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.
Notice something funny? My kids thought this was hilarious! I have no idea why one chicken laid such a teeny tiny egg.
That's a regular size egg, and the tiny egg. Weird.
Map of our planned outlay for our 5 acres.
Pic of the kids playing "Stargate." You can see how GREEN everything is in these pics!
One of our two grapevines. We planted Concord and Reliance.
Dan tilling with our "new to us" garden tractor. These little tractor is FABULOUS! Love it.
The cute little chicks have grown! We have also added 4 barred rocks to our collection.
The temporary chicken coop. Can't seem to keep the kids out of it! LOL.
They all love the chickens :)
No really... they LOVE spending time with the chickens!
We've seen lots and lots of snakes here. None of them venomous though. As long as they keep the mouse/rat population down, I'm happy to have them!
Hail we got back in the beginning of April. This was one of the largest hailstones. 
