At Least I Got Some of the Barn Cleaned

It was a really dreary day today. Rained all night off and on, was kinda on the cool side with the high only in the low 50's and we never saw the sun at all. I had reached an impasse on putting stuff away for the Winter because everyone else always chooses to fill the empty spots with crap during the Summer months. Of course they don't clean up after themselves so if I was going to get all my mowers, tillers, and tools put away for Winter it was up to me to reclaim my spots.

On the plus side there was almost no wind today. This is an atmospheric condition that seems to be unheard of around the Small-Hold during daylight hours and I took full advantage of it to get rid of some old posts and branches I had piled up and also rid myself of the stack of feed sacks that had accumulated.

I managed to clean the entire front half of the barn and go through some piles of junk that had been sitting there rusting and rotting for decades. Used the cracked rain barrel as an electric fencepost holder and found a motherload of electric fence accessories too. Tossed out old paint cans, empty fly spray bottles and made room for all my machines. Along with that I tossed four plastic lawn bags of old wool on the fire as well.

Speaking of wool. After my mother sold the first few fleece word of mouth spread and she managed to unload pretty much all of it she had stored. All that was left was some old stuff and miscellaneous pieces that were of no value but it does burn nicely. I may have to re-evaluate the wool sales part of the sheep business if she keeps it up.

We were suppose to sort the sheep out today but after the rain the parents didn't want to mess with it. Not that I blame em actually since we still have plenty of time to get the girls in with the rams. The Rams however are not being very patient about the whole thing and the girls I have up here are also becoming much more interested in the Rams as well. They are teasing em through the fence and hanging out where as last week the grass was infinitely more interesting than the Rams.

Won't be long now though we will have them divided up into three groups by this weekend.

The Persimmon Butter experiment was a complete fail too. I came in this evening after all the chores were done and started trying to peel the Persimmons and only managed to get about two cups of good cut up fruit. The vast majority of the Persimmons I picked were entirely too ripe and nothing but mush inside. The peels wouldn't separate from the meat and the seeds were almost impossible to get out. I simply waited too long to pick them. I tried waiting until we had a hard freeze but I think I should have started picking them when they first started dropping off the trees.

Even the mushy fruit tasted good though if maybe a bit over ripe. I could have tried simply mashing them all by hand with the peals still on but I just ate the good ones and put the rest in my compost pile. There's always next year.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!