I am going to start sharing what we are doing on our farm. This has been a busy year for us so far. The bees are starting to increase their brood and spring is in the air. My husband officially retired AGAIN in May of 2021 so we are both working full time on the farm. We will be working with bees, Hereford pigs, and HONEYBGOODNESS products.
Let’s recap what happened in 2021 to bring you up to date on the Red Rock Ranch. I spent the year learning different techniques for lye soap. I absolutely love making lye soap and will be adding more lye soap to the website along with other new products.
Our bees kept us busy. We extracted 32 gallons of honey in July. Unfortunately, we did not get a fall crop of honey like normal. We have no clue what happened with the bees. There was plenty of rain, pollen, and nectar. We are hoping that 2022 will be a bumper crop for honey.
We started a new venture in raising Hereford pigs. A friend of ours, Kevin and Crystal Piper, gave us 3 Hereford gilts (unbred females) that were 10 weeks old. We named them Wanda, Harley Quinn, and Mystique. We are raising them on pasture and rotating the pigs every 10 to 14 days. We use single strand electric to define their paddock. They are allowed to be pigs. They dig in the dirt, roll in the mud, and eat all kinds of nuts and berries, plants and shrubs. Surprisingly, they really like to eat poison ivy. In November we artificially inseminated 2 of our 3 (Wanda and Harley Quinn) pigs that had their babies this month. Harley Quinn had 9 and Wanda had 10 babies. The babies are doing well and growing fast.