Brrrrr ....

And I'm supposed to consider what seeds to buy??

I'm thinking snow puppies not corn beans or cabbage right now

Drought Conditions

Well the government has FINALLY put out a list of states which are in severe drought .... Amazingly enough - they are all states which <i>might </i>possibly switch in the House from Dem to Repub ... I'm totally serious!

There are 11 states on the Primary Natural Disaster list:

<blockquote>• Colorado

• New Mexico

• Nevada

• Kansas

• Texas

• Utah

• Arkansas

• Hawaii

• Idaho

•Oklahoma

•California

</blockquote> 

Now there is a bill that is going to be entered into the Californian state house/senate to split that state into 6 separate states as well (LA, SF, north, 2 middles, south) -- don't blame them, I wouldn't want to cover the unemployment/wLfare for LA either {something like 70% of their population gets some sort of funding}

Any how -- back to the Natural Disaster Zone ...

This means that producers WHO QUALIFY will be eligible for low interest rates ... But the small farmer who took the biggest hit, probably won't though because they don't qualify ...

Hmmmm, and as much as farmers like to think they are "independent", the bigger they are the more they rely on insurance & government money ... Honestly

Although there are plenty of states in the "watch" area ... The only states which get the status are those which might flip come fall elections ... I'm telling ya!

52% of the US is in some form of drought right now

In CA alone, 62-63% of the state is D3, or second worse, drought .... they say (AGDay) that only 1% of the state is actually free from drought of any level ... Wow ...

Texas is pretty bad too, 38% is poor/above poor ... Expect flour prices to go up yet again .... I'm guessing they are learning the importance of hurricanes/tropical storms right now

All this means FIRE WARNINGS like you wouldn't believe ... We will have to see what happens next ...

Sorry I got a bit political here ... But I thought it was rather interesting ...

Bad News, Worse News

Well my chickens are about 1 year old ... yay!!!!!

I need to think of killing all but one of them ... BOOOO!!!!

Why? You might ask ...

Because the bit ties have taken to EATING THEIR EGGS! 

I thought it was just the Reds but today ( well "yesterday" I suppose if you want to be technical but I haven't been asleep yet so to ME it's still today) .... When I gathered eggs I heard a loud tapping in one of the nesting boxes ... I opened the door to find a Red AND a Leghorn going after the same egg!

SOB!!!!

That is $ out of our pockets!

Birds cost $3 each ... Eggs sell for $3/doz wholesale .... I don't see an issue with slaughtering them AFTER we have a newly established flock

OR OR or it could be just that they are getting stir crazy from being trapped inside with the latest cold snap -- we don't let them out unless its above 20F

I wanted to get 6 - 8 Blue/green egg layers (sometimes they throw a pink egg) but I may have to rethink that ... 

Because Blue & Green eggs are So rare in the market I think I can get $5/doz wholesale ... But I still want to have some white & brown eggs too

I have got to figure out a way to stop these birds from eating their eggs!

 I've read that putting FRESH evergreen/pine needles in the boxes is supposed to help ... Makes sense to me ... I wouldn't eat anything that tasted like PineSol either, even though I love the scent of it.

I'm willing to give it a try but I don't know how well they will do with the heat lamps in there

Interesting ....

I just heard on the weather that 67% of the continental US is covered with snow

Included are states like:

TX (stovepipe and to Dallas-Fortworth)

NV (not Vegas, I guess, too warm there)

NM (top half)

AZ (top half)

LA bit of the upper corner)

MS (smidge of the upper corner)

AR (all of it)

TN (most of it)

NC (back edge of it)

CA (top 2/3 of state by the looks of it)

All the way up both coasts 

WOW - that's quite a bit of snow!

Arkansas has MORE snow than we do in MN right now ... At least south of The Lake Superior coastline .... They had like 22 inches in Duluth and nearly 3 foot farther north

It has been below zero ALL DAY where we are and wind chills were in the double digits below zero!

I was lucky to get eggs before they froze ... 8 and only lost one when it cracked as it warmed up to house-temp ... I let them acclaim ate before putting them in cold water to warm up hoping they won't split

Average temp this time of year? 26°F in my area

It's supposed to he 0°F right now and getting warmer, high tomorrow is supposed to be 12F .... We will see.  We are expecting snow as well.

Oh the chicken coop temp?

About 20F where the thermometer is (above 6ft)

My poor birds

We are expected to get back into the teens above on Thursday so maybe I'll let the birds out then to play in the snow ... The poor things

Brrrrrr ..... But It's Gonna Get Worse

Here's what it's like here in MN ...

Bright and sunny ...

Not too windy ...

And at 9:45 am CST the WeatherBug said this:

I guess that wind picked up after I got back in from gathering eggs ...

Brrrrrrrrrrr ....

The ladies want out of the coop ...

But I'm thinking not before it gets out of the single digits ....

We've got TWO heat lamps in the coop right now trying to stay ahead of the cold

I've gotta get the date/time feature fixed on that camera .... I took this last night ... 

We have been getting FROZEN and CRACKED eggs quite a bit lately ... We had hoped that the heat lamps would keep the coop warm enough to prevent the eggs from freezing .... I guess not

Bummer

MEN!!!

So Rainbow Foods has 5# potatoes, 2# carrots, & bags of onions on sale for 99¢ today ( sale started Thursday, to be fair) so hubby went to get me some ... NO LIMITS!

I texted him that 10 bags of each would be nice .... I'm the crazy canning lady, you know ... 

He came back with only 1/2 as much as I wanted ... Well less than half really since he got me 25# of potatoes, 8# carrots, 4 bags of onions ... 

He said he didn't want to buy as much as I wanted because he'd have to buy more canning jars then .... I told him no:

potatoes get done first they would HAVE to be canned to last ...

Carrots can be frozen if need be, easy enough to do ...

Onions can be set into a dark bin to last the wintertime if they must .... But 30¢ a pound was just too good to give up ...

He rolled his eyes ... So I guess these will have to do for now

FOLLOW UP:

Didn't can any of it ... They didn't last long enough

The potatoes lasted about a week or so - my family loves potatoes 

Carrots lasted about 2 weeks, my kids like them a lot too

Those onions? Well I've still got a COUPLE of them ... Not a couple of bags, just a couple of onions .... But that's because I found a big 10# bag that had gotten moved into a spot they didn't belong {kids!}

Oh well ...

It's December and the forecast for food prices is getting awful ....

But we will be okay ... I've stocked up on dehydrated food 

:-D

😈

Not in MY State!

Okay NatAG report is out ... Boy are their numbers off for my state ....

Corn____________________Soybeans

13.8 Billion Bushels_______ 3.15 Billion Bushels

((UP 1% from Aug))________((DOWN 3% from Aug))

=========================

155 Bu/Acre____________ 41.2 Bu/Acre

((Harvested acres for both were unchanged since Aug))

We grow corn here ... Sweet corn ... We had a LATE planting -- didn't go in until June 15th or so ... We got <b>0</b> corn this year!

It tasseled at 2foot and didn't put out a single ear ... The deer and raccoon are not happy with us at all

Only we have is a bumper crop of WEEDS! (Since they are the oh thing that can survive lack of rain and 90F heat waves in Sept ... although I'm hoping I've got some pie pumpkin & squash hiding amongst them that will show in the next couple of weeks ... I hope I hope I hope

And it's not just MN ... The owner of the cabin next to my in-laws in WI is a Professional farmer (its all he does and he grows for Green Giant) ... He's got a LOT of average {of course to me 5 acres is a lot and he must have at least 50 or 10X that } ... he says the crop is just AWFUL this year!  and it's a good thing he has the dairy too [but his son runs that] ... Holy Cow! He says his soybeans have hardly nothin' in the pods

Most of the corn numbers came from:

SD

NE

KS

LA

MS

AL

GA

SC

NC

TN

But not MN/WI/IA ... Expect our production to be lower with all this whacky weather, I'm telling you