southernfriedwiccan
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Registered: 09-2005
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A Rough Summer
Well Hi all I am back. It has been a really rough year so far and I hope with all my heart that it is over.
First in SW VA here it has been one of the wettest years I can remember..ever, which caused much of the problems.
With all the rain we could not get into the garden to work, so the weeds won out and we only managed to get some green beans, yellow squash, cucumbers, a couple of zuchinni, and sugar pumkins from it. On top of that I could not keep the coop or barn dry. We had two outbreaks of Cocsydia(sp.) The first was in the chickens. We began losing them so we decided the best thing to do was to let them out of the coop onto less mucky ground. Then the possums, coons, and foxes had a buffet and we lost what was left in three nights. The second outbreak was in the goats and we lost all 4 kids and our youngest mother. Needless to say it was not an easy summer in homesteading.
Finacially things are not good either The rain cut back alot of my hours at work, then I get the word that overtime is also cut. This after two years of not getting any sort of pay raise, and ever increasing bills has got us on a slippery slope.
We have had to do some serious re-evaluating of our lives and our goals. First I have to get a second job for the winter if we are going to make it at all. We have also decided to back away some on our totally organic(well majorly organic) homesteading ideas. For instance, if the garden gets over run by weeds and is not producing and I do not have the time to manage it for what ever reason, then what good is it? So herbicide the damn weeds. It also means cutting back onsome homestead activities, such as not adding any new livestock for awhile, and selling off any new females, ewes and does next year. Rams will all be going into the freezer, and any bucks may or may not. They may get sold off as new sires to other flocks.
Overall the idea now is to back up some and try to hold what ground we have.
I am trying to remain optimistic. I am trying to hope that this will end now and can say it was a bad year. I am glad though when I hear news of people planting gardens and starting backyard chicken flocks because it is cheaper, or what ever reason. I am glad to seepeople getting off the teet of the government and consumeristic ideals and getting onto things that are more sustainablean simple. It just saddens me that it takes a near economic disaster to do it. As an nation(and I mean the USA) we have gotten to far away from those supposed independant, self reliant ideals that this country was born into. What happened?
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Bobby
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9/29/2009, 9:16 am
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Firlefanz
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Location: Germany
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Re: A Rough Summer
Hi Bobby, welcome back.
I'm sorry to hear you had such a rough summer. I hope you can land a winter job to ease the worry.
*sends good luck* 
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9/29/2009, 1:28 pm
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TexasMadness
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Location: Austin, Texas
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Re: A Rough Summer
Hi Bobby, we had a rough summer too! Ours was due to LACK of rain though. Sometimes things just don't even out, huh?
Ick, cocci is horrible. It can really wipe through your livestock. Even if you do get treatments under way, you wind up with animals that are hindered for their entire lives because of the damage to the intestine. So sorry to hear about the losses. We had our share of coon attacks as well this year. That's not a fun scene to wake up to. 
But alas, there is always next year! You always learn and grow even when the season really does you in. It's good that you are looking at ways to hold on and change instead of doing the same things that might not have worked if you have another wet year.
Here's to you sending us some of that rain next summer!
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9/29/2009, 8:46 pm
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