This weeks preps check-in

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@Duncan CongratuLations on the move! It sounds like it is a good one. Sorry I'm playing catch up here. You and your wife are going to love having that walk in pantry so close to the kitchen and it's great that you have already jumped into canning what is producing on your new property.
Thank you for your kind words! Having come here too late to do anything besides harvest fruit, we figured that rebuilding the garden for deep beds rather than the previous owner's row garden would be all we had to do until planting season. Not so! We have so many little fix-up chores -- in addition to building a 12 X 16 foot goat-shed -- that we're just as busy as ever, and hope we can get everything done in time to start the seedlings indoors.
Hopefully, by this time next year, we'll be a lot more ready and will have some time to relax over the winter.
 
Hey you just never know. We process deer and anything below in poundage ourselves too. The cows we take in to have someone else do it. I knew a so called prepper who took his chickens in to get butchered. I found that kind of funny.
Hey Danilgrl I resemble that remark. I took our meat chickens in for processing. Mainly because we're not set up to process our own yet.
 
The only time I have someone process deer is to make sausage. I've made my own sausage but the place I take it makes much better sausage than I do, and can process a lot more at a time than I can. I just got a half a freezer full last week from the hindquarters on a big buck. No way I could smoke that much sausage at once.

But other than that, I do all my own processing.
 
When I was cleaning the rabbits I raised I never really got used to the killing part. I did it, but can’t say I ever felt good or even at ease with it. The cleaning was pretty straight forwards though. I did a thread about it ages ago here with pictures of the process. So far that’s the biggest thing I’ve done. I could definitely see taking a cow or other large animal to be done professionally though. To set up a place just to handle the size and weight would take a lot of investment.
 
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My office is starting to take shape! I still have lots of bookshelves from the free cabinets I got recently to bring in too. It will really be nice to finish the flooring as my knees don’t like this kind of work much anymore! Halfway done on that part now.
 
Hey you just never know. We process deer and anything below in poundage ourselves too. The cows we take in to have someone else do it. I knew a so called 0430034 who took his chickens in to get butchered. I found that kind of funny.
Hey Danilgrl I resemble that remark. I took our meat chickens in for processing. Mainly because we're not set up to process our own yet.
:p I had to bust out laughing. I didn't even have you in mind but now that You mentioned it, that does ring a bell.
 
Thank you for your kind words! Having come here too late to do anything besides harvest fruit, we figured that rebuilding the garden for deep beds rather than the previous owner's row garden would be all we had to do until planting season. Not so! We have so many little fix-up chores -- in addition to building a 12 X 16 foot goat-shed -- that we're just as busy as ever, and hope we can get everything done in time to start the seedlings indoors.
Hopefully, by this time next year, we'll be a lot more ready and will have some time to relax over the winter.
That is always the case. You live at a new place for a little bit and you figure out rather quickly what works, what doesn't and what you want to make diffwrent. I guess we were lucky when we moved here. It was basically a clean slate. Except for the houses and a shop everything else has been added.

When we did our goat barn we used refurbished galvanized tin for the roof and siding. When we put up the addition we used old garage door panels. If you have a place near you that sells garage doors, talk to them about getting the old panels. They will most likely let you have them for what they get from the scrape metal yard. Here it was $8 a panel and I think they were 12 ft long. They hold up well with high winds like a hurricanes if they are wind rated. Even put in the windowed panels on each end to let light in.
 
Actually I knew a guy who had a portable butcher shop on wheels. He would go around the county to butcher people's animals for them.
We have a farm kill truck come up to butcher our pigs. My brother in law has a farm kill truck too but he lives in another State.
Eventually I plan on building a small butcher shop for processing the chickens and wild game. For the pigs and beef I'll call the guy.
 
We got the propane connected to the house today. The furnace is on so we have heat in the house now. Still can't find anyone to hang the drywall yet. The wood stove will be hooked up later this week. I need to start looking for a big chunk of walnut or oak for the mantle. The builder started putting siding on the house today. The redwood for the deck was delivered last week. The house will have about a 1,000 sqft of redwood deck on 3 sides. We're hoping to have the house finished by mid March, before the road turns to mud.
 
We have a farm kill truck come up to butcher our pigs. My brother in law has a farm kill truck too but he lives in another State.
Eventually I plan on building a small butcher shop for processing the chickens and wild game. For the pigs and beef I'll call the guy.
Pigs are really not that hard. Once they get over 300 we will send off though. The little ones are not an issue. Basically cut in 6 parts for the pit for the majority. The head will always get saved for head cheese, sausage or scrapple.
 
We got the propane connected to the house today. The furnace is on so we have heat in the house now. Still can't find anyone to hang the drywall yet. The wood stove will be hooked up later this week. I need to start looking for a big chunk of walnut or oak for the mantle. The builder started putting siding on the house today. The redwood for the deck was delivered last week. The house will have about a 1,000 sqft of redwood deck on 3 sides. We're hoping to have the house finished by mid March, before the road turns to mud.
I haven’t seen any redwood around for a number of years now. Beautiful stuff but scarce around here. You can usually find guys with the portable saw mills and find good mantel material.
 
Getting some more oak flooring installed right now. (Got tired and decided to break for this for a few minutes). I will have 3/4’s of it done in an hour or so! Looking forwards to moving on to installing the bookcase and two closets on each side of it. This room should have been finished 10 years ago. Oh well, better late than never....
 
I haven’t seen any redwood around for a number of years now. Beautiful stuff but scarce around here. You can usually find guys with the portable saw mills and find good mantel material.
Yeah redwood is getting hard to find, and very expensive too.
There's a couple portable mills around here buy I'll have to go out of the area to find a walnut or oak log. I'd like to find a timber out of an old barn that's already been seasoned.
 
Yeah redwood is getting hard to find, and very expensive too.
There's a couple portable mills around here buy I'll have to go out of the area to find a walnut or oak log. I'd like to find a timber out of an old barn that's already been seasoned.
I remember a guy trying to sell me reclaimed boards from an old place. It was well worn chestnut, with holes and damage from the removal. I was interested until he said it was three times the cost of new flooring. I’m really into repurposed materials, but not when it’s more expensive than new.
 
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Yeah, flooring is finally done and I installed the last of the cabinets that I got from my sisters remodeling. That’s just the last of the ones used in this room anyways, I still have enough to deck out my laundry room too, but that will be the next project. I’m really glad she decided to remodel! This was a lot easier than building from scratch and these were free. I will make a closet unit on each side of this cabinet and will share my office with the master bedroom. Done working for the day now and will enjoy some of the muscadine wine now!
 
That floor looks superb, BrentS!

I went out to see a lovely wee property yesterday: ~800 sq.ft. bungalow, full-footprint loft with lighting and about half floored, wood burner; 3.6 kW output solar panels that brings a bit of income from feeding into the national grid; hen run, small summer house, mostly south-facing garden, raised beds, greenhouse with established grape vine, small but well-established top-fruit orchard, shed with storage on one side and second hen/goat house on the other, space for a humanure compost heap. Comes with plenty of split wood and trunks ready for splitting - and no problems getting more in Dumfries and Galloway!

It's on a rutted track with an agricultural farm at the far end, so I'd need a landrover or similar. I'd need to work on the loft and the garden, but the house doesn't need a lot of work other than redecorating - right now, it sports some of the most startling wallpaper I've ever seen!
 

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