Final Summer Squash Harvest?

With the temperatures dropping we headed out to the garden to pick all the ripe tomatoes and summer squash we could find. As you can see, we still had a LOT of squash out there, the yellow crooked neck squashes are really only good for Fall decorations now. The patty pan squashes will be cut in half and baked in the oven, pulp removed and frozen. The zucchini will be turned into various delightful zucchini concoctions :)

And the beans! This is our first decent bean harvest, and we got two baskets full and still a lot of smaller beans out there waiting to grow a wee bit more before we head out to pick them. Today we canned 5 more jars of zucchini relish (the kids love it!) and we canned 8 1/2 quarts of green beans. For this I used the pressure canner for the very first time (yay me!) To say I was nervous would be an understatement! Everything went very well though and the weight jiggled like it should and we had no mishaps. Now I have a bit more confidence and will try out some of those yummy recipes like stew and soups.

As you can see we also got a lot of tomatoes, the children have already finished off a lot of them on sandwiches, but I want to dehydrate some more for "sun dried tomatoes." I need to get a decent food mill so I can more easily make things like pasta sauce and other tomato recipes.

BUTTERBELLE & PIGS

In other news, Butterbelle's next heat cycle has come and gone, and she didn't bellow or run the fence at all, so it looks like we have a pregnant cow! Wooohoooo!!!! :) Her calf will be due towards the end of May.

Also, in mid October we will be going to pay for and collect our Mulefoot boar piglet. The Ossabaw and Mulefoot cross should make a nice meat pig. Our pigs are getting very friendly and enjoy being scratched and patted when we take them their food.

Sweet 16

Our oldest DD recently turned 16. What a wonderful age, and a wonderful young woman she has turned out to be.



She received a lot of really neat gifts for her birthday, the highlight though was an antique hope chest. It took quite some searching to find one, and all the antique stores we asked about it were surprised to hear of a 16 year old wanting one for her birthday. I guess we don't have "run of the mill" children, LOL! She is really pleased with that hope chest, it's a beauty!





She wanted to go see the Patee House Museum for her birthday, so we headed to St. Joe's for the day.





The museum is pretty neat, such a lot of history, and it was quite something to stand in the room where the Pony Express first started. They have a lot of very interesting exhibits, definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Everybody got to have a ride on the "Wild Things" carousel, which is quite different to any other carousels we've seen.









Jesse James' house is also located on the grounds, it was moved there from its original location a few blocks away. They still have the hole in the wall from the bullet that killed him when he was standing on a chair to straighten a picture. Where he fell left two blood stains on the hardwood floor, and people actually broke into the house and removed and stole chips of bloodstained wood. Weird.





For a late lunch/early dinner we headed to Cracker Barrel - our first visit! We really enjoyed the food and the service. Everything was delicious :)

After we got home we had cake and tea to end the day.



Happy birthday beautiful daughter, we love you!

Work on the milk shed

When we got home from church today we found a trailer with an auger sitting in our yard. Our friend who is loaning us his tractor dropped it off after we left for church. After church he came out to help drill the holes for the milk shed. We are so very thankful we don't have to dig those holes by hand!

No pictures sadly... I think there is a video somewhere, but I'll need to upload it.

She's home!

Welcome home Little Red :)

A busy week!

We've had a busy last couple of days. We got the part for the tractor that needed welded, so Dan could get out there and bush hog. Of course everybody had to have a turn sitting on dad's lap :)







Our pasture looks so much nicer now and we can actually find Butterbelle when we go look for her.

We also got the electric fence fixed, so now the piggies can't root near the fence anymore. They're not very happy with us though and spent yesterday sulking and stayed in their shed all day. They're a little happier today. They have tamed up enough that when we feed them they will allow us to scratch them if we move slowly.

The one has been named "Little Miss Personality" or "Little Miss" for short. She sure HAS a whole bunch of personality and is always running around acting goofy. The other piglet is more reserved. We'll probably eat her. LOL. As Dan says: "No slackers allowed." I guess she's slacking in the personality department. Kidding aside though, we're keeping one pig for breeding and one for butchering, so we'll keep the friendlier pig which at this point is Little Miss. Next month we will be picking up our Mulefoot Boar and we'll breed an Ossabaw / Mulefoot cross for butchering.

Also, in other news, Dan finally bought a tractor! It is a 1941 Farmall H. He bought it at an online auction and will go pick it up on Saturday. It will need a new battery and some TLC, but it's only ever had one owner and has been stored in the barn. We're quite excited.


Our new (to us) tractor


Plus a very dusty Bradley sickle mower

Glad to finally have a tractor, it sure has been prayed for!

Baling hay

The last step to our haymaking was collecting and baling the hay. It was a pretty windy day so we collected the hay using big black construction bags. We split up into two teams with everybody helping.

Then we took the hay over to the hay baler and made hay bales :) It was actually quite easy and even fun.


Compressing the hay


Open the door, and voila, a haybale!


Group effort to remove the bale from the baler.


End result


The happy balers. LOL. We made nine bales of hay, not bad for the small area we hayed. They are not at tightly compressed as what a baler could make and generally about 12 x 15 x 30" long. A nice size for our needs.

Pig shed complete!

The pig shed is complete, with the exception of a second coat of paint and first and second coat for the door.



And the piggies love their new home :)



We sectioned off part of it for their bedding area, the other part will be for their feed/general area. The bedding area will be filled with straw.



If you look at the first picture you can see Dan's ingenious idea of using a rubber mudflap as a smaller door for the piggies within the big outer door for the humans. This way they can come and go as they please, but still stay warm and cozy.

If you notice the bucket on the left in the top picture, that's supposed to be their waterer, fitted with a pig water nipple. They haven't figured it out. We don't know HOW to get them to figure it out. We have tried all kinds of things including smearing the nipple with peanut butter, but they just don't GET it. They much prefer their water trough, and if that goes empty they just stay thirsty. Any suggestions?

And their electric fence charger has gone on the blink. We're going to get it replaced since we haven't even had it two weeks.

Tractor and bush hogging.

One of our friends from church noticed that we had been cutting the grass in the horseshoe section and offered his tractor and bush hog to cut the rest of our overgrown pastures. On Monday night we were invited out to other friends for dinner, and when we got home, this was waiting for us by the pasture:



So Dan called up our friend the next day (we got home very late the day before) and said: "Man! I was praying real hard for a tractor last night, and when I woke up I found this tractor sitting out there waiting for me!" Hehe.

Kidding aside, Dan has been researching and watching tractors on craigslist and local auctions.

This is what our pastures look like, they're all overgrown. The bit that is cut was cut with our trusty John Deere garden tractor, but we'll tear it up trying to cut the rest of the pasture with it.





We had to hold off on actually getting the bush hogging done, because some part needed to be welded first, so we'll get to it soon.

Making hay, yard work and more!

Dan has been keeping the "horseshoe" part of our circular driveway growing so we could try our hand at making hay. It was nice quality grass, with very few weeds. Since we don't have a scythe yet, he cut it with the JD garden tractor and then we let it dry for a bit and then raked it into windrows. We don't have hay rakes, so used regular leaf rakes. The three eldest helped.






Had to add a picture of myself too under grave duress. I hate pictures of myself.

Lots of hard work! Now to leave it to dry so we can bale it.

Today we also played a lot of catch up with mowing and general garden work. The girls and I weeded, mulched and mowed the soft fruit area so now it looks much nicer.


General view of the area


Blackberries


Raspberries


Grapes


Strawberries

Everything growing here looks really good. We haven't had any fruit from any of these plants yet, with the exception of the strawberries. The raspberries are supposed to produce in the fall, but I don't think that will be happening. The grapes had some small little grape clusters but the chickens pecked them all off, so now they are fenced. They're all really healthy though, so hopefully next year we'll have a really good crop.

Oh, while I'm at it, our beans are growing like crazy! Looking forward to picking beans. We planted Blue Lake Bush and Contender.



While we were busy with the soft fruit area, the boys were using the JD garden tractor to move logs, branches and other yard waste to our burn pile area. I don't know what we'd do without that tractor!

Butterbelle finally AI'd!

Butterbelle came into heat again and our AI guy had the correct semen so she's finally been artificially inseminated! If she took then we can expect a calf at the end of May.

I've been halter training her, which was really helpful. I could hook on her lead rope and lead her to the old wooden fence where the old barn used to stand. Then we tied her to the post and Dan pushed her against the fence while I kept her busy with grain. The process itself went really quickly and she stayed quite calm through it all. Our AI tech said he thinks we got her towards the end of her cycle which is when he prefers to AI.

We thought it was going to be really hard to know when she was in heat since we have no other cows, but it was quite easily to tell because she's generally very quiet. When she's on heat though she bellows all the time and runs along our fenceline calling to our neighbor's cattle. We're glad we could do it that way instead of having her do the round of shots, etc.

She's quite a calm cow, she can be cheeky at times though. She is walking along nicely now with the lead rope, but it does take a bit to get close enough to hook it onto her halter. She loves her grain though, so it doesn't take much to lure her close enough :) Shh, don't tell the other animals, but she's my very favorite of our farm animals ;)

Imperial moth caterpillars and bread!

Thankfully not together! Ha.

KJ found this huge caterpillar outside. We took photos and measured it, then let it go in an area safe from the chickens. We hope to see the beautiful moth it will turn into someday.



Our oldest son baked bread for the first time today, it came out great! That's what happens when you criticize your sister's breadmaking skills... you get to bake the next loaves!



He did a pretty good job :)