Farm Life

The past several weeks have been really intense - good, but intense.  Here are a few pictures from throughout the planting season.  We are almost done planting and are now mulching.  We are up to 105 chickens and are ready to butcher.  That is next....  as soon as we get the details worked out.  There are 6 ducks in our menagerie and two pigs.  The green feed in the orchard is working out great and our "chicken salad" is giving our cooped chickens lots of greens in a steady way.

There are a bunch of quail in my sister's ever expanding incubator.  The first one is pipping out, probably tonight.  By tomorrow we will probably have a bunch of quail.  I don't even have a vague idea of how to take care of them, but will soon figure it out.

There are 60 chicken eggs in the incubator at this time.  Since we decided that 15 is the limit for one Mama Hen (otherwise the little ones get suffocated) we are trying to train a couple of other Mama's.  One is working out nicely and I'm looking for another little house and have the next Mama picked out.

We ended up with over a hundred tomato plants.  Thanks to all who took my extras.  They were overwhelming.   We also have in onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, 27 varieties of melons, beans, peas, radish and lettuce and will be planting corn soon.

The raspberries are just ripening up and the kids have been on the strawberry hunt for days now.  I have little bunches of strawberries all over the place, and if you hunt, you can find some.  It is a lot of fun.

The guys have been working like madmen on a road realignment project and a big house foundation, but they have shoved a couple of things in around here.  Fence fixing is ongoing and we did a lot of work on our pool.  It is quite old and needs work - always.  We pressure washed, drained and painted the pool and shortly they will convert an old, non-working hot tub that was attached into a kids pool.  By the way, that was a royal we.... I really didn't help at all.  My sister is the ramrod of that project and boy am I glad it is almost done :)  It will be more efficient, safer and a lot cuter than anything I could come up with.

Hope everyone has their garden in.  We are working hard in ours.  Everything is popping up and growing like crazy.  I can't wait for tomatoes!

Showing off a beautiful granddaughter!

We love baby ducks!

There is always time for a bike race!

This is the "chicken salad"  Different seeds planted in these old raised beds and as they grow, the chickens can eat the greens, but the plants live.  It is working really well.

The house and run for our Mama Chicken...

Training up a second Mama Chicken in this house.

A little repair work on the step.

I am really not helping.... just checking it out.
Patching and painting are not my thing at all.
I really admire anyone who can do this type of work and I WISELY married someone who is great at it.  Twenty nine years and counting!

 Let the painting commence!  A little tile work and it is just like new  :)

This mess will become a neat kids pool with some gravel, some concrete, some paint and some tile.

We collected about 50 million polliwogs to feed to the ducks and worms in the pool cleaning out process.   We also collected several buckets of very nice leaves laced with lots of algae and used them to mulch the potatoes.  We begin refilling the pool Wednesday.  I can't wait!

Loving it!
Be healthy and well
Cindy