Farm Happenings-the South Texas Version

October is here with no rain in sight. This is fall is shaping up to be a hot one. We see and hear of flooding and devastation from all these floods in the past 12 months, but as farmers/ranchers-we pray that rain comes our way. It is difficult to fathom that rain means life and growth for us, but for so many others, it has meant death and tragedy. But, God is good.

  We recently had a fire on the property right next to ours one evening. We were all outside that evening (first time in a long time), right before dusk when we saw smoke in the sky-was it smoke or was it dust? Sometimes hard to tell with the dirt roads.

  Zach and our youngest son go to check it out and sure enough, a good size fire moving very slowly through the pasture. Lots of dry matter for this fire to burn through, but there was no wind at that time. Fire department was called-Zach made it very clear that there was no water, and this fire was in a pasture.  They responded right away-we are very blessed to live right down the road from the Fire Department.

  First truck comes out with fire retardant-he sees the fire and radios in 2 more trucks because he realizes a situation like this could turn fast. He is able to get most of the fire out before the 2nd truck arrives, and the second truck is the brush control truck- they make sure that the whole area will not reignite. They went around the whole area multiple times spraying everything down.

  As soon as the fire was out, the wind picked up significantly. If we would not have been sitting outside, only God knows where that fire would have made it to. We know for sure our broiler houses would have burned down because they sit right on the other side of where the property is and in the path of the fire.

   The fire was started by some contractors welding that did not take into account the environment which they were welding in. The fire smoldered for a few hours before igniting into a full blown fire.

Both ourselves and the chickens are looking forward to cool mornings and afternoons. It is such a wonderful time of year where all the animals can enjoy grazing and eating all day long.

And, we have a small chicken restock that just went live on the website. Check it out if you have been in need of our pasture raised poultry. We are hoping to be fully stocked in December without any gaps in inventory.