What a Day!

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Is today over yet? This is one day that has gone on forever and even though there’s just a little over an hour left of it as I’m typing this, it will be an hour or two into tomorrow before today’s work is done. That’s the kind of day it’s been.

I woke up early with plans of getting all the tomatoes, which we picked over the weekend, canned. First I rounded up jars and got them put in the dishwasher before I headed out to do chores. Both the kids were still sleeping so I decided I’d just sneak out really fast and get them done. Miley always loves to come with me to help with chores, but since I was needing to get canning done and she was still asleep, I thought it’s be a little quicker just to run out and do them real fast. Once I got about half way through them, Miley came running out and helped me finish up.
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Days May Be Getting Shorter, But Still Lots to Do!

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I know it’s been a while since I last posted, but things have just been busy… there’s just not enough time in the day to get everything done. Normally at this time of the year, things start to wind down around here. The garden slows down, the goat dries up and milking comes to an end for the year, and we start planning when to butcher our turkeys and meat chickens. But this year has been so different and I’m beginning to wonder if we will get everything done by the time winter hits. I really hope so because I really don’t want to be out butchering birds when the snow is flying.

So far the only thing close to being on schedule is our milking season has come to an end. We milked the last time for this year last week and are using up our last quart…


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No Apples This Year

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This year has been one fungusey year, I tell ya. Yeah I know, fungusey isn’t a real word, but with all the fungus I’ve dealt with this summer it’s officially became a word around our house because there’s no other way to describe it other than… fungusey. Seems like one thing after another came down with some sort of fungus all summer long. From flowers and shrubs, to tomatoes and even the apple tree, it was all affected by fungus this year.

Unfortunately our apple tree got cedar apple rust, which is a fungus that requires both cedar and apple trees to reproduce. It starts out in the spring with the cedar and once the spores form, they travel by air to the apple tree where they infect the leaves and blooms. The apple tree will develop yellow spots on the leaves and late summer the spores will mature and travel by air back to the cedar tree to complete the life cycle. You can read more about the life cycle of cedar-apple rust here.

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What Our Chore Routine Is Like

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Chores, chores, chores… every morning and evening we always have chores!! I admit, doing chores every single day… morning and night… day in and day out… can leave us feeling burned out at times. There’s no break… the animals have to be fed and watered… let out during the day and penned up at night… no matter what, whether it’s poop needing scooped, water pans needing scrubbed, food dishes needing filled… there’s always something needing to be done.
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Fall Garden Update

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Shortly after my last garden update, we went out and cleared the weeds out of one end of the garden. It was quite a chore, let me tell ya! Those weeds were so thick and tall it made it really hard to knock down and on top of that, it was super-hot and humid. Not the best combination at all. I had break out the DR Trimmer because the weed eater kept loosing it’s string, then it also kept loosing it’s string and between that and me killing it and not being able to restart it, I was keeping my husband busy helping me when he had other things to get done.

Once all the weeds were knocked down, it was a huge chore to till because all the weeds kept bogging down the tiller. But we managed to get it all done and I got the beans in. Now they’re up, blooming and looking good. I also put in a row of peas but not all of them came up and the beans kinda took over. I keep forgetting to check so I don’t know if there are any growing out there or not.

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Our Chicks Hatched!

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There’s been all sorts of excitement and anticipation over the arrival of our chicks!  When hatching day finally came, Miley made many trips made to the coop to see if the eggs were hatching. Each trip ended with a little disappointment because she didn’t hear any peeps or see any chicks. As the day went on, she wondered if any would be any hatching, and even at one point, I was wondering the same thing too. I told her we just needed to be patient and wait another day or so because the chicks could be hatching and we didn’t want to risk disturbing them.
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Getting Ready For Our New Arrivals

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Today we’ve been cleaning out the coop while trying not to be blown away, it’s horribly windy out there, and gearing up for the arrival of our new chicks. Excitement and anticipation are mounting as the curiosity over how many chickens will hatch and what they will look like grows. The hens are growing crankier by the minute… but who can blame them? I know I’d be pretty cranky too if I sat crammed in a nesting box with another hen for 20 straight days. I’m sure they’re ready to have this over and done with so they can get out and about with their new bundles of fluff.

Last update, there was quite a lot of drama going on over who exactly was going to be sitting on the nest. It started out with two light colored hens sitting, and then the red hen ran them out every day to lay her egg. Eventually she went broody, claimed a spot on the nest and one of the light ones gave up.


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Treating Blossom Drop in Tomatoes

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Back in the spring, while doing chores one morning, Miley noticed we had a small tomato plant growing by the barn. We left it there, and soon forgot about it as the busyness of the summer took over. Soon it grew large it was taller than the fence panels. Continue reading →

We Harvested Our Popcorn!

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This year we did a little experiment and tried growing some strawberry popcorn. From past experience with growing sweet corn, I really didn’t expect it to do that great. In fact, I really didn’t want to mess with it because I figured it’d get full of worms and bugs like sweet corn does, and we wouldn’t get anything out of it. My husband talked me into trying it, so he planted small patch on the side of the garden.
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