We finally lassoed September sixteen days later and embarked on the slaughtering, aging, and butchering of the largest animal we'd ever dealt with. Considering he was quite small, only weighing around 1,000 lbs (453.6 kg), it was a practice run for when we slaughter Youngbul next year, when he will weigh around 2,000 lbs (907 kg), insha'Allah. Al hamdulillah, we managed it and filled our 14 cubic foot freezer with around 500 lbs (226.8 kg) of our own organic, grass-fed, zabiha beef.
It was also a month of gradual harvesting, bringing in quantities of tomatoes, hot peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, melons, corn, etc. We made batches of green tomato chutney, tomato and chili jam, sweet relish, sauerkraut, dill pickles, sun dried tomatoes, strawberry jam, and more. Al hamdulillahi Rabbil aal ameen.
Preserving also extended to our dairy, as we had up to a gallon of raw cream each day. We shook it into butter, froze some, and made jars and jars of clarified butter and ghee for shelf stable storage. We also rendered tallow and suet from the lamb and steer we slaughtered, al hamdulillah.
Early October brought freezing weather, so we gathered up our little pumpkins, dug up our peanuts, and started harvesting our potatoes. Garlic was planted out and most of the garden was cleaned up and prepped for a long winter's rest.
By the end of October we finished replacing the nine old windows in our mobile home with new thermal pane ones. This has made a huge difference to the insulation of our home, alhamdulillah.
We added two more solar panels to our array to beef up the system prior to winter. We now have 500 watts serving our main battery bank, powering our freezer, fridge, and other general needs. We have 200 watts powering our living room battery bank, which is only used for charging phones, powering computers and lights, etc. We also moved the bank of panels out 100 ft (30.48 m) to an area in the garden to enable them to get uninterrupted sunlight all day, all seasons.
Early November we brought Daisy and Azalea back over to the animal corral. This makes milking much faster in the colder months and they have a barn for shelter in harsh weather. We also bought a new ram, who we've named Cyril the Magnificent, to service our four ewes.
We had a special order to bake a cake for a wedding celebration - a triple layered vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and strawberries. Al hamdulillah, it was enjoyed by all and we received a lovely thank you note.
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