Puppies attacked a chicken . . . .

OK, it finally happened. The puppies killed a chicken - well, they injured it to the point it's not moving much. Monty checked it and there are no visible flesh wounds, but I think she's got broken bones. He wants to see if it'll perk up after the shock wears off. It's a Rhode Island Red pullet - one of the babies. I'm very upset.

I knew it was coming, but I kept kidding myself that they were just being rough and hyper and playful. The would put their mouths on the chickens and hold them down and come away with a few feathers. Today they escalated. Now I have to pen the chickens back up. Tomorrow.

Everybody's ranging!

The pens are open, and the "baby" chicks are out. These babies are the ones who arrived in August, so they are 23 weeks old or so. I've been letting everyone out of the hen pen, and then rounding them back up at night, but today I've decided to let 'em all RANGE the pasture at all times.

I'm hoping we won't get any predators. Yikes. They are VERY happy chickens!

Baby Chicks are doing well!

6 Americauna mixes, 2 French Black Copper Marans, and 3 Silkie Bantams are all doing GREAT!! They produce more poop than imaginable, and they are growing like CRAZY. I love how they chirp really loudly down in the basement until I get down there and feed them in the morning, and then they are quiet and contented the rest of the day. ;-)

Today, a soggy, long-dead tree fell on the goat fence and took it down. We saw Billy and Betty go racing by the front windows like a couple of happy little puppies, and we're all like, "What the HECK??" Then we found the fence broken and had to move Betty and Billy to the old duck fence. Unfortunately there is no warm, water-proofed, straw-lined shelter out there, and it's going to get really cold tonight. Let's hope for their safety.

The Baby Chicks

I have 3 silkie babies, 2 white and 1 grey. I got 2 Marans to hatch, and all 6 of my Americauna eggs hatched - some look like reds and some look like Americaunas. It will be interesting to see if I get blue egg-layers out of them. They are SO cute, and they are just eating and pooping up a storm! CUTE! Here is a pic of what a baby silkie looks like.

They are EXTRA fuzzy! I'm enjoying this batch of chicks so much!

The watched egg . . .

Lots of action in the incubator!! 3 baby quail have hatched and dried and been moved to the brooder (a 10-gal aquarium lined with shop paper towels with a waterer and feed and a shop light to warm the babies). There are 2 more quail babies on their way out of the eggs - it takes them HOURS to peck their little perf pattern around the entire egg and push open the end to come out.

Several of the chicken eggs have little peck marks from the inside cracking the perfect shells. One of my Americauna blue eggs has two holes totally pecked out, and I can hear the baby chick PEEPING!

In this day and age, it is so wonderful to be awed by anything. I am amazed at the child-like excitement and wonder I feel when we have eggs in the incubator. I can only relate it to the feeling on Christmas Eve when you try to do all the right "time for bed" stuff, and you still can't possibly sleep with the anticipation of Santa's visit!! Then when you wake up, and you realize it's Christmas, and you know that when you walk into the living room you're going to have WONDERFUL surprises - you're just about to EXPLODE with excitement!

I think that I'll be so nervous and particular about these little babies tomorrow! It'll seem like forever before they've dried out enough to move to the brooder. It's going to be great! Any of these Americaunas that are female will be laying eggs in May! I'm so excited!

Anxiously watching the incubator . . . .

I ordered fertile hatching eggs from Ebay - YES - Ebay!

I have 6 French Black Copper Maran eggs,
6 Blue Cochin Bantam eggs,
6 Silkie Bantam eggs, and then I added
6 of my Americauna eggs that may be fertile.

They should begin to hatch tomorrow or Thursday, and we are SO excited about it!

I'll post pics of the babies when they hatch.

Getting the animals prepped for winter . . .

Yesterday, I went out with the children to feed the animals. I spent a good deal of time watching the bantams in the garden. During the hideous weather we had on Tuesday with strong wind and rain, the metal "roofs" had blown off two of the three cages. I felt so sorry for those tough little birds. I put the metal back on and replaced the brick to keep it in place. I gave them new ground to forage, and lots of feed to help them keep warm. I know they are doing well, though, because every morning I am awakened by the squeaky little crows of the roosters. I like when I can take some real time just to look at them. They are absolutely gorgeous, with many colors of feathers on each bird. The roosters have rich, firm, red combs, and all are curious about the people who feed them.

The laying hens are my most prized "pets" with their bountiful production of eggs. I have a wire basket full of beautiful, fresh, clean eggs - aqua and light brown - drying in the sink. I'm going to boil a batch for the girls to snack on after school, and I may bake a cake, too. Quiche - I need to make a quiche! I love watching how happily the hens scratch around when they are ranging in the shady woods of the large goat pen. The 3 roosters I traded for have made a wonderful addition to our flock. They have rich, deep crowing voices, and they are so majestic with their beautiful feathers and huge, bright red combs and waddles. I have a few (hopefully) fertile eggs in the incubator now just to see what little lovely babies I can get. I want a few more blue-green egg layers.

The goats are exactly what we wanted for our farm. We have Billy and Betty in one pen, and Nellie and Spencer in the other. All are pygmy goats; Billy and Nellie are cream-colored with a long, shaggy coat now that weather is getting cooler. Spencer and Betty are shorter-haired and black with some white markings. Betty has gorgeous ice-blue eyes! They all have very sweet, gentle dispositions, and I can let them out of the fence to forage, and they just come back in. These sweet, little, puppy-like babies are JUST right for our family.

Most surprising to me is my affection for the cats! Because of Mom's and my allergies, I never had a cat until this past summer. We got 2 kittens, 6-weeks old, tortoise-shell colored - both female, and sisters. They spent the first few weeks indoors to give them time to get big and fast enough to escape from predators. Then they went to the shed out front with high-stacked bales of hay. In the last 3 weeks, a new kitten showed up - another tortoise-shell female! She is smaller than our first cats - somewhat scrawny - and just as sweet as can be! The first two cats are starting to accept her into the group. They are all chasing chipmunks, and I've found a couple of dead rodents. That's why we got them - with all the animal feed in the garage, we knew we'd get mice. They are serving their purpose and much more! I spent about a half-hour yesterday just petting and scratching, and receiving nuzzles and purrs from Simba. Rosie is more of a hunter, and less of a snuggler. The new girl, Ginny, is very affectionate, but still too skiddish to be held for very long. She's coming along.

The garden is doing very well! I have arugula, buttercrunch lettuce, radishes, beets, carrots, brussels sprouts, and broccoli. I still have some rattlesnake beans coming in, and the superset squash have a surprising number of blossoms and baby squash. This is an experiment - if I can keep the frost off them, I may get some squash!

Sunshine!! It was WONDERFUL!!

Although it was outrageously chilly today, the sunshine was so gorgeous it was a great day!! I was out with the animals and enjoying the garden a bit today for the first time in a week or so.

The garden is fabulous with rattlesnake beans and yard long green beans still putting out good quantities, old purple hull peas dying off and new ones growing strong, broccoli and brussels sprouts plants doing well! I picked a nice 3 quarts of rattlesnake beans today, washed and snapped them, and fixed them for supper with potatoes and spicy Conecuh sausage, mmmmmmm!!!

A caller who'd seen our ad in the Bulletin Board came to buy chickens. He mentioned that he had 3 roosters (he was supposed to have all pullets) and I offered to trade him. He brought 3 GORGEOUS, humongous roosters, 2 Dominickers and 1 RIR - I traded him 3 yet-to-lay pullets for those, and he bought 5 golden buff orpingtons.

A new kitty showed up today! She's very scrawny, but SO sweet and lovey. She is a tortoise-shell colored cat like our other two, and the children named her Ginny (as in Weasley on Harry Potter). More later.

The monsoon makes my garden GROW!!!

Last weekend I took down my bamboo tepees with what was left of my summer tomato plants after having been ravaged by tomato hornworms (see earlier post with pic of Gozer, the destructor) and stinkbugs. I couldn't do any spraying because of the ducks and bantams in the garden.

In discussing our tomato plants, Jeff Moore (who bought his plants at the trade school nursery, too) and I decided that the variety of large tomato plants we bought didn't produce as much as we wanted and expected them to. The grape tomatoes did fine, but the others were smallish and none too plentiful. I think they were called "Amelia". The heirlooms I planted in August have made nice plants, but aren't fruiting as much as I expected. I need to fertilize.

I harvested tons of basil of different varieties and trimmed my rosemary plants saving those sticky, delicious-smelling cuttings, too. The basil plants are rebounding nicely from such a harsh cutting because of the rain, and the okra has gone NUTS with the tall tomato structures (which had been shading them) gone.

The rattlesnake beans I planted in August are producing like crazy! I'm getting a half pound to a pound a day! This is DEFINITELY the variety to plant! They grow from seed quickly, produce VOLUMES, and the purple striping on the beans make them easy to see and pick. Also, they don't have that "fuzz" on them, so they are easy to wash. Delicious and hearty, they'll be great for canning, too. I had planted more yardlong green beans, and they are coming along, too. They are even more delicious, but too delicate for canning. GREAT for stir frying. I've planted more of each for a great fall harvest (if the frost holds off.)

I've planted tons more purple hull cowpeas, too. I just LOVE these peas. I have put up quart after quart of them. I love the way they grow, but I just hadn't planted enough for our crew until now.

I planted some "superset" squash, too. I planted much earlier, but the ducks enjoyed eating the small plants and they were gone. Hubby bought broccoli and brussels sprouts plants - a whole flat each! We planted them beside the purple hull peas. I also planted beets, radishes, spinach, swiss chard, leeks, and carrots from seed. I'm so excited to see how this will do as time goes by.

I am going to spray now that the ducks and bantams are out of the garden, and add fertilizer to hedge my bets. I know some of these plantings don't match the "you should plant now" dates, but obviously, the rattlesnake beans don't know any better than to just grow and produce any way. I hope the other stuff is that way, too.

Things we've learned about farming and gardening this summer . . .

GARDENING
Next spring, summer, and fall my garden will be a money SAVER, but this past growing season, my garden was a money pit! I also had some other gardening issues that kept my garden from being as productive as possible.
HOSES: I spent over $120 on drip hoses that kept getting big holes in the first few inches and just not working like they should. They are warrantied, so I'm returning some of them to exchange for new ones (that will also leak???).
SEEDS: I have a little spending problem when it comes to seeds. I just like buying them. LOTS of them. Way more than I need of them. I also had a lack of familiarity with what varieties WORK in my own soil (in its current condition) and will not waste money on things I can't grow. (I will experiment, but not PACKETS worth.) I'm also saving seed from lots of varieties that aren't hybrids. I will have my own store of seeds for next year.
WATERING: I'm going to spend the winter months adding gobs of organic material from my compost pile and worm bins to the soil in the garden. By growing season, I hope to have amended my sandy soil with enough stuff to make it hold more moisture. Also, the well is working now and we will be using "free" water from it or from harvested rainwater.
LACK OF SUNLIGHT: This is our first full year on this property, and although I got a full 8 hours of sun (or more) during the winter months, I got 6 or less in some areas of the garden during the summer. We are going to remove 4 trees in different spots surrounding the garden, and that should increase my hours of sunlight. If not, we will take out more. The garden is priority #1.
SOIL QUALITY: I learned that the dark, rich look of soil means nothing. I think there are some spots in that garden that are as empty of nutrients as a sandbox. I'm going to PILE on the compost, mix it in, and plant a cover crop to really get that garden ready. In January, I'm going to take samples of soil and test them for PH and for nutrients and see what I need to add in time for growing season.
With all these changes, I think I'll see a much higher production in the garden next year. For all the crops that still won't grow, I know how to buy those at the cattle sale or at the U-pick farms around here at good prices.

FARMING
We learned that farming is not for the faint of heart or for the weak of body or for the low of cash. At least for now, all animals are a COST center. At some point, there may be some money made, but right now it's just a really expensive hobby.
GOATS: We're ABSOLUTELY sure we only want to raise pygmy goats. Bigger goats eat more food! Pens have to be bigger, they make more poo, take more medication, are harder to handle when you need to move them, etc. . . . .
CHICKENS: The first six plus months of having chickens is all about spending money. Build the pens, buy the feeders, buy the waterers, buy the feed, buy the medications, buy more feed, buy more feed, buy more feed. We ARE getting smarter about it, though. I have 40 some odd 12 week old pullets left from the almost 200 I had over the summer. I am letting them range freely every day after the morning feeding (of other animals) until the evening feeding. They are eating very little feed, and they are consuming tons of bugs!! Luckily, no predators have gotten after them in the daytime. When they are closer to laying age, I will have to figure out what to do about nesting boxes. Meanwhile, I'm still running an ad in the Mule Trader trying to sell them. The laying hens are completely cooped up until their laying habits are well established. Then I will let them range after laying time until evening feedings. Chickens will cost much less to feed then.
DUCKS: The jury is still out on raising ducks. Out of 7 ducks, I think 3 or 4 are male, and the others are female. I only want to keep one drake, and that will be "Spot." Then I want my ducks to lay eggs. They are so messy, and they are a hazard to starter plants in the garden, but they are supposed to be great layers, and I could raise a few more for layers if I like the eggs. They should start laying in November.
RABBITS: It takes lots of cages to "farm" rabbits for meat. (We still haven't slaughtered any.)
QUAILS: These birds are GREAT!! If all we did was sell their eggs, these birds would be worth the time, effort, and costs involved. Hatching the babies is really fun, too.

The Canning Shelves

Hubby built me canning shelves today!! He's so glad to have that wood out of the way, and the canned stuff out of the way, and I'm so glad to have this glorious way to see what I still need to be DOING!!

I could use at least 20 more pints of salsa, 20 more qts of purple hull cowpeas, 20 more squash pickles, and I want some plain squash, corn, and more berry jams.

This is GREAT!!

Life is full of joy and sorrow, and sometimes it's all happening at the same time.

Tonight, Rachel invited us to dinner for Coq au vin. We always have wonderful talks while there, the kids get along great, and she has a piano I get to play! Rachel was very gracious with us tonight, because we had a baby bunny that Monty discovered wasn't doing well. He'd gotten chilled during the bad weather today, and Monty had Jessica holding him to warm him and get him back up to par. They were giving him sugar water, and taking turns holding him. We all sat down to dinner, and Jessica had the bunny in her lap. She had decided that she'd keep this one as her indoor pet, and she'd worked out how to get it litter box trained, how it would live in her bedroom, she had it named "Flop" and she was instantly in love.

We visited for a while, and gathered around the piano for conversation and quiet playing. Jessie and her dad took turns with the bunny so she could play a bit, too. Then we sat down to dinner. The Coq au vin was WONDERFUL, the asparagus divine, and the fingerling potatoes were perfect. We were eating and laughing and enjoying ourselves, and I looked over at the bunny beside me. No nose twitching, no breathing - he was gone. Jessica was (understandably) overcome with emotion, and she and her daddy went outside. Rachel followed and got a shovel, and Dad and daughter solemnly said goodbye to Flop in Rachel's flowerbed.

Everyone came back to the table and the conversation slowly started back and worked its way back to laughter. It's interesting how this farm life helps you value and enjoy the little lives of the creatures we enjoy so much, and how it teaches you about things passing away. I know Jessica isn't "over it" and won't be for some time. I also know she grew a little bit today, and she was willing to put in lots of extra time and effort to save this baby. That is such a lesson in denying self, and this bunny was a lesson in taking a risk to love. It is beautiful.

The Garden

Here are a few pics from the garden. Note the baby tomato hornworm - I named him Gozer the Gozarian - the Destructor.

The Ducks

Here are the ducks. They are HUGE!! Only one has a name so far and it is Spot. He has a white area on his neck.

The Puppies

Here are Eduard du Chocolat (Eddy) and Vianne de CoCo (ViVi), our standard chocolate poodles. They are betrothed. Vivi has a pink collar, and Eddy's is blue. He's a milk chocolate color, and she is more of a dark chocolate.

The "Layin' Hens"

I have 6 Americaunas and 7 Black Australorps that I bought in April to be my laying hens. With 6 of us, I figured 12 hens (we got a baker's dozen) would make plenty of eggs for us and the neighbors. Well, still waiting on the BOUNTY of eggs, but after getting the one, I am encouraged. The large black one with bright red comb and waddle is 'Bigmamma.' The grey and tan hen is an Americauna. They vary in color, and are really QUITE gorgeous. I have 4 more girls I've put in the pen with the 6-month-olds. These girls are Americaunas of various colors - 11 weeks old - and are named. White one is Marilyn, golden/reddish one is Pocahontas, grey with black head is Jemima, and mostly grey is Martha.

Baby Chicks

The chicks arrived! I got 250 (plus overages for shipping incidents) pullets in the mail today. They had left off the Japanese Black Bantams. :-(

I have a pic of a buff orpington (yellow) and a silver-laced wyandotte (black w/ white). I also got Rhode Island Reds, gold-laced wyandottes, and barred rocks. They are SO cute, and that's a LOT of chickens!

Goat Girls

The caramel colored girl is Nellie, and she is lying with her sister Josie. They are triplets with the boy named Billy. These girls love to be petted and held and they are just precious. They are a little smaller than Spencer, so about the size of a full grown cat. The silver-beige girl with almost no ears and ominous 5-inch horns is precious, sweet Lilly Potter - yes - Harry's mom. She follows you around like a puppy wanting to be petted and sweet-talked, but I'm still not turning my back on those horns. I think I've already posted pics of Mary and Carly. We have 8 goats, 5 girls and 3 boys, and they are the reason I wanted to move to the country. They have great personalities and are SO much fun to watch. There is a big, long fallen pine tree in their fence, and they love to climb up on it and run the length of it. There is a dirt mound in there, too, and the girls play "king of the hill" all the time.

Goat Guys

The boys: Black one with white is Spencer the Short, caramel colored one is Billy (original, huh?), and tall, silver-beige one is Harry Potter. That is a dog bowl they are eating out of for a size reference. Spencer is about the size of a Jack Russell terrier. They are all the same age - born around April 1.

265 baby chicks on the way. 265, yes, 265.

I called the hatchery a few weeks ago to find out what breed of chickens would be available in August and September. There were 5 egg-laying breeds available in August and only one in September, and then NOTHING until February.

Well, we reacted with all expected swiftness to keep our chicken business thriving. We ordered 50 pullets (females) each of the 5 breeds available for the month:
* 50 Silver-laced Wyandottes
* 50 Gold-laced Wyandottes
* 50 Buff Orpingtons
* 50 Barred Plymouth Rocks
* 50 Rhode Island Reds

Makes total sense to me. "Oh, yes, "I said to the nice lady at the hatchery. "Do you have any Japanese Black Bantams I can order?" "Yes," she says, "but they are straight run only and minimum order is 15." "Please add that to my order," I said.

Well, I want to raise bantam chickens, and I don't know what breed I have right now. If I'm going to raise them, I have to know their "pedigree" don't I? Anyway, they are just SO cute.

Tomorrow or Friday, they will arrive, and we'll get a call from the post office around 7:30am. We'll have lots and lots and lots of fuzzy babies! They will be so cute and stinky!

The incredible, edible egg . . . .

One anonymous Americauna hen laid our very first chicken egg today!! It is about a size medium and is greenish turquoise in color. To celebrate, I poked holes in it, blew out the contents (which we'll put in with others for a celebratory omelet tomorrow), wrote on it with Sharpie, and coated with glossy medium! It will be proudly displayed as our $140 first egg. ;-) . . . . ;-| . . . . ;-(

I wrote, "First Hen Egg, 8/19/09" on one side and a big "#1" on the other.

We are all very egg-cited here! We now know that we have at least ONE hen that will lay eggs, and maybe the others will start laying soon. They turned 6 months old today, so we're due for some major eggage.

I integrated 4 more Americauna girls that are about 11 or 12 weeks old in with them over the week. They stay out of the way of the big mammas, but they seem to be doing OK so far.

Canning up a storm!!!!

Canning is a wonderful thing when the air conditioner is running full blast! Monty and I had run a whole box of roma tomatoes through the food processor on Wednesday, and went ahead and did the onions, peppers, pineapple, etc. and let the salsa stand in the water bath canner pot in the fridge for 4 days. Sunday morning, bright and early, I awoke to a clean kitchen, sterilized pint jars, and a full head of steam to get this done. So, I did, and we got 21 jars filled and began to process. I lost a jar in the first batch of salsa - first one EVER! But the rest processed up fine.

Then the adventure really began. I took out the half-pint jelly jars and the pear juice I'd made from all those pear peels and cores from the pear relish. It was SO easy making the jelly! Sure-Jell, sugar, pear juice, and a bit of added flavor from either crystallized ginger or vanilla bean and VOILA!! A gorgeous, translucent golden treat in a lovely little glass container. Just beautiful. I ladled out the excess and let the family try some. They LOVED it! I made one reduced-sugar batch for my Mother-in-Law and another friend with diabetes. I didn't have enough left over to taste-test it, so I hope it's good. It jelled quicker than the regular!

I have lots of hot peppers from our friend Tony, and I'm trying to decided whether to make hot pepper jelly or just make pepper sauce. World Market has lots of great containers for that kind of stuff if I decide on sauce.

I found a really cheap online source for vanilla beans, and I may make real vanilla (extract) for gifts this Christmas. Just need cute jars for it, and I'll look at Hobby Lobby and World Market for those.

BTW, new adventure coming soon - blowing quail eggs! I want to blow out the stuff inside, rinse the eggs, and let it dry. Then put some shiny stuff on it to protect it and sell several in a little fake bird's nest. They should be SO cute!

Back to school week was a busy one!

The animals are all doing well, but getting MUCH less attention this week with the children back at school. Monty and I have been in Birmingham on business or doctor/dentist visits almost every day last week, and will be again for several days this week. We had 29 quail babies hatch last week and we lost only 3! Our average is much better on this batch. We've pickled 5 dozen more jars of a dozen quail eggs each, and we have 50 or so ready to go.

I have a lady coming tomorrow to buy 30 or so chickens, and that's probably all I'll sell out of that batch leaving me around 12 to add to my STILL NOT laying hens. Meanwhile, I placed another order at the hatchery and will receive 250 chickens around the 21st of August. Am I ready??? I think NOT! OY VEY!

I am excited about them, though. Along with the pullets, I ordered a set of straight run Japanese Black Bantams which means I'll get males and females. I want to raise these birds - they are SO beautiful. The bantams I have in chicken tractors in the garden each have a mating pair, and one has an extra hen - I call her the mistress. These little roosters are crowing now, but they are so small, it's like the volume is turned WAY down on a big rooster! It sounds SO cute!! You see this little rooster strut all around, and puff up his chest, and ER ER ERRRRRRRR! It's just a bit squeaky! ;o) This pic if from another website, but it shows what my roosters look like, so I think they are Old English Game Bantam Roosters.

The ducks are getting absolutely HUGE!! The ducks in the picture are fully feathered juveniles, and mine still have LOTS of ducky fuzz, and some feathering on the chest and sides. I still have no ideas which are males or females in the seven we've raised successfully. They are having a BLAST toodling around in the garden, chasing crickets, ending my grub infestation, and sampling fire ants here and there.

Well, more to come later in the week as I ready the brooder pen for the new gangs.

A/C finally working again!!

Now I'm ready to fill like a hundred half-pint jars with pear relish and water bath them.

I also have 4 jugs of pear juice made from pear cores and peels, and I'm going to make ginger pear jam and vanilla-bean pear jam (or a simpler jelly) with them. I'm SO excited to see how it'll look. It will HAVE to be gorgeous.

I've bought a bunch of beautiful fabrics (in bags from the thrift store - YAY!) that I will use by cutting into squares and placing under the ring of the jars and it makes them even MORE gorgeous! I can hardly wait, so I have to go now and DO this work.

Heat processing on hot days . . . .

Yesterday, Monty and I decided to can our green beans and make pear relish, so we set out about 8am to buy the necessities to go with the free pears Rachel gave me (thanks again, Rachel) to make her absolutely unbelievably good pear relish. I went to Walmart and bought celery and lemon juice so I could use my ATM card for $40 cash. Then we went to the Saturday version of the Cattle Sale (really veggies and critters only, no great junk) to buy 12 onions, 12 red bell peppers, 12 green bell peppers, and 2 (or more) hot red peppers. We got all the red bell peppers for $3 (let me repeat $3!!!!!!!), green peppers for the same, onions $10 for 15 huge white onions, and $2 for a big basket of jalapenos. So, I decided we'd make salsa, too, and I bought a BOX of roma tomatoes for $12. Then we left and went to Darlene's discount grocery store and bought 3 jugs of apple cider vinegar - big ones - for $1.75 each, and a big jug of balsamic vinegar for $4.99 - the really good stuff to add to our pickled quail eggs for color and flavor.

We began snapping beans about 11am while Monty located, washed and put in the dishwasher to sanitize about 25 quart jars, 12 pint jars, and 30 or so half pints.

We began packing beans about 2pm, and we put 7 quart jars at a time in the pressure canner. Well, you're boiling about 12 quarts of water and all those beans and jars and it takes a while to get up a steam, then you letter the canner steam about 10 minutes, then you put the pressure gauge on and let the pressure begin to rise. To get to 11 pounds of pressure took about 20 minutes at full blast, then you set the timer for 25 minutes for green beans. So, you're cooking this huge pot of hot mess under pressure at intense heat with the eye on HIGH on the stove for about and hour before you turn the stove off to let it slowly lose pressure and you can open it and put it the next batch. It takes about 30 - 40 minutes to get the pressure back down! So that's about 1.5 to 2 hours of HIGH heat in the kitchen on this one item. And, I had 3 batches to do. And, I'm working on getting pears peeled and cored and chopped for relish.

MEANWHILE, the central a/c has been out for 3 weeks. Yes, that's right. 3 weeks from mid July until now, because we are under a "home warranty." This is fancy terminology for it'll take as long as possible for the chosen contractors to fix anything with the cheapest available part that'll go out again by next summer. That's OK though, because our A/C went out last August for 3 weeks, and we bought window units - one for the back of the house, one for the front - to compensate and to keep from DYING in the ALABAMA HEAT!!!!!!!! So, yesterday, during this intense canning day with major heat being generated in the kitchen, little did we know the window unit in the living room - front of the house with the kitchen - had frozen up and wasn't blowing cold air. By 9pm, the whole front of the house was about 90 degrees, and we were about to DIE of heat! We didn't figure out why until this morning, after the 21 quarts of green beans have been through the process and are sealed up tight and gorgeous.

Also yesterday, while the green beans were processing, Monty and I measured out the ingredients for the pear relish which called for "a peck" of pears. We decided this meant 18 qts, so we took 2 big bowls from the kitchen, measured roughly and pulled out and washed 18 qts of pears and began peeling and coring and chopping them for the relish. We peeled and chopped for 2 movies with the pears, then the bell peppers, then the onions, and the hot peppers. Then I made the syrup and covered all of it in a huge pot and put the cover on to let it sit overnight. I put all the peels and cores on to boil for pear peel jelly as the pressure canner began the last batch of green beans. At 12 something am this morning, I turned everything off, showered, and began to wind down to try to go to sleep. Then I remember; we only cut up the first 18 qts of pears - that's only one recipe's worth!!! OMG!!! We have to peel pears AGAIN today!!!!! Oh, well, I guess we'll have a movie marathon of some sort for this round, too.

This stuff BETTER turn out to be as good as Rachel's!!!

How will we fit farm chores in now that school is starting?

Creativity, my love. Creativity.

With school starting back, the children are a little worried about their various beloved farm animals missing out on so much attention that they've gotten all summer. We really didn't have anything but laying hens until school was out.

I've got it all worked out with each child doing about 15 minutes (max) of animal chores before school. Noah will feed and water goats. Jessica will take care of bunnies and cats. Annie and Lizzie will feed chickens, but Dad and I will do the water because it's HEAVY. Dad and I will take care of the puppies, the ducks, and the bantams in the garden. THERE! Everyone's fed.

After school, the children will attend to the animals again, but at this time they'll have time for petting and playing and talking to them at length. Noah has been letting the boys out to graze - unfenced - for a short time each day, and I want him to keep that up. Jessica has been taking out the baby bunnies and holding and petting them for a time each day, so they'll be ready to be a good pet for someone. Annie and Lizzy pick up the chickens and pet them, too, for the same reason. The ducks are great to "play" with, but they don't love to be held. They like to follow me around in the garden and taste EVERYTHING - dirt, plants, crickets, whatever.

There will be lots of adjustments as the kids start back to school, and we start our business back up in our new town, but we'll get through it.

Experimenting with Ranging

Today we allowed (okay - forced) one of our hens out of the "hundred pen" to roam around for the day. She's not one of the purebreds that I can sell as such, so she was chosen for her unmarketability. It's not that we don't love her though.

Anyway, she did great all day long pecking and roaming about, and generally staying close to the pen. We put her back in around 7pm with the evening feeding.

We have only 6 Americauna hens left, and now I can distinguish between them so well that we named a few of them. The black headed with a golden body is Cleopatra. The black headed with red body is Pocahontas. The black headed with grey body is Jemima. The all white one (we think she's Americauna - there are a few tan colored spots on her) is Marilyn. The white one with lots of tan on her is Martha. The all grey one is Phyllis Diller. I was going to name one Farrah as a tribute, but she got purchased Sunday afternoon.

Back to ranging, I decided to close the garden gate and allow the ducks out of their cage for the first time ever. They were SO cute. We'd just mown the grass in the walkways and I'd pulled lots of plants, so we mowed there, too. There were just dozens of crickets hopping around. The ducks began their systematic search of the garden floor, meandering in every area I led them to. They tasted mown grass, weed leaves, purple hull peas (they did NOT like), and lots of crickets! When the time came for me to house them for the night, I simply filled their waterer and they went right back into the cage. I'm SO looking forward to them ranging all the time! They are getting SO big!

The garden is ready to finish tilling and begin the August planting of carrots, more rattlesnake pole beans, purple hull cowpeas, squash, potatoes, leeks, and lots of other goodies. It's going to be interesting to record all this and make decisions about the garden next year based on this year's data.

Gardening and Canning Today . . . .

Today's agenda is very full.

*Feed and water animals.

*Pull squash plants and spent purple hull pea plants and put them in the compost pile.

*Mow the tall grass between veggies in the garden.

*Till for new plantings.

*Plant according to the fall planting guide I just got from the county extension service - at least squash, turnips, potatoes, cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, swiss chard, etc.

*Wash, snap, and can about 20 pounds of green beans.

*Pick up a load of free pears and start peeling for processing tomorrow.

Making pear preserves, pear relish, pear peel jelly, and maybe pear honey. I'll put some recipes in tomorrow while I'm procrastinating by blogging like today!!!! I gotta get going.

I think Spencer is a fainting goat, and I KNOW he's a little fatty butterball!

Spencer is beginning to exhibit strange behaviors that - if I hadn't ever heard of before - would scare me to death that he was neurologically disturbed or something.

Noah was holding him like a baby on Sunday, and his little beer-gut looking belly was all round and puffy. Noah put him down awkwardly and Spencer tumbled over on his back. Well, instead of immediately trying to right himself, he went stiff-legged and his eyes rolled back for about 10 seconds or so. Then he started trying to get up and then walked away.

When I remarked about how odd that was, Noah told me that when the dogs had startled him the other day he flipped over backward and did the same thing!! He must be a fainter. I have to look them up and find out more.

More Quail Babies!!!

Hubby went to visit a new friend yesterday who raises quail. After a two-hour visit, he'd learned a great deal about hatching, brooding, housing, mating, and then slaughtering and cleaning quail. He even got a new recipe for pickled quail eggs that we are excited to try.

He brought home 11 new adults, one of which has already laid an egg (YAY!!), and 28 day old quail babies! We quickly retrieved the 10-gal aquarium we'd bought at the flea market and outfitted it with special non-slick paper and a shop light for heat and moved the babies from the shoe box they traveled in to the warm make-shift brooder.

They quickly began to get their "sea legs" and stand, making it to the small pile of ground up game bird feed and to the waterer. They are SO cute and we can't believe our quail babies were that small only two weeks ago!

BIGGEST tomato hornworm I've ever seen . . . .

Today, I visited the rain-soaked garden and noticed much lush greenery missing from some of my newest tomato plants in the roma patch! I mean branches stripped nekkid of leaves!! Well, on closer inspection, I spy the well-camouflaged fiend. How could I miss him??!! He's bigger than the trunk of the plant, for cryin' out Pete!! Yikes!

He was about the size of my middle finger - 1/2" in diameter and about 3" long. BLECH! It gives me the willies just thinkin' about it. Hubby plucked him off the strange-looking tomato plant sans leaves, and we dropped him into the chicken tractor with the bantam chickens. They looked at us like, "What the heck? How we gonna eat that? No knife, no fork, and it's still movin'? Nuh uh. Not us."

Well, smart new farmers that we are, we picked him back up and put him in our little basket and took him over to the duck pen and tossed him in there. The 3-week old ducks walked all over him getting their water. Two of them finally noticed him and pinched him a couple of times with their beaks, then went back to the stupid feeder and waterer.

Disgusted, we walked away. I looked back and the hornworm gave me the eye and stuck his tongue out at me. I shook my head and kept walking. Like the Terminator, he'll be back.

Hens, I want eggs, dang it!!!

OK, I've begged, I've pleaded, I've cajoled, and now, I'm going to start threatening! My hens were 6 months old in mid-July, and they were supposed to start laying in July. Today is August 1, and not ONE egg yet.

I stuck a rooster in there for about 2 minutes on Thursday, and I've never seen a bigger CHICKEN than HE. Those hens had him on the run the second his feet hit the ground. They let him know right QUICK they didn't need his kind around.

So, I'm left with no option. I'm going to walk in that hen house and tell them how it's gonna be. I want eggs. I'm going to fry one hen every day until I start getting EGGS!!!!! That'll show 'em.

Hmmmph. (envision me hands on hips, neck moving, and snapping 3 times as I turn and stomp off)

Sad news on the farm . . . .

On Tuesday, Monty and I learned a great deal about raising baby ducks. They've been in a little pen inside the garden fence with a wooden top on it for shade and protection - the 15 of them. Monty gave them their water early Tuesday morning when the temps were in the mid-60s (unheard of in July in Alabama BTW!!). They drank it so fast, Monty gave them another jar of water and filled a little extra bowl of water for them! I went into the garden a few minutes later to pick and looked over and a duck was keeled over and kicking in the cage. I started over to look, and another duck keeled over and the rest were staggering around the cage and tripping and acting drunk!! I said, "Monty! Get over here! The ducks are dropping like flies!!"A third duck fell over and began kicking, and the first was already dead. Monty took the second one and I took the third one and began holding it at our necks to warm them. We took the rest and sat them in a very sunny spot in the garden to heat them up quickly. Well, we lost 2. Number 3 warmed up and started acting OK, and the rest began to calm down with the morning sun heating them up. They had drunk so much water, they were in shock. Comforted that they'd be OK, we finished our animal and garden chores and left for a brief trip to the feed and seed store. 3 HOURS later (my husband has a way of allowing time to just slip away) we came back having forgotten to put the cover back on the ducks' cage or to put them in the shade again. It was noon and the sun was BROILING hot. 4 ducks were lying their dead as doornails, and 2 more were panting and weak. We quickly got them more water and put them in the shade, but we lost those 2. SO, we lost 8 ducks on Tuesday. The remaining 7 were brought back into the garage, and we know EXACTLY how much water to give them, and how fragile they really are. YIKES, that was just awful.

ALSO, Delilah the Great Pyrenees dog has to go.

Remember the new pygmy triplet goats? Nellie, Josie, and Billy? They are all about the same size as baby Spencer - the size of a goodly adult cat. Well, Delilah had been chewing on little Josie. She had done some mouthing on Spencer when they were first together and they were about the same size, we'd come out to the goat fence, and Spencer would have messy, slobbery spots on him where Delilah would be "playing rough" with him. No injuries, though. Josie, however, has hairless scrapes on her ears and legs where Delilah has been CHEWING on her!! We caught her in the act several times and administered a swift spanking each time. However, her habit seems too ingrained and she keeps doing it.

We moved her from the main goat pen where little Nellie and Josie are to the boy pen with Spencer, Billy, and Freddie the larger goat are. She got Spencer's ear! He has chew marks on it!

Fortunately, a man came to buy Sam and Freddie yesterday, and his wife LOVED Delilah. Freddie and Sam aren't pygmy goats, and they aren't small enough for Delilah to have her way with them. They just give her a good head butt when she tries. Those folks are coming back for Delilah today, and we are SO glad. Delilah has been with them since they all arrived, so this should ease the transition for everyone. The children are SO glad we've found good people to take care of Delilah, but we will be SO sad to see her go.

Using everything from the garden . . . .

My friend Rachel sent me the www.cooks.com recipe below:

---------------------
PURPLE HULL PEA JELLY
---------------------

1 gallon pea hulls
2 pkgs. Sure-Jell
8 c. sugar

Wash pea hulls thoroughly, at least twice, then bring to
boil in a heavy pan with enough water to cover hulls. Boil
over low heat 8 to 10 minutes. Save the juice,
approximately 8 cups, and discard hulls. Combine juice and
Sure-Jell in heavy saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for 2
minutes. Add sugar and boil an additional minute. Pour
mixture into glass jars and seal. Purple hull peas produce
grape flavored jelly. White crowder peas produce honey
flavored jelly. Lady peas make apple jelly; and by
combining the hulls of crowder, purple, whippoorwill and
lady peas a plum tasting jelly results.

Is this for real??? Sounds GREAT! I absolutely love the idea of wasting NOTHING and putting only the minimum stuff in the compost pile. These boiled, spent pea hulls could even go into the worm bin!

I made another batch of veggie burgers last night with a combination of sauteed squash, green beans purple beans, onions, carrots, and leftover cooked rice, and they turned out MUCH better. I added some reconstituted TVP and a packet of onion soup mix, eggs, and rice flour to the pureed mush, and the patties baked up nicely. I froze 24 of them.

I made salsa last night to use the bounty of tomatoes I had from the garden. I pureed whole tomatoes, an onion, a huge garlic clove, a small can of fire-roasted jalapeno peppers, and then added kosher salt, pepper, cilantro, and cumin until I got the right mix. Ohhhhhhhh, yes! I took half and put it into a Tupperware container and left the remainder in the food processor and added about half a can of pineapple and chunked that up some more. AYayayayay! SO good. I ate chips and salsa, veggie burgers and salsa, and salsa on a spoon! So good. It will probably be even better today!

I love using everything that comes from the garden. I'm getting tired of the Contender green beans, though. They taste fantastic, and the plants are producing LOADS, but they have this peach-fuzz type thing on the bean that makes it so you basically have to scrub each bean individually!! Too much work. I've begun to wipe each bean with a paper towel before washing, and that's actually easier, but geez. I don't have THAT kind of time.

I have to get my canning shelves built and installed so I can put UP some of that salsa, and I need to be making some peach jam and some jellies, too. My freezer over-floweth, and I prefer using that real estate for meat and certain veggies, although frozen peaches and strawberries make the BEST toppies and pies. So many decisions.

8 new bunnies born this past weekend!

I had a phone call early Sunday morning, and while I was on the phone, I looked out over the bunny hutch and WOW!! I could see new, naked, pink baby bunnies!!! I yelled to the family, and we all ran out to see the new arrivals. Nine bunnies had been born overnight, one was a preemie and one was still born, but 7 babies were doing GREAT! These newbies join the single baby from last weeks' small litter of 2 born to a first-time mom. We believe these 7 are the second litter from this momma. We've separated all the bunnies into a new 4-part hutch beside the old 3-part one. So each mom has her own apartment with her babies, and all the others have their own place except when honeymooning. Pics to come later.

New Quail Babies!

On Saturday, the quail eggs placed in the incubator on July 1 began to hatch! By 3pm, we had 4 hatchlings. By 10pm, we had 11 hatched babies and one pecking and chirping in the egg. By Sunday afternoon, the 11 babies were dry and fluffy and we moved them from incubator to brooder. The children and we decided to issue names according to themes like Star Trek, Star Wars, Wizard of Oz, and others.

We chose Star Trek TOS for this group and gave character names replacing the initial consonant sound with the QU sound. So, our quails were (captain) Quirk, Quock, Quoola, Queckov, Quo'hura, Quottie, Quones, Quike (remember Captain Pike from the first episode?), Quibbles (remember Tribbles?), Quingon, and Quomulan.

We lost 2 babies Sunday night, and #12 never made it out of the incubator. Another baby weakened during the day yesterday, and it was gone this morning. We treated the remaining 8 with Tetracycline, and everyone looks strong and happy this morning. Out of 21 eggs, 6 were infertile, 2 never hatched, 1 hatched and never stood up, and 11 hatched and made it 24 hours. 9 have survived 48 hours and are looking great. We are at just under 50% on our first try with incubating eggs. We began collecting for a new group for the incubator yesterday, and we'll collect through Saturday. I'm going to attempt to post a PhotoStory series of photos of the hatching quail. It was fascinating to watch, and I'll never get over the miracle of new life!

The PhotoStory series didn't upload correctly. I'll keep trying.

Duckling arrived!!!

We picked up our baby ducks yesterday at the post office!! I ordered 15 Khaki Campbell ducks (straight run - some male, some female), and they shipped 17, but one died en route.

We got them home by 10am and had them in a plastic bin with a light on them for heat within minutes. They are cute brown fuzzballs with black legs and feet. I put a full bowl of water in every hour or two and they go NUTS dipping heads and jumping in and out and the water is empty in minutes!! They've slung it all over the bottom and sides of the plastic tub. Then they go over to the sides and get the water droplets there.

The feed and seed was about to throw out a bunch of garden plants that were looking like they'd seen better days, and they offered them to us. We brought home a trailer full of plant flats on Wednesday. I was planning on planting everything out early yesterday, but the Post Office called and we had to pick up and deal with the ducks. We did get time to harvest half of the potatoes yesterday before I had to stop and go to piano with the girls.

We started back in the garden about 4 with thunder in the distance. My friend Rachel showed up with trowel in hand and began helping us!! Monty dug holes, and Rachel, Annie, Lizzy and I planted. We put in 23 Roma tomatoes, 17 various heirloom tomatoes, 9 hot banana peppers, 2 sweet yellow bell peppers, 20 eggplants - some ichiban and some black beauty, 7 clemson spineless okra, and then I put in rows of Swiss Chard beside the eggplants. It got late and we stopped there.

This morning, I went back in and interplanted marigolds between the tomatoes, planted rattlesnake beans, purple hull cowpeas, and swiss chard in the emptied portion of the potato mound, and some yard long green bean that I'd let dry for seed. I plan to plan some onions from seed, garlic chives, and more basil later today.

Potty-training the Pooches

We are really excited about getting ducks and seeing how well they work in the garden.
Although we have over 200 animals, these last two are more work than the first 200! HONESTLY! OK, I admit it! I had forgotten the amount of work that goes into potty training a puppy and we took on two at once!

Yikes! I'm so glad we've bought the hardwoods to replace the carpet with in this house, because by the time these dogs are trained, we'll be SO ready for that change.

As for critters, today is the expected shipping date for our 15 Khaki Campbell ducks! They should arrive just in time for Monty's birthday! We have to do a bit of reading to get ready, and we'll make any necessary additions or changes to the brooder pen that are needed. Here's a pic of the babies we'll be getting:

Production in the Garden

The garden is producing beautifully - both veggies and weeds! Monty has constructed a chicken run for me to place in between rows in the garden. I'll put 2 or 3 chickens under the bottomless structure out there and let them scratch and peck freely within the 4-ft by 2-ft area. This should take care of some bugs and lots of weeds.

I'm getting 1/2 to a full pound of yard-long green beans every day! They are delicious and SO tender. I'm going to have to begin freezing them now that they are getting ahead of our daily eating.

Contender green beans are petering out, but I'm doing some succession planting and we'll see how they do this late in the season.

I've pulled enough purple-hull cowpeas to (shelled) fill a 2-cup mixing bowl, but I'm combining those with the quarts we're shelling out of the free pea-hulls from the feed store and there'll be enough to eat and freeze. I've planted more peas between the first ones and around the old cabbage where I finally gave up on cabbage and planted Swiss chard.

Yellow squash production is slowing down to maybe 2 - 3 pounds a week with only the rare zucchini, so I've done an additional planting of squash seeds between the plants that are slowing down. There is plenty of space, and I'll pull these older vines when the new ones need room.

I harvested 2 acorn squash and 3 butternuts last night. They are smallish, but the color was right and I didn't want them dangling around to possibly rot in the heat. I baked them last night and the KIDS like them!! Shocks me to no end what they'll eat from the garden that they'd never eat from the store.

I'm going to plant some Egyptian walking onions from my MIL, more Swiss Chard (wish I had bed after bed full of that stuff) in the next couple of days.

Tomatoes? I've got tons of big lucious tomatoes that aren't turning red yet. I have lots of cherry tomatoes, too. My first planting of romas got choked by an untimely liberal application of leaf-mold mulch, but the most recent planting is doing well with little shoots about 2 inches up now. I think we'll be making lots of salsa and sauce in July and August. I'm going to find a source for dead-ripe peaches (this is Clanton after all) and try a peach salsa recipe.

So far, we've harvested 44.25 lbs of produce and that doesn't include the 10 or so cucumbers that have come in one at a time or the little cherry tomatoes that we wash and eat without bringing in the house.

This past week on the farm . . . .

was WILD! After adding just a few more baby chicks (Thanks, Duane! [hic]), and triplet baby pygmy goats at the cattle sale, we left for South Carolina on Saturday and picked up a male standard chocolate poodle in Gadsden and a female just across the SC state line on I-85.

These two puppies have been much more work than the 200 other critters on the property so far! Our boy, Prince Eduard du Chocolat (Eddy), is twice as big as the girl and he's like an awkward giant! He looks so much older and it seems ridiculous that he knows so little. He is beautiful with a milk-chocolate color and greenish eyes. Eddy is our big, goofy, handsome baby boy.

The little girl, Princess Vianne de Coco (Vianne), is a dainty little (standard) poodle with a penchant for pooping on my carpet. Blech. She is a deeper, dark chocolate color with thinner, daintier features. They seem to get along well together with the typical sparky moments sharing a food bowl and certain toys.

Tuesday, I remembered reading about a possible business venture for the children in the Mule Trader (www.themuletrader.com) and checked out the ad online. It was a set of 7 Chinese dwarf hamsters with all cages and acutrements for $35. I called the lady and asked her why whe was selling. She said her kids didn't play with them anymore. We discussed it as a family and Noah and the 2 littles decided they wanted to start their hamster business. They pooled their leftover report card money and we headed out the door.

We bought 7 tiny hamsters, a 10-gallon aquarium with a wire-mesh retro-fit lid, a Hartz hamster playyard, a 3-story gleaming, translucent habitrail kind of thing, a roll-around-the-house-encased-in-a-plastic-ball thing, a bag of hamster food, and a partial bag of pine shavings for that price. Noah paid the lady, and we took home our new enterprise. We combined them all in the aquarium and gave the plastic cages a good washing (she was a smoker). We will combine all seven hamsters into the 3-story unit, use the Hartz cage for quail, and use the aquarium as a quail-baby-brooder box.

We put 18 quail eggs into the incubator last night. In 17 to 18 days, we should have quail babies that are the size of "popcorn with legs"!! We are very excited about this, and the kids can't wait.

So, the menagerie continues to grow in scope and quantity. I've sold 17 of the 104 chicks I ordered from the hatchery. I've run the ad again in the Mule Trader, and also in the Bulletin Board (www.bulletinboard.com) out of Montgomery. We'll see how they do.

We are having fun and learning SO much about creatures and ourselves!

Meet Josie, Nellie, and Billy; they are our new pygmy goats!

Today at the cattle sale, we found triplets! Born around April 1, these three are the CUTEST babies!! Billy and Nellie are a beautiful off-white/caramel color, and Josie is sandy brown with white and black markings and black "boots."

We put them in the goat fence with Spencer, Mary, Freddie, Carly and Sam and Delilah the dog. They are learning their way around and browsing on anything they can find.

We got a late start today, and I only bought cucumbers and tomatoes, and the goats of course. It is cooler outside today than it was last week, but we dressed smarter, too. Hair up in a ponytail, sleeveless t-shirt and shorts, and flip-flops. MUCH better.

Chicken count for today:

OK let's recap:
13 almost laying hens that are about 20 weeks old now and look full-grown 6 Americaunas, 7 Black Buff Orpingtons.

10 mixed (pullets [females] and cockerels [males] - looks like 3 guys and 7 girls) baby chicks about 5 weeks old, 6 are Japanese black bantams (2 guys, 4 gals), 2 are Americaunas, and 2 ????

103 four-week-old pullets, 52 are Rhode Island Reds, and 51 are Americaunas

12 golden buff orpington pullets - 10 days old

18 barred rock pullets - 5 days old
12 (more) golden buff orpington pullets - 5 days old
12 black australorp pullets - 5 days old

8 silver laced wyandotte pullets - 2-days old
8 New Hampshire pullets - 2 days old

and that total brings us to 196 chickens.

Yesterday at the Cattle Sale

The plan was: wake at 6:30am, eat something quick, feed animals, leave for cattle sale at 7:30 with all 4 kids in tow.

Yeah. That could happen.

At 8:30, we are all in the car waiting for Daddy to finish with the quails. We arrived at the Cattle Sale at 8:40, and it was already HOT out there. It was the first time for the kids to go there in about a year, and they were all excited to see baby ducks and rabbits.

I didn't really NEED anything, but I had $20 cash and high hopes as we started out. The first booth I came to had a boy selling big peach baskets full of yellow squash for $5. The boy was about Noah's age and I wanted to encourage the boy in the booth for working so hard, and I wanted Noah to start thinking of ways to work and earn money. I told him I would be back and I'd buy a basket of his squash.

Next booth, there was a lady with 9 clean quart-size mason jars for canning - 20 cents each. YAY! Bought those and asked her to hang on to them till I came back.

We saw baby ducks for $1.50 each. CUTE little yellow fuzzballs with little yellow bills, but I wasn't ready to buy because I had questions about how ducks deal with gardens and what space and water they need.

Found another box of mason jars, this time 9 qt jars and 4 jelly jars for $3. Bought 'em, asked them to hold 'em. Moved on.

We were DYING of absolute heat drain and were dragging our tails up and down the rows of vendors of all varieties of junque when I spied the MOTHERLOAD. At the end of a table, a guy had several nice looking pieces of very tarnished silver. Jessica walks up and loudly says, "Hey, Mom, is that silver???" I said, "SHHHHHHZZZZZZ!" in one of those yelling whispers you do to your kids. I looked at the footed silver bowl with lid, the silver teapot, the silver coffee pot with warmer stand, the creamer and the sugar bowl all matching except the first bowl. I casually walked the rest of his table where Noah found an unopened ship model still in the box and Monty found me an unopened Soap-Making Kit with a book of recipes and instructions and supplies. I took those 2 items and asked the guy what he'd take for those silver pieces and those, and he said, "Let's see, that's 1 and 1, and 3 and 5, and 3, and 2 that's $15. I handed him $15 and he handed me an empty box to put it all in. What a HAUL!!!!! I didn't care it is was silver plate or what, it was BEAUTIFUL and would look so pretty at Thanksgiving and Christmas! Or, I could eBay it and see what happens. YAY!

I went to the veggie vendors and bought 2 big ol' baskets of yellow squash (each filling a plastic WalMart sack to weight capacity) knowing I was going to make squash pickles, 5 BIG onions, a small basket of jalapenos, 2 seedless watermelons, a bucket of blueberries, a basket of peaches, 5 humongous rutabegas, and 2 clusters of garlics. WOW!!! We picked up our mason jars and bought ice cold drinks for everyone. We had to get OUT of that heat and rush home to unload our booty and change into dry clothes to continue our day.

Today, my dear friend Rachel responded to my desperate plea for veggies of color that she might have on hand because I forgot that my squash pickles were pretty because of the beet stalks and baby carrots (which I didn't BUY at the cattle sale). She told me to come on over and she'd load me up. She had baby beets (complete with stalks and greens - I've got PLANS for those!!), weird purple carrots with orange insides - only a couple, yellow with green-marbled patty pan squash, and 2 humongous cabbages (not for the pickles, just for fun) and non-veggies including 5 big mangos, cherries, and blueberries!!

The plan: invent a recipe for peach salsa with jalapeno peppers and onions. Market it as a local delicacy. Write down the recipe for these fabulous squash pickles that also have beets, carrots, zukes, onions, and maybe green beans this time. Get ALL those blackberries we picked made into jam before they go bad. Pit and enjoy those cherries - maybe with some homemade yogurt. It's 5:30, though, and I'm still keister-sitting and typing on this blog. I gotta get BUSY!!!!! Later.

*hiccup* . . . .

I jusss wennn in for some goat feed. I dinn ask for anything. *hiccup!*

8 silver lace wyandottes (spelling)
8 new hampshire

all pullets

I'm glad Monty was driving. *hiccup*

Stopping to smell the roses . . . .

Antique Roses Print by Danhui Nai

You know, as fast as this world runs, sometimes you have to slam your foot on the brakes and just take a moment to smell the air, listen to the birds. Close your eyes and inhale deeply and let it out really slowly, as if you have all day to do that kind of thing.

When we are running around and caught up in the doing, it's so difficult to really enjoy and appreciate each other. I'm enjoying my husband so much right now, I almost feel guilty! On the one hand, I know we deserve this incredible pocket of happiness after coming through those OH so long very lean years. On the other hand, I keep looking over my shoulder wondering if one or both of us is about to die or something, because it just isn't normal for people to actually like each other at this stage is it? (16 years of marriage this July)

The other day, we visited Mr. Hayes' goat dairy in Thorsby, and we all stood around chatting while he went about the business of milking his goats.It's really odd (for me) to be in a room with 2 men talking about (and using the word) "tits" and having no negative reaction at all. I was watching Monty as he learned more and more about the dairy operation and about the goats. I watched as he petted each goat as she entered her stall and started eating. He just glowed with excitement. I kept thinking as I watched, "Man, he's SO hot! Look how handsome he is!" That's been happening quite a bit lately with us, and it's SO great. It's like a gift.

A similar thing keeps happening with the children. I will catch myself looking at them, not as my children, but as little people. I'll think of them as their teachers might see them, or as friends of mine might see them on their first meeting. And I like them. I LIKE my children. I would like them if they weren't mine. I always tell Jessica, my oldest - 13, "It would be so cool just to be your friend, because I like you, but I'm your mom. I have to say no and I have to say the hard things." Then I'll catch a glimpse of her playing with her sisters by choice, and I just take one of those moments and close my eyes and breathe in deeply and let it out slowly and pray that the camera in my mind will keep that image.

Then I'll watch Noah outside with the baby goat he's bottle-feeding and with the puppy. I take a moment and think about how far this child has come with responsibility and with self-control and I'm just amazed. This is a busy, happy boy. Right now, I'm lying in bed typing and listening to him giggle at a Calvin and Hobbes book. That laughter is music to my ears.

Annie and Lizzy are like conjoined twins. Today, I was watching them. They each got their Nintendo DS games and both sat in one recliner, scrunched together, playing some game that they both have and discussing tricks and tips to "win" the game. They do everything together, and they are each others' best friend! These girls are the reason to have your children close together.

The one positive thing that has come from Dad's long illness and death, is that I think I know better how to live each day as if maybe I won't have another. All throughout each day when I'm faced with accomplishing something on a list vs. listening to my girls sing a song or show me a new piece of art, or my big kids wanting to show me something they've written or read, I'm doing better at choosing those things that MATTER, those things my children will remember over Mom having the laundry washed and folded at all times. I sat with my girls today and ate popsicles with them and laughed and tickled. I spent time with Jessica riding in the car and talking. Noah and I snuggled last night and chatted about the day.

Friends? Those are especially important these days. It's so important to have people who think enough of you to call you or email you, not just because they should, but because it make their lives better to have you in them. At age 44, you don't meet new friends every day that have enough in common with you to want to spend lots of time together, so you need to really TREASURE any friend you have! It's great to be able to help your friends, be needy with your friends, to laugh with them, cry with them, to feed their animals when they have to be away, to taste their special recipes and to share yours, and to just have someone to laugh with over stuff your family's heard a thousand times.

Some other things to stop and notice (that aren't negative things on the news):
*the night sky - have you had time to look lately? still gorgeous!
*a seedling poking up through the dirt - still a miracle no matter how many I see!
*a peeping, fuzzy baby chicken (uh-oh, here we go! see post about my addiction)
*a cardinal
*a rainbow
*lightening in the distance
*drivers who use turn signals (those are especially rare, but they do exist)
*any person doing their job with joy (also rare)
*bees pollinating
*torrential rains watering your garden for you FREE!
*anyone holding a door for you
*any child or teen saying, "yes, ma'am" or "no, sir" and "thank you" and "please"
*any grown-up volunteering to help kids by tutoring or coaching a team
*any married couple together more than 10 years (cause we all know how hard it can be)

Well, I've stopped, and I've smelled the roses, and I've taken deep breaths and I've let them out slowly. I'm glad I took this time to write on what seemed like an uneventful day and wrote so much about things that are around me constantly. Thanks for being with me for that.

Barred Rock Baby Chicks today? Yes, I'll take 18!!

If I were an alcoholic, and baby chicks were beer, Duane Jones would be my bartender and Jones' Feed and Seed would be my favorite bar.

Today, Duane calls and says, "I got some baby chicks in, pullets, Barred Rocks, Black Australorps, Golden Buffs. You interested?"

I had not thought about getting more chickens. 13 almost laying hens and 104 2-week old chicks and 10 3-week old chicks and 12 1-week old chicks is enough for anyone. That's 139 chickens. "Nah, Duane. I'm good." I say it nervously. I know I'm not convincing. I'm lying through my teeth. My insides are screaming, "I WANT MY BABY CHICKENS!!!!" I stifle the inner voices.

Duane says, "Well, you told me to call you when I had chicks I hadn't sold, and I just wanted to give you first dibs."

"Did you say you have Golden Buffs? Those cute little yellow fuzzballs that look like the Easter toy chickens that cheep when you make contact with their metal undersides at the WalMart?"

"Yes, that's them. You want me to hold some for you?"

My mind said, "No, Duane. I'm good." However, my mouth broke loose and excitedly said, "I'll need a dozen each, and I'll be there in half an hour."

Then, like some pitiful addict, I DASH over there and start pawing each variety and looking at the chicken poster on the wall because I have NO idea what a grown Barred Rock chicken looks like. Oh, that's a really pretty chicken - dark gray all over with white spots like a guinea hen, punctuated by bright red combs. Gorgeous.

"I'll take all of these Barred Rock chicks. How many do you have?????"

"Eighteen."

"OK, (I'm starting to slur my words now and gesture unusually) and I'll need a dozen golden buffs and a dozen black australorps, too."

I grab the shipping box from the hatchery and nervously count as Miss Mavis counts out each precious little baby. "OK," she says. "That's 42 chickens. Need any starter scratch?"

"No, ma'am."

I pick up the box after paying and stagger out to the van, drunk with the obtaining of more cute, fuzzball baby chicks. I hiccuped.

Fortunately, I brought Monty along to drive. It's 10:22, and the babies are doing great out in the brooder coop with all those other (and bigger) babies. My head's hurting now. Probably a chicken drunk hangover. I guess tomorrow I'll try some "hair of the dog" and see if that helps. I didn't buy all that he had, just all the Barred Rock. ;o)

Taste test results on squash pickles are in . . . .

OMG!!! They are the best thing I've ever tasted. The recipe said to chill them for 24 hours. I didn't know if I could make it - they are SOOOOOOO pretty!

I reached in the fridge, unsealed the canned jar, got a fork and pulled out a tiny baby carrot . . .

INCREDIBLE!!!!!

Then I pulled out a slender beet stalk . . . TRES MAGNIFIQUE!!!!

Holy cow! Who can eat pickles of any variety at 9am????? ME! SNARF snarf snarf snarf . . . .

I'll see if I can get permish and post the recipe.

I have my house back!!

After my morning trip to feed goats, the dog, the baby chicks, and the hens and then to the garden for Contender green beans and squash, I walked back to the house and into the air conditioned wonder of it.

There were no stinky baby chicks in the dining room in plastic tubs, they weren't even in the garage!

There were no kitties fouling the air with their litter box activities. How can creatures so small and cute STANK like that??!! I don't know.

We put the cats into their permanent home area (in the shed with the stacked hay bales so they are safe from dogs) over the weekend, and we gave the house a good cleaning. All the plants the cats had rummaged around in scattering dirt and spanish moss got cleaned up and all the debris vacuumed out of the carpet. All the little shreds of paper they'd make were cleaned, the cat toys, the litter box, and the stinky cat food bowl got moved out.

The house looks great and smells WONDERFUL!!! and feels a little bit lonelier . . . .

Lunch from the Garden

Over the course of the week, I had harvested onions, red potatoes, green beans, and yellow and zucchini squash. I had SO many squash that I made squash pickles yesterday - I'm tasting them chilled later today and I'll report in with a taste-rating. I made watermelon rind pickles, and they taste great, but are mushy. I have some ideas how to make that better.

Monty and I washed all the veggies, and I snapped a pound of beans and peeled red potatoes while he sliced up the 3 pounds of squash I harvested this morning. I had already thinly sliced a vidalia onion from the fridge and began sauteing it in schmaltz adding the potatoes as I peeled and quartered them. When all the potatoes were in and sizzling with onion, I added the snapped green beans and about 3 cups of water. A little kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, and a pound of smoked sausage cut up into half inch medallions and a stewing one-pot meal began to simmer. On the side, I sauteed more onion in more schmaltz and tossed in the yellow and zucchini squash with some kosher salt into the new wok. Sizzling squash on the right, stewing sausage veggies on the left, and we were all getting hungrier by the second. After the squash was finished cooking, I emptied the wok and added butter to sizzle the beets I'd roasted yesterday.

I served green beans cooked with potato chunks and smoked sausage, sauteed squash with onions, and sauteed roasted beets. For dessert, we had watermelon rind pickles. Of all this, only the smoked sausage was bought from the grocery store!! How cool is that!??

Tonight we'll have a roast with carrots and potatoes (all done together in the roasting pan), and a squash casserole (using sauteed squash from lunch), and yeast rolls for the family (not me, I'm gluten-free). I hope to cut up another watermelon this afternoon between meals for a snack and use the rind for new and crunchy pickles.

Two drunken teens flew their SUV off the road and wrapped it around . . . .

a tree in my front yard. We had just gotten in from taking the kids out to dinner (I'll post more on that later - do you know how rarely this family of six goes out to dinner these days??!!) and were getting ready for bed.

Suddenly, screeching tires and a loud EXPLOSION and crash made our hearts jump into our throats. Monty yells, "Call 911!! Someone just died!" He dashes into the living room putting his shoes on and screaming at me to put on my pants. Jessie's on the cell with 911, Monty's out the door with the flashlight, and he's up there (our house is downhill from the road with a grove of tall trees between us and the road [thank God])checking and talking to these two kids with the crashed vehicle pouring fumes and smoke smelling like it's gonna blow at any second.

One boy is lying on his back beside the car talking to Monty, and the other is sitting on the bank beside the road with his head in his hands rocking back and forth and talking to a girl who'd stopped after seeing the wrecked car. One of the boys said there were two of them in the car, and the other said there were three, so everyone's frantically searching for a possible 3rd person thrown from the car. Amazingly enough, both seem to be shaken and cut up, but not critically injured. My neighbors have walked over and are standing with me asking about the wreck and the boys and shaking their heads. We are all amazed that the kids are alive, and we talk about how we as parents worry about this happening to our kids every time they leave the house no matter who they are with or whether or not they are drinking.

The ambulances gather up the boys and leave one after the other. I hope to get more information on the boys' conditions later today. I know where the ambulances took them, and I'm hoping I can get the families on the phone.

Because no one could see very well last night in the dark, they removed the vehicle from my yard and as much of the strewn debris as they could, but they told us they'd come back today and finish up. Sure enough, by 8 am, they were out in the yard gathering up junk. Aside from the cursory empty beer cans and liquor bottles, we found a styrofoam cooler and full but dented beer can right beside our sidewalk 100 ft from the road! In the flower bed inside that sidewalk was a plastic gas can full of gasoline. There were headlights, broken off car parts, and other items from the car over 100ft where it crashed. It really shook us all up. We are kind of all still shaky today.

Die Hard in the Garden . . . .

This morning, while Monty and the kids were feeding the goats and chickens nearby, I made my morning pilgrimage to the garden, bucket and scissors in hand and coated well in Off bug spray.

I always visit the tomatoes first, even though I haven't picked the first ripe fruit yet. I'm a vigorous pruner and vine-trainer, and I always want to be sure my vines are establishing great roots and putting their energies toward fruiting with plenty of proper support for the weight I HOPE they put on in tomatoes.

Today, I really took out much of the "underbrush" - the side limbs that are below the first blossoms or small fruits. I want to keep good air circulation under and around the plants, and this should help. I'm always cutting out suckers, too.

What I noticed today, however, is in addition to the red spider mites that I sprayed for 2 weeks in a row I found a nice colony of white flies! Okay, bugs, it's ONNNNNN! I marched straight to the garage, brought out the sprayer canister, whipped out the measuring spoons, and measured the hopefully lethal dose of malathion. A cruel smirk began to contort my whole face and I channeled one or more of the Ghostbusters to get "the right stuff" into my strut back to the garden. Man, I wish I had thought to rig my sprayer into a backpack-type mechanism to really look the part, but the pumping I have to do to get the spray wouldn't be convenient. Darn!!

I arrived back at the garden anthropomorphizing the plants in my mind, imagining them suffering from their pests, gasping for breath, crying out in weak, little voices for help . . . . "Who you gonna call?" ME!!!!

As I pump air into the sprayer, I jump from one movie character to another. First, I'm Bill Murray as Dr. Vinkman in Ghostbusters sauntering around in Dana's apartment playfully squeezing the trigger of a feaux ghost-detector. Then I shift over to Bill Murray's character in Caddy Shack maniacally plotting destruction of the gopher and any terrain or structures surrounding him. Then I'm Trinity in The Matrix turning no-hands cartwheels as I blow away the cyber enemy harming no real humans so I'm completely methodical, precise, and cold as blue steel in leather and greased-back hair . . . .

The bugs are shrieking and stampeding away in the grip of mortal terror, and the plants are relaxing and looking to the sky, thankful that their rescuer arrived just in the nick of time. They receive the poison liquid like so much anti-venom after a rattlesnake bit and then sigh and rest to allow their bodies to recuperate.

I mete out the magical liquid carefully but generously to be sure to save EVERY fruiting plant and eradicate every little ugly, plant-sucking, vine-chewing, leaf-eating varmint that might be lurking about my precious garden.

As the last molecule of poison spits out the end of the sprayer wand, I turn and survey all that I've sprayed. As I look around the beautiful, lush blossoming and fruiting plants and garden structures, I remember what Bruce Willis said in "Live Free or Die Hard": Officer McClane said (something to the effect of): When someone needs help, you have to BE "that guy." Today, in my garden, I am "that guy." I walk exhausted to the garage, rinse out my sprayer, and think about all the death and destruction I have wrought. . . . Cool.

Silly music to accompany a silly post: