In November on the farm, we harvested the last of the garden produce, winterized the livestock shelters, and harvested meat animals. It was not as busy as previous months.

November on the Farm – gardens

We harvested our sweet potatoes but waited too long (after a few light frosts), and much of the crop had water rot. It was disappointing, but my husband’s work schedule didn’t allow him to dig them up sooner and I am not one to dig up the compact soil. Our boys did help Joey dig the rows up; it’s not very fun when the soil is wet and hard.

We have enjoyed many meals of sweet potatoes, but they are not storage quality. There are enough sweet potatoes for one last meal from the garden. We still have some carrots in the ground, but they should be okay. They will be pulled as we need them.

My husband and children took down our temporary cross-fencing since we are not putting the goats out to pasture until spring. It is nice to have everything open – from the gardens to the nut/fruit orchards. The Livestock Guardian Dogs love having access to every area, too.

Preparing for Winter

We had our first snow of the season in November! The livestock (pigs, goats, chickens, and rabbits) are snug as a bug for the winter.

Our main (oldest) rooster and laying hens are in the enclosed milk barn for the winter. We have a couple of roosters in the woods. My husband and boys culled several roosters and our oldest hens for the freezer.

The goats are in the forest for winter with two sheds as shelter until the kidding season next spring. They like having the entire forest for themselves (besides a couple of roosters).

There are still five pigs in the milk barn, but Joey will be culling them over the next month. We do not plan to continue raising pigs at this point.

Meat rabbits: Three of our children have a total of five adult rabbits between them and they plan to continue breeding them – it’s a good homeschool project for them.

I roasted several pumpkins in our wood stove oven in November and pureed the flesh for baking. So, I made two pumpkin pies from scratch for Thanksgiving and put a couple of quarts of pureed pumpkin in the freezer.

It is the season of wood stoves, baking in the wood stove oven, and enjoying the fruits of our labor. And, it is the season of power outages and candlelight, but we are more prepared each year.

I hope you enjoyed reading about November on the farm! I am praying you are safe and warm through the winter!