Dog Days...

Summer seems to be winding down here, with some mildly cooler temperatures, and not quite the seemingly constant pressing need to get something else done. Though my "to-do" list never seems to be any shorter. 

 The latest big accomplishment has been a little more progress on the barn restoration project. Finally we have gotten the front side of the barn resided. The project took a good month of weekends because there were only a few hours I could work on it in the morning before the sun started shining on the work area making it unbearable to work there. This fall I hope to get the North side finished as well. Then I can focus on some minor floor repairs in the loft area. Then we hope to have some simple furniture up there to hang out, read , or  watch over the field as the sun sets and the deer move in for their evening grazing ritual, hopefully some day they will be replaced by some sheep or a couple beef cows ! 

Before: Summer 2010

After: Summer 2012

The poultry flock has been blessed with little problems from predators this summer. This improved a lot after one neighbor with a chicken killing dog moved away, and the other completed a deer fence around their entire property. We also have been trapping and "relocating" occasional opossums and coons. Toby also recently treed a coon who likely killed three of the neighbors chickens recently. He made for an interesting evening of front yard coon hunting that was eventually successful. Unfortunately the carcass got wedged in a crook,... fortunately the vultures found him w/in 48 hours and took care of him.

One of our broody hens successfully hatched and raised three chicks and four guinea keets, one of them now thinks he is a chicken and continues to follow her around. Also, we successfully hatched a clutch of guinea eggs in an incubator and now have 11 young keets we need to sell. Our spring flock of layer chicks should be putting out eggs any day now. I think we have about 26 of them in addition to our other 7-8 adults. That will be a lot of omelets and quiche!

Incubator keets , 4 weeks old

Mother hen with babies, (photo a month old)

The chicks that hatched were from some cross breed eggs from a friend who had a rooster, as we did not. And of course, as you all know,  you need a rooster to fertilize the eggs if they are going to hatch. We ended up with one very interestingly feathered and colored charcoal gray bird that we think was aptly named Bruno, after the singer Bruno Mars... what do you think....

The garden blessed us with a bountiful harvest of  veggies this first year. We canned a lot salsa, spaghetti sauce, whole tomatoes, chutney, barbecue sauce, some pickles, green beans, froze a lot of peppers, zucchini, summer squash, beans,  snow peas, pesto sauce, jalapenos. Also a lot blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries in the freezer. This past week I have been tilling in  some cover crops and will replant an over winter cover crop in most boxes. Currently tomato plants and generally cleaning things up. Will try to get fall garden in this weekend. It should supply carrots, turnips, salad greens (most of winter), radishes, arugula, collards, etc. This winter and early spring plan to plant some of our own raspberry plants, blackberries, and some fruit trees. That should about fill in the space remaining.

Until next time...