Pig shed, almost complete!

Today we worked on the shed during lunch time and after work. Not many photos since we were so busy. These past few days the older two girls have really helped out a lot by taking care of meals so we could continue with building the shed/pen. Thanks girls!

Sides are up and the roof goes on! Lowes had clearance shingles, white in color. Good deal and it will be a good roof.





The piggies have been sleeping in a temporary shelter in the meantime. They don't seem to mind much :)

Pigs and electric fencing

This morning we picked up our pigs from the seller. They are so *cute*! We weren't finished with their pen yet, so they had to wait in a crate until we had the electric fencing done.



We didn't really get any further with the shed because we had to run the electric wire and that took up a large part of our time.

They were very happy to be released into their pen and immediately set to work sniffing everything, rooting and testing the electric fencing.







I'll say it again... they're cute!

Pig shed & pen

Today we started building our pig pen and shed in preparation for the arrival of our piggies. Dan planned out this awesome "little" shed. We are using four 16' x 34" pig panels for their pen. We'll also add electric fencing.

Another family project!













Done for the day. We got the floor done and then called it quits.

Apples & Peaches

We bought 1/2 bushel peaches and 1 bushel of apples for processing from a local orchard. We bought some for eating too, and they are so good!





1 bushel of apples cost $10, a really good deal compared to grocery store prices.

It took a lot of work, but we got 7 quarts of peach halves, 6 quarts applesauce and 7 quarts of quartered apples.

Little Miss Botanist turns 14

birtTime really flies. It is such a joy to watch our children grow and mature and get a glimpse of the wonderful adults they will become.

Little Miss Botanist has turned 14 and true to form planned a very unique birthday for herself. She requested a book about foraging and edible weeds, we chose to buy her Nature's Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants which really pleased her.



With the money from her grandparents (both SA and USA) we got her a gift certificate to Fire Mountain Gems.



We had a little family party with cake and chips.



And for dinner she requested a campfire with hotdogs and s'mores.



You're never too old to sit on your mama's lap!

To end it all off, we watched the Perseid meteorite showers and got to see a lot of meteorites. All in all a lovely day for a lovely young woman. We love you!

No AI yet

Butterbelle is now on heat and we contacted our AI guy so he could come out. Sadly he didn't get the Jersey bull semen from his supplier yet, so we'll wait until next time. Luckily it's only a three week wait. This probably works out better anyway, it gives us more time to work with Butterbelle and get her more used to being led with the halter/lead rope.

Our beans are up and we had a nice rainstorm so they're nicely watered. The chickens have slowed down a little on their laying, probably due to the intense heat we've had this week. I found this neat little egg basket at a local store, this is what's left of this week's egg haul. We go through a lot of eggs a week!



In other news, our oldest DD has been "adopted" by some of our friends and has an open invitation to go out there and ride one of their horses. She is thinking of entering in the 4H barrel racing this year.



We are also planning on buying some Ossabaw pigs in a few weeks. They are a good size for our smaller acreage. Not sure if we will just raise and then butcher, or try breeding them. We'll see ;).

Zucchini!

This week we've made:


Zucchini bread (only a pic of grated zucchini, not the bread, sorry!)


Dried zucchini in the dehydrator...




.. and Zucchini Relish. The relish is surprisingly good. I used the recipe from the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. It's very watery though, so next time I'll be trying out a different recipe.

Our mandolin comes in very handy with all this food prep. I have been very impressed with it so far.. quite a nice kitchen tool for a decent price. I like how you can wash all the parts and then put them all in the storage box and put that in the drying rack and it air dries in there. That definitely saves us from accidental cuts.. those blades are SHARP!

Butterbelle with her halter

So I felt bad that I didn't post a more recent picture of Butterbelle in her snazzy Amish-made halter. So here you go :) She has the lead rope attached since that's part of halter training.

She's a sweet cow.

Our cup runneth over!

Squash, squash, and more squash! They're overflowing our house.




Two bags of summers squash, one of potatoes. Yes, we re-use our empty feed bags.

We've made everything imaginable with summer squash and still have so much more. In the next two days I will be making zucchini relish, zucchini pickles and zucchini bread and butter pickles. I'm also going to be drying some zucchini and will use my handy Foodsaver Wide Mouth Jar Sealer which will be arriving in a few days. That way I can dry the squash and then store it in canning jars. I will also be receiving this Polder Strainer which will make the job of blanching vegetables so much easier.

Everybody really enjoyed the zucchini bread I made the other day, sorry no photos! I'll take some next time.


Even the chickens enjoy the zukes :)

We planted about 8 lbs. of potato seeds and harvested almost 50 lbs. of potatoes.



It's not as good a return as we would have liked, but we were late getting them in and they got attacked by potato beetles. So we're thankful for what we did get. We planted Kennebec (and a few Red Norland) and they are some of the creamiest, tastiest potatoes we've ever eaten. Of course 50 lbs. of potatoes won't last our little family very long, so we plan on planting much more next year.

Our tomatoes are doing great, but while we're getting enough to eat, we're not really getting enough to can.





Next year we need to do a better job at our tomatoes. We were so rushed to try get everything in and done, so the tomatoes are not caged and they were not mulched and the weeds really took over. Trying to turn pasture into a vegetable garden is not the easiest task in the world.

Did I mention that we're getting overrun by squash? They are really doing well and they're like the energizer bunny.. they just keep going! Look at those flowers.. still more squash to come!





Thankfully there are so many ways to prepare squash and everybody likes to eat it. We've frozen some for the winter and will be freezing more soon. And as a side note... zucchini cherry milkshakes are really good!

We have tilled up the garden the potatoes were in, and tonight and tomorrow we'll be planting our fall garden.



We are right at the very tail end of this, but still within limits. We'll be putting in some bush beans, beets, a few leaf lettuces and some spinach.

This was my view this morning while reading my Bible. I get up before anyone else is up and enjoy the peace and quiet and cool morning air. These are our neighbor's cattle.




Cute, what!?

It would be so easy to look at what we've accomplished this year and give ourselves a big pat on the back for it. It was very timely to be reading in Deutoronomy 8 in Sunday School:

7For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

8A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

9A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

10When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

11Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

12Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;

13And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;

14Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

15Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

16Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;

17And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.

18But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

Thank you Lord for our very, very many blessings.

Hand Baler

DH and our oldest son built a hand hay baler the other day, following the plans at this website. They made this neat little bale of hay, the size of bales it makes will be bigger than this, but we didn't have enough cut and dried grass to make a bigger bale. It works really well. Our alternative to an expensive baler, and it should work well enough for our small acreage.




Everybody helping stuff the grass in the baler.


Then we plunge it all down.


Et voila!

We want to buy a true Austrian Scythe from this company and will be doing so very soon. Austrian scythes are very different to the cumbersome American scythes, and watching someone cut grass is almost as beautiful as watching someone fly fishing. Obviously it is too late to try put up our own hay this year, so we will be buying hay for Butterbelle for the winter.

Farm Life

I love how everybody helps out around our little farm. The children love driving the tractor and riding in the cart. This was the day we were digging out Pokeweed. Nasty, stinky weed.

Poor Dan had all the hard work to do since they had to be dug out roots and all. There are many things I can do... swinging a pick axe is not one of them. The root systems on Pokeweed are HUGE. I know some people eat the tender leaves, but with all the boiling you have to do it just doesn't seem worth it to me.



The rest of us were responsible for picking up the weeds and carting them away to the burn pile.



Speaking of burn piles, we had our first fire the other day. We had hotdogs roasted over the fire and s'mores when the fire was done.. along with swimming inbetween. It was such a fun day.



The previous day we'd had rain and this beautiful double rainbow appeared. God is awesome.



Beautiful rainbow, followed by a beautiful sunset.


I love living in Missouri.

Last weekend we cleaned up along the side of the house getting rid of all the old brush/dead pine tree branches.


We carted it up and hauled it to our burn area which is where the old barn used to stand. Someday we hope to build a barn here again and we hope to be able to use at least part of the old foundations.





I would love to know what the barn looked like before it fell/was burned down. We will be building a smaller milking shed that Butterbelle will also be able to use to get out of the elements. It will be temporary cow quarters, and will then probably be turned into a goat/other animal shed at a later date. So many plans!

We also have a few restoration plans in the works. Our basement had some furniture, including a really old over 100 year old cabinet. It's too big to get out of the basement in one piece though. The previous owners must have had it put in there while the house was still being built. Since the cabinet is older than the house I'm guessing it was passed down to our previous owners. It is beautiful with 1 1/2 inch shelves, square nails and dovetail joints on the back paneling. I'm guessing it was used to store canned food. Sadly it has been slowly rotting because of the damp down there. We may cut off the bottom section which is just one big open shelf and save the cabinet itself. No pictures yet, sorry.

In the meantime I also brought this little table upstairs and I'm slowly removing the old paint and cleaning it up. There are also some square nails in this piece, as well as a lot of more modern screws. It should be a nice little piece once it's cleaned up, I don't know what I'll do with it yet.. the kids all keep asking what my plans are for it.. I think they all secretly would like to have it in their bedrooms.



It has been HOT, HOT, HOT here. Everybody seems to love this big waterer we keep filled with cool water. The hens all gather round it and have a drink and a chat and the dog "swims" in it. The kittens and other little feathered friends also use it.