bake a lot now.
Just what I do.
 
I just hand spread (with a shovel) 2 twenty-five pound buckets of fertilizer I had stored....unfortunately in buckets with non gasketed lids. They aspirated moisture and it made kind of a mess but the stuff will still work as intended.

I thought about putting it in an IBC tote and filling it up with water then drizzling it from the valve but my fields are way to soft to be driving the tractor on, especially with the weight of a couple of hundred gallons of water on the forks.

I have some that is in gasketed lid buckets that was put away at the same time, same location....the product is still as new.

Uline gasketed bucket lids are worth the price.......this incident proves it.

The part of the hay field I put it down on should be deep green in a couple of weeks.

Live and learn.
 

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