I am grateful not to be a large production farm. This year especially. However I do rely on the smaller farmsteads close to me to help feed my livestock.
Normally we can produce 80% of our food needs here on the homestead (that's human food needs) and around 55% of the small livestock's needs. However this year has been exceptional in the terms of loss. Meat isn't a problem, we have 100% of those needs met and have even superseded that. However when it comes to our fruit and vegetable needs, I only was able to save 1 1/2 pints of sweet corn, 3 cucumber, 2 zucchinis, and 12 acorn squashes. That doesn't go very far. The few carrots and spinach that didn't bolt, we ate as soon as they were dug up, and 1 basil plant and 1 mint plant thrived. We are finally getting yellow bell peppers and some hot and mild peppers that more than meets our needs, and the small tomatoes have changed to white. But this isn't enough to live on. (no edible weeds right now either)
My flour source is gone, as is my pumpkin farmer.
The cooler weather does help you think a bit more enthusiastically though.
The sunflower sprouted a bit randomly this year, but it will be enough to supplement our laying hens on for 4-6 months. (have yet to harvest them to know for sure.)
I haven't been able to milk since spring because of the drought. Without the fresh greens, my girls can not put on the weight they need to sustain themselves through the winter if I am taking the milk. I allowed them all to stay on calf, and gave them the freshest of cut hay I could.
I am hoping that next year things will get back to normal. This year has been a famine year. If I was unable to go to the grocery, things would be very bad for us. We could sustain ourselves on the few things I was able to harvest and the meats for only a bit. Then. . . it would only be meat for the duration of the winter.
I digress, I was going to talk about the crop losses. The estimates are out
We lost 36.4 million bushels of wheat. 137.9 million bushels of corn, sorghum 31.3 million bushels loss, 22.7 million bushels of soybean. They do not give me the estimates of feed, but looking at those numbers that are a typically irrigated crop and feed isn't, you can see where it may stand on losses.
3/4 of our state is still aggressively dry. I got my info from KSN>>>
I know, I have it better than my friends in Texas. And I do feel for you guys. And if you need a place to stay, ask. But Texas isn't directly effecting me right at this moment (though in the future it will) The losses here are. Winter has to have massive amounts of snow for us to be able to sustain a spring. Fingers crossed.
5 comments:
That's just ghastly news about the crops! And I understand what you mean about your own preservation of food - I know I feel much less comfortable if I don't have a lot of what I've grown stored away for winter. Hard times indeed - and we can be darn sure that prices for everything will be skyrocketing in the grocery stores....
Seems like having one year of food in the pantry isn't always enough. This summer drought was hard on us also. We're still not sure where we're getting our winter's supply of hay yet...I'm getting a bit worried.
I, too, am hoping and praying for better years to come!
II Chronicles 7:14
And here we are all flooded out in the northeast. Praying for better times for all of us.
Hi ! From Connecticut, long time lurker here.I just wanted you to know that the news out here barely mentions the drought and I don't think people get it . I think it's all due to what they want to report in the news. May be not to frighten the rest of the nation ??If I remember correctly about the Dust Bowl of 1921. people in the East really didn't know what was going on , till the dust cloud hit the east coast.I want thank you for continueing your blog, I feel your pain. History will describe this time as the depression nobody wanted to admit to. I read this blog to a number of people so that they get it .It was an eye opener All my best wishes Roxy
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