Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!  This year we will be celebrating it away from the farm but I hope it will be a great one for everyone.  We will be celebrating it with my sister and BIL with me making my homemade spaghetti sauce and having a great Italian themed Valentines dinner together!  Have a great day and Happy Valentines Day!

Wine Storage

Where do you put a wine that you just bought the entire stock and there is not a wine cellar?  For George and Lisa it was a bit of a dilemma.  Since building their home they have been looking for just the right wine rack but have been unsuccessful until the past week end.  When they drove to the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area to pick up their wine they finally found the perfect wine rack.  It looks good and it will take care of their wine stock for quite a while.  Way to go!

A Sad Day At Francisco Farm

Francisco Farm or I should say George got some bad news the other day.  His favorite winery has shut down for good. George is particularly fond of one wine they make and with the winery closed for good George decided to see if he could get his favorite wine or what was left of it.  Eagle Springs winery opened in 2012 with a great tasting room and wine shop.  Their wines were very good and their specialty was the fruity wines.  I am not sure why they decided to close their doors for good but we are all a little sad.  George's favorite wine was Wildfire and he was fortunate enough to find the last 28 bottles available at a partner winery that is selling the Eagle Springs wine until it is sold out.  So George can enjoy his favorite wine while he looks for another wine to replace it.  I guess it is time to build a wine cellar!

Grilling Time???

I know it is still winter and February can be the snowiest month but it is never too early to think about grilling especially when the big grill at Francisco Farm has been repaired.  We had been using that grill all last summer until the middle of August when the burner and regulator decided it was done cooking.  We then moved to our little grill up at the RV.  George had to take apart the grill, figure out all the damages, order parts then fix it after the parts arrived.  The grill has now been fixed and is ready to start grilling.  Good thing too since the Francisco's just happen to have half a cow in their freezer!  Nice job George!

Quail Way Repairs

Quail Way has been repaired including the area around the mail boxes.  There was a lot of time spent in the area around the mail boxes for one very good reason, the ice rink in the winter had to go away.  During the winter months the entire area near and around the mailboxes was always a sheet of ice.  I don't know how our mail person was able to deliver the mail.  This also affected the end of Quail Way leading onto Barger Rd.  When the ice was there you had to almost come to a complete stop before the end of Quail Way just to make sure that when you turned onto Barger you were able to do it safely.  However, now that George created a drainage ditch the ice rink should not exist.  We won't know this until it gets cold enough which this winter at the farm has been a one day a week ordeal; maybe! Way to go George!

Gator Problems

What do you do when you have a bad Gator?  You fix it.  George and Lisa's Gator, a cross between a golf cart and a tractor decided to quit working. George and Lisa use it to get around the farm and for working around the farm. It is the first vehicle I ever drove up the hill.  It is a vehicle that is heavily depended on at the farm.  It would not start so George thought it was the battery but when he put a new battery in it still did not start.  He then took the starter to an auto parts store in town and they confirmed it was the starter and a rebuilt one was purchased and put back in the Gator.  When George was done the Gator started up and now it is ready to get back to work!

Half A Cow

Half a cow was delivered to the Francisco's at Francisco Farm.  They ordered half a cow from a local farmer that sells the cow at a "on the hoof" price per pound.  They got to choose what cuts of meat they wanted and how much of each.  The "on the hoof" price was $2.79 a pound and they ended up getting 235 pounds.  Of course "on the hoof" means half the cow, bones, fat, etc.  Once the cow is butchered the price and poundage of meat changes.  After butchering they received 163.22 pounds of meat which makes the price $4.02 a pound.  Which, compared with prices of beef in the store is not bad.  From the half cow they ended up with the following meat cuts: 67 lbs of ground beef, 15.5 lbs beef ribs, 3.5 lbs beef sirloin tip roast, 2.6 lbs beef arm roast, 3.5 lbs rump roast, 20.5 lbs chuck roasts,7 lbs sirloin steaks, 6.5 lbs T-bones, 6 lbs of porterhouse, 6 lbs of ribeyes, 16 lbs of stew meat, plus liver, soup bones and marrow bones.  They total price paid for the half cow was $655 and the total cost if they had purchase all of this meat at the store would have been $950 plus tax saving them over $360.  I guess we will be ordering some meat when we get back to the farm!