Thursday was VERY humid (90%+) and supposed to rain off and on. My helper friend was here and we were finally inventorying freezers. I needed to know how much butter I had left and strawberries. This would determine how much more butter to make, and how many strawberries to pick on June 16th when the PYO fields open.
We did the fruit and veg freezer first. It was pretty empty so we took everything out and made a note of it (item, size, date, quantity) and then put it back in an orderly manner. There were some old things that went to compost. I left room for some things (blueberries, beef stock) to bring what was left in the freezers at the barn to the house.
Then we tackled the meat freezer, doing the same thing here. This freezer was also getting empty and we’d be bringing all the remaining pork, beef, and chicken from the barn.
I did not clean either of these freezers this year. They will be emptied and moved to the freezer room sometime this year and I will do it then.
There are 3 freezers at the barn. The upright, only used it needed, has been empty for a while. This freezer, above, held stock and what I call “others” things, like chicken heads for the raptor rehab guy, chicken feet for another family, and at one time, pet food for a friend. But a lot of the stuff had been in here for a couple years, not picked up and it was getting sent to the dump.
Because of all this stuff in this freezer, it had not been cleaned in years. So this was the one we would do. It had a mess of frozen meat juice on the bottom and LOTS of ice buildup. All told, it took us 5 hours to complete the entire inventory job.
There’s another freezer adjacent to the one we cleaned. All that was left in that one was chicken stock, the chicken double vacuum sealed for 2020, and lots of hamburger. It didn’t get cleaned. That will happen when it moves to the house.
The inventory showed me that we don’t need a lot more blueberries (have 31 qts), just about 20 – 25 lbs of strawberries (have 14 qts) and we had 42 packages of butter left (we didn’t weigh it), so I think this week is the last week we will make butter, as we already have 14 lbs done.
I need a lot more vegetables but with the reduced garden this year, I will have to get them from the farm store where we have a market share. Next year, the gardens will be back in full production, and I will grow a year’s worth of all we need of vegetables.
The meat inventory showed we are still pretty good in all areas. With chicken, we have more than plenty and should probably not have gotten so many chicks. But they are all pullets and we might be able to sell them as started layers in the fall.
I have not inventoried the root cellar or the pantry. That can wait until another rainy day.
Here’s info about previous inventories:
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@goldenoakfarm/the-annual-freezer-inventory
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@goldenoakfarm/annual-june-inventory-june-21-2019-goldenoakfarm