I got pictures!

My older daughter brought a camera from the school's photo club home for the weekend so I borrowed it to get some pics of the animals for everyone to see first up is the goats.

Now The white goat is as far as we can tell younger than our black one, who is also the head goat in our tiny herd.  She's always chasing the white one (Milkshake) off the feed while she (Momma) is eating.  The little one is our buckling Oreo, he's still too small to do his job, but I doubt the girls care right now.

I don't know how many people saw back when we got our first flock here how we called the chicks "food tv" for our cats.  But.. we got new programming on the "food tv".

It's the Cornish Cross show, I was in the farm store with Silver picking up a couple things when they brought them into the store.  Silver thought it was funny, my head when up as soon as I heard the peeping from them and I started scanning the store to see where they were.  These guys are going to be an experiment to see if it is worth the cost to raise a bunch next year for the freezer.  That's why there is only 6 now, we had considered getting 12.

Speaking of chickens...

This  Is a picture of about 1/3 of our current laying flock.  I unfortunately have about 5-6 roosters in there and they are getting reduced to 2 roosters next week.  That white bucket in the foreground is a feeder Silver made for them out of a 5 gallon pail and a feed bowl.  He bolted the two together and cut some holes in the bottom of the sides of the bucket and it is now a 5 gallon chicken feeder.  The two leghorns in the picture are roosters as is the bird in the doorway, we're keeping the one in the doorway he's a mix) because he is just so huge.

Here is the other one we are keeping:

It's a turken, we got two of these roosters and two hens of this breed and after watching all of the boys I noticed the turkens are built massively.  Also this turken and that mixed rooster (I call him pretty boy and once I can get a pic you'll know why) are the most vigorous breeders in the batch of roosters.  So it was size of the bird and behavior that determined which roosters are going to be put in the freezer verses left with the ladies.

I have the chicken coop in the same location it was though the yard got an upgrade,

The tarp is  up over the coop and part of the yard partly to keep the tarp from getting torn and to help the roof which needs repair.  We bent rebar for the "hoops", we also used pieces of wood at the bottom to hold the chicken wire down with rebar stakes hammered into the ground which will also prevent anybody from digging into the yard.  We also now have a full sized door on the yard instead of having to bend in half to go into the yard.  All of the chicken wire is the same fencing we had on the old yard reused on this one.

That next building is the new rabbitry with those 2 barrels there to store food for birds and rabbits.

Except for the 2 cages on the upper right everything was gotten from one person.  The cage 'condo' on the left side is a  multi lab cage that can be broken down into 6 cages  when you put dividers in.    We temporarily have just tarps on this structure, we're going to put some wood up on the sides to keep the wind down, we're trying to figure out if we'll need a heater int here or not for the winter as they are all New Zeland and New Zeland crosses.

This is Harriet,

I love her coloring, I am hoping when I breed her, that her color will be in her babies as I personally love that silver grey fur.  I am hoping at least down the line to keep the furs off of the ones we butcher for projects.  She's under a year old so I have a few years of breeding her to try for more with her color.

We do have one top notch animal in this bunch.

This is Ziggy, he came with a pedigree and an ear tattoo that is on his opposite ear.  I am going to be putting does in front of him this week as we have cooler weather this week so we should have fully functioning boys this week.  Seems the bucks' equipment doesn't work well when it hits over 90 degrees.  The only colored rabbit I have is Harriet everyone else is a white New Zeland, and we're trying to figure out what she might be.

I am working on trying to switch the rabbits to forage feeding over pellet food, as I'd rather cut them some food myself than have to buy it.  We had gotten some geese from the person we got the rabbits from too but they wandered off.  Which I did expect, and was figuring I'd have to get some goose eggs to hatch next spring so we have friendly ones to guard our yard.

Well I need to get moving, as it's taken me an hour to set this post up due to pictures and I am still cutting firewood for this winter as our chain saw was out of commission this spring so we're half our wood behind.  Though pretty soon we'll have it all and will be chopping/cutting wood for next year.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Pond News

Well this morning on my way to feed the chickens I got myself a nice surprise(yes I know "got is baaaad grammar but in this case it suits my needs).
   As you can see we seem to have a tad bit more water in our pond.  As yesterday when we went out to work it was about 1/8 of the way full seeing it at about 1/2 was a big surprise.  A good surprise  but still a surprise.
 Yesterday the pond was not was smooth as it is now in this picture, and as you can see it is only half the pond.  That... unfortunately is due tot he fact that after I fed the chickens I ran back into the house for the camera and got a beautiful picture of the full pond.  Then I slid on the ice and it fell into the water.
 I fished it back out, but as I don'rt know if I'll get the image off of the camera I went and got our old smart phone and used it's camera as I know it has a nice camera on it.  I guess if this keeps up I need to get use to using the phone camera, we should know in a few hours to a couple days if the camera survives the trip into the pond.
 As for the pond itself we are suppose to get more rain today then it changes to snow tonight for the next to days.  So it is very possible we will have a full pond by week's end.  Now we just have to hope it stays full.  If it doesn't we will try Silver's method of "sealing" the pond bottom with clay cat litter.  He says if you get straight clay cat litter and make a slurry of it and coat the bottom of the pond it will seal the "leaks" in it.  Hey, if it works that's good.

 Here is the other picture of the pond.
  The only spot it hasn't done much yet is on the shallow end, which is where my cat tails are going to be growing when the pond is full and it gets warmer.  Though I imagine the blackberry canes that grow on that side of the pond will now wind up HUGE with all the extra water they will have there.
 Pity Paris died over the summer she'd have a blast this summer with a pond in our yard, the two pups do not even seem interested in investigating the pond as it is now.  Neither does Midnight their daddy.  Can't wait to see the cats when it's full of water and try to walk across that log over the middle.
 As for the rest of the water that is in our yard...
 All of our trenches have water in them, also the new septic for the house has a layer of water in it as well.  Funny thing is as I was leaving to feed the chickens and was walking next to the electric trench and noticed the water I thought to myself.  I'd live to see that much water in the pond.  Guess that falls under the "ask and ye shall receive" heading huh?
 We still need to get the piles of mud down a bit, which I am figuring they will work good to "deter" some of the plant growth I don't want in some areas.  We also have to restore the trench that went from the section of woods that line the road to our pond as it was the natural draining area.  I'm going to have to hand dig it.  At least it will ensure steady influx of fresh water though.
 I also did notice that when I watched the water in the pond yesterday that it was still bubbling from the ground up, so it's possible it may stay liquid at the deepest parts in the winter which would be great for raising fish.
 Well that's it before breakfast, which is going to be beef hash (leftover from last night's roast) with eggs on top and maybe some of my fresh sourdough.  While my oven is on the fritz I can only make my "no knead" sourdough bread as it cooks at 500 degrees.
 ..and don't forget today's moral... don't stand on ice above a pond to take pictures with your camera!
 Have a good day all!

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

HOT weather... is there a break?

I think it's a very good question to ask... will we have a break soon in all this "gawd awful" heat? We did get some rain yesterday, it rained about 20 minutes in a downpour and I don't think it did much. Aside from letting in a rather lovely wind with the wet. This morning while out watering my garden I heard thunder, maybe we will get more rain; I do hope so as we need it. However, Kansas needs it more than we do.

I picked a couple of days ago about 6 red noodle beans for us to eat, loved them. I did pick about the same on the Black Seeded, but as they were very "buggy" the chickens got them. I made a stir fry with the red noodle beans and 2 squashes we had left from our last grocery day. A little bit of onion, fresh basil, and some chicken thighs and we had a nice lunch.

I do finally have some tomatoes ripening:

As you can tell this is on our "boxed" tomatoes, this is the Italian variety:

A Grappoli D' Inverno

They haven't gotten as big as I would have hoped but I'm very happy to see some ripening going on. The paste tomatoes are right next to this one and it's covered with green paste tomatoes and I hope they will ripen soon. I might even let Silver eat one before I start freezing them. One more thing about this tomato plant that has ripening on it... it's the one that was half eaten by bugs. So it's amazing that there is ripening tomatoes on it.

Now for those of you who saw my other garden vid:

Yes, there isn't all that much to "see" on this side, but we are still experimenting with the varieties this year. Next year if we still use this plot I will be adding one or two more "beds". I do have some good space still available to dig, and I might start it this fall when we get some decent rains again so the ground will be softer.

Oh, I have a semi cute moment for you as well this is Houdini in the tree he sleeps in:

Isn't he adorable?

We did get some work done on the root cellar yesterday morning, and got 8 wheelbarrows full of dirt out and spread on our walk way. We are going to start piling clay again starting tomorrow. We haven't worked out there this morning with the threat of the rain; we did not want to risk getting the electric cords wet. Back to digging again tomorrow.

Well that's it for now.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Plant Pictures!!!!

Yep I got my camera running again so here you go some pictures of my many plants:

To start off pictures of my tomatoes:

These are the ones in the back garden, 2 sets of these have very thick stems so I am wondering if they will need staking at all.

This flower is on one of the ones in my back garden. i do also have flowers on one set of my tomatoes in my box, I think those in the box might be the purple smudge ones. I'm not sure yet but we will see.

This one compared to the others in my back garden seem on the puny size. The stems on these are not as thick, and while this plant is very lush the other ones in the back seem to have more leaves and bigger ones.

This is one of my "boxed" tomatoes, doesn't he look happy? today we set up a trellising fence on the back for me to tie them all too and we will see how they do with it. also i will take a picture of it tomorrow morning.

Here is my "puny" one in the box, now it is a lush plant and if it weren't for the fact it won't stay erect it would be the same height as the other ones. I have a feeling this is a "vining" type of tomato.

Now here are my bean plants:

This is really an "overview" shot, but as you can see it is mostly my "bush" beans the tiger's eye's. Which in my opinion are very tall bush beans. I do hope they produce well.

Here are my pole beans, and they seem very happy they are climbing on their own now after quite a bit of encouragement on my part. i did not get a picture of my rice beans but they seem to be more a bush type than a pole and they are flowering already.

Now for those of you who don't know what this is, it is Bitter Melon. I am growing it for Silver's Diabetes, as it is suppose to regulate blood sugar levels. it is the oddest looking thing I have ever seen. It took forever to germinate and out of 6 seeds only one did germinate. the leaves are maple leaf shaped which to me is odd looking on it's own. it is also slightly lighter in color than a cucumber leaf.

This here is a newbie plant in my garden it is a Black Mission Fig, it already has some figs growing on them. I am hoping to see this one take off a bit in the next few months, I am also expecting it will take over the spot I planted it in. It has been years since i have eaten a fresh fig as I have a couple times when i was younger as a neighbor behind us when I was growing up had one growing in her yard. I don't know what kind she had, but she didn't even eat the figs, but she grew the plant. I think in the case of most "fruiting" types of trees most people buy and plant them with no intention of eating from them later. They want the "pretty" flowers but not the fruit later. I on the other hand want the fruit. So right now in my "budding" (yep I said it!) orchard I have 2 Elderberries, and one Fig. I hope to add more to it soon, I really want to get one of those "cold hardy" banana trees I've seen advertised recently. I also know they will not taste like a "banana" I know, but if they will survive our winters it would be a big help as we eat bananas like you would not believe.

Oh, a note on buying plants late in the season. It is actually a good time to buy them, as you can get them much cheaper than during the "standard" buying time. One year a number of years ago i lived someplace where while I could not grow food plants I could have a flower garden and 90% of all my plants were half "dead" plants stores knocked down to almost nothing. If you are very careful with them they will live and thank you for getting them buy sometimes producing much more than the "healthy" ones you buy early in the season. I'll get a picture of my Stevia plants tomorrow and show you what I mean.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Picture time! again

This is our tree for this year, it's having issues but it is still pretty. A living Norfolk Pine that we will be planting in the yard this coming spring. We also picked up this tiny pitiful cypress tree that Lowes was selling for $1 due to the fact it was dropping a tad... it's not now and we are going to plant it next spring as well.

Well though we are putting in insulation my little girl had a three dog night the other day.. as of course the dogs did not want to sleep on the cold floor. Oh, does anyone have any suggestions for Paris' skin problem? The vet said it's a flea allergy.. but it takes a full winter for her coat to grow back, anyone know of a way to have it grow back faster?

This of course is our resident momma cat Paige, she was hanging off the upper bunk bed the other day and I though she looked so cute like that (and of course she knows she's cute) and also had a "wow your legs are long" moment too.

On another note, we had a visitor back on Friday, seems the school called the state about our 'substandard' living conditions and sent someone out to check on us. The man who came out was very nice and he was impressed with our set up actually and thought the sawdust toilet was a interesting idea, and was surprised it didn't smell. I do have to wonder though if we were homeschooling would have had this problem?

Be Well and Blessed Be...