A Shift from Sheep to Counting Cows
Sheep have been part of Weise Farms for many years. And after prayerful consideration, we made the decision that it was time to devote all of our time to Wagyu beef. Fortunately, a very nice family in a nearby community was looking to buy sheep and it seemed like the perfect fit.
We miss the sounds they make, but we are already utilizing the pastures for grazing calves. And with all of the rains this year, the grass is greener than ever.
Speaking of, We just hauled a nice looking calf to harvest on Sunday, and we have another harvest date coming up on June 26. So if you are in the market for a half beef, let us know. The cost is currently $7.50 per pound hanging weight, which includes processing.
It's that time of year when the garden is ready for harvest. Picking, canning, freeze-drying and preserving are daily activities. We made 30 half-pints of peach jelly last week, with more peaches ripening daily. Peach jelly is easy enough, but it takes lots of time to pick, blanch, peel, and dice up the fruit before cooking it down to make jelly. As always, we make some for ourselves and then offer a few jars for sale.
We also made a very small batch of mulberry jelly this week. I'll be happy when our mulberry trees are large enough to produce bigger batches, but for now we will enjoy these few jars and share one or two with our kids and their family. Hopefully next year we'll have enough for The Shelf and some to take to the Farmers Market.
More peaches will be ready soon. Peach jelly is my personal favorite. We also plan to make dewberry jelly. They all pair really well with our biscuit mix. I'm thinking we'll offer a bundle pricing on that in the next few months.
Each Spring we make about 100 quarts of pickles. Last year we sold completely out. If the weather cooperates, we hope to increase that amount this year, but the heavy rains have caused the garden all sorts of problems. Being too wet is harder to overcome than being too dry. With more rain on the way, we just have to take each day as it comes. We'll let you know if and when we have some available.
Last year we had enough fresh garden vegetables for all of the canning and preserving we needed, and plenty to sell for others to enjoy fresh. I hope we are blessed with enough to spare again this year, but only time will tell if the overly wet Spring followed by the up and coming Texas heatwave will be more than the garden can bear. Pun intended. God's blessings to all of you and thank you for being part of our journey.
