Cherry Harvest

The new header photo is of the path going down to the river on the back of our place. Hard to believe that pretty peaceful looking river turns ugly brown and violently washes across our place every winter!

Today is thankful Thursday. I am thankful that I am finished with the cherry harvest this year. I am thankful we have bees that are doing a great job for our orchard. I am thankful for the good crop of cherries from our two trees this year.

The pantry now has 36 quarts of canned cherries and 8 pints of cherry jam on the shelves. There is also a gallon of pitted cherries in the freezer for smoothies this winter.

What will be next? Well plums of course! They are thick on the trees and will be ripening next month.

Last week I meant to post about being thankful for a planer mill here that gives away their shavings for free. We got a pick up load and cleaned out both barns and put fresh shavings in them. How nice it is to have a clean barn again! Now I must let you know who "we" consists of. When it came to getting the shavings "we" composed of my Dad and Ed. Cleaning out the barn was Ed alone. And putting the clean fresh shavings I helped Dad and Ed do that part. : )

I am also thankful that my turkeys know me and like me. Why would that matter you might ask? Well on the 4th when we had gone to watch the fireworks one of our turkeys got out. Ed looked for it everywhere in the dark and couldn't find it. We went to bed upset that we had lost a turkey. I prayed and asked the Lord to keep it safe and help us to find it in the morning. We slept with our bedroom window open and what woke us up at 5am?? The sound of a lonely turkey calling and calling! We jumped up and got dressed and headed outside to find it. Well come to find out, it was in the trees/bushes across the road beside our property. I went out there and called it like I always do when I call them for a treat or want them to come to me. I just kept saying "come on turk turk turk". Then I heard him talking back to me, and the bushes began to rustle and soon out popped our turkey onto the road! It came right up to me and let me pick it up and I carried him back to the barnyard and into their pen. I was so happy to get our turkey back unharmed! Thank the Lord for answered prayers!

We have decided to do away with our Dark Cornish chickens. We aren't going to keep them separate from the other chickens. The roosters are pretty aggressive and we only keep calm animals here. So next weekend will be a butchering time. We will do the roosters and the some of the hens and some of the older ducks that hatched this year. That ought to put some meat into the freezer! I am going to keep a few of the Cornish hens and let them in with my laying hens.

Then we are going to use that part of barn #2 for our drake pen. We are hoping that we can keep the drakes away from the hens (duck hens that is) and they won't fight with each other. That way we can keep a few of the prettier colored ones from this years hatchings.

Speaking of hatching, we have two hens sitting again! One duck has 9 eggs under her and the other has 4. Yes, more ducklings will be on their way!

These are a couple of my roses that are blooming. Aren't they pretty?

Have a wonderful day!

The girls have a pool

We found a good deal for a new in the box swimming pool on our local Craig's list for our girls. We had been looking at them at the local stores. This one was listed at about half price and still in the box, never set up. What a blessing!

These photos are of the girls swimming before we even have it full all of the way. They just couldn't wait. The day we got it, we set it up and then it rained for 3 days! The girls were so disappointed of course. Today dawned beautiful and with clear skies. They knew it would be a swimming day at last. : )

This will provide hours of fun for them this summer. Mom and Dad might even join them if it gets hot enough. We aren't as tough as they are and don't like that cold water so much anymore. ha ha ha!

Bountiful Acres now has pigs!

Today we got our 4 piglets. They are all girl pigs. They are 7 weeks old right now. Audrey and Sally are enjoying having new animals on the farm. They spent all afternoon with the piglets. I am posting some photos of the piglets and the girls having way too much fun.

Since the pig housing and fencing is finished we will get to the fencing for the turkeys and Dark Cornish chickens. They will get to go outside then.

While I was watering the gardens today I noticed that we have kohlrabi coming up and the cucumbers. The green beans are doing well and so are the potatoes and squash. I will take more photos soon.

Ed put two supers on the beehive today. The blackberries are in bloom and those bees will be busy collecting nectar and making honey now.

More photos and updates to come soon.

A day late thankful post.

I missed posting my thankful Thursday yesterday. The reason is, it was our 15th wedding anniversary. I am so thankful to have a wonderful man to share my life with. We had a very nice day yesterday. My sister Mechelle watched our girls for us. We took a drive up the coast, had lunch in a cute little place owned and run by a young couple. We had halibut from Alaska. Then we drove to a place called Loon Lake. We hadn't been there since either of us were kids. Well needless to say, in those days the place was on a gravel road and pretty primitive. Now it is all paved and fancied up and they charge you out the nose to visit there.

Anyway, we had a nice long drive and visit. Rarely do we go anywhere without our girls.

In other news, the cat that was killing our baby poultry has been removed from the premises. Ed caught him yesterday before we left on our date. Now the live trap is set for the white cat that is causing trouble here.

These cats are ones that people drop off out in the "country" close to a farm where they think they will be okay. Well that is cruel to the animal and not fair to those of us who are trying to make a living on our little farm.

Today I will get the rest of the garden planted. We almost had it finished when we had a rainy spell. I am also replanting some corn seed to replace what the darned crows have eaten!

As soon as I have a working sewing machine I am planning on a tutorial Frugal Friday post. It is one of my favorite things to do to same money. : )

Have a blessed weekend!

June is here already.

Today it is thundering and probably going to shower on us before I can finish up planting the garden. I was hoping to get everything in before the rain came. Yesterday I got on fourth of the big garden planted. I have my pepper starts in the ground and my Dad planted 7 rows of different beans for me. This photo was taken from the barnyard looking towards the house of the main garden before I got anything planted in it.

Ed finished getting the new raspberries in the ground that my friend Sheila brought me. And he planted the two thornless blackberries that he gave me for my birthday. We will have lots of berries now.

Speaking of berries, we had to put some wire over top of the troughs where I had planted the strawberries, as we have a couple of hens who escape the barnyard and were scratching around in there and up rooted several plants. We found out where they were getting out. There was a tiny little spot under the gate near the hinge where they were squeezing under. Today there is a log there. : )

We are enjoying our ducklings so much. They are very fun to watch. Thirty little ducks and their mamas can put on quite a show!

There are only 6 days difference in the two hatching ages, but they grow so fast, that the difference is amazing.

Today they are napping in a big pile to keep warm. Lilac was babysitting while White Rose was off getting a bite to eat or laying an egg somewhere.

It is rather hard to see them in the straw.

Hard to believe there are 30 ducklings in that pile.Here you can see the little one and big ones together.

Here is the recent photo of the turkeys. They are much slower growing than the ducks or chickens. They are still such babies we leave the heat lamp on for them at night.

These two photos are of shots taken in the orchard.

This the the recent picture of the Dark Cornish chickens. The one here in the center is the prettiest hen, she is a pretty golden color compared to the darker others.

This the the beginnings of my new greenhouse. You can also see the half barrels we bought to transplant the citrus trees into. There is also a strip of brown bare ground to the right. That is where Ed planted the new raspberries and the two blackberry plants.

Ducklings day out

Yesterday I let White Rose and her ducklings outside for the first time since they hatched. Boy did they have a great time! It is so cute to watch them. They stick right close to mama and waddle along behind her where ever she goes.

I took some photos of them in the duck pool for the first time. Some of them weren't brave enough to get in the pool and just waded in the muddy water outside the pool, but they all had fun!

Today I will let Lilac out with her tribe. White Rose has 14 ducklings and Lilac has 16. They are only 6 days younger than White Rose's ducklings but are so much smaller. They grow so fast it is unbelievable!

This is a picture of one of my little Speckled Sussex pullets. She had to come and get a drink when the ducks were swimming. We have several of these and they will be laying eggs for us around August. Isn't she pretty?

The new garden is all planted now. One down, one to go. This isn't the best photo of the new garden, I will have to take a better one next time.

I received my strawberry plants in the mail yesterday and they are now planted in the old water troughs out by the fence. This will keep them from getting washed away during the flood, and I can put some netting over them to keep the birds from eating them before I can pick them. We have 50 plants. That ought to give us enough berries for strawberry shortcake and jam. Now I just need a rhubarb plant. I will have to keep an eye out for one when I am near the garden centers.

More duckling photos to come. I am going to take pictures of Lilac and her little ones today. It will be their first day outside today.

I will also take some photos of the turkeys. They are at that gawky teenager looking stage. : )

Have a wonderful weekend!

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful that we are getting the garden planted at last! Yesterday we, (we--being myself, Ed, my Dad and of course the girls "helped")planted the potatoes, corn, and sugar pumpkins, Butternut squash, Acorn squash and Buttercup squash in the new garden.

Even after planting 10 pounds of Russet Burbank white potato seed, 6 pounds of Red Lasoda and 6 pounds of German Butterball potato seed, and 7 rows of Early Bantam corn and the squash and pumpkin I have more space available in that new garden. So I have decided to plant my summer squash over there too and sugar snap peas for Mom.

Another thing I am so thankful for is yesterday when "we" were planting the garden in the afternoon, my Mom was in the house cooking dinner for everyone. That was such a blessing to me! We had a lovely dinner on my parents deck last night. Thanks Mom!

With those squash out of the main garden I will have lots of room for more beets, carrots and onions. Last year we didn't grow enough of them to last all winter.

In addition to what we normally grow this year we are adding our girls new favorite vegetable. Ready to hear what this is? You won't believe it. Brussel Sprouts!

Another thing I am thankful for is my Dad came out to the barn yesterday morning and helped me unload the 300 pounds of feed we bought while in Roseburg the day before. Thanks Dad!

Today we will work on getting more planted in the garden. This morning I will plan out where we are planting what in the main garden. I keep a plot plan of the year before so I can rotate my crops. We never plant the same thing in the same place from one year to the next. The plants use up different nutrients in the soil and we don't want any disease or pests that might have wintered over to attack the plants. Plus I pray over my garden while I am planting. : ) Talk about natural pesticide! : )

I need to get out the Diatomaceous earth before we plant the peppers and basil starts. I sprinkle it around the plants and it keeps the bugs away. I am not sure if it works for slugs or not, but we don't have a lot of them in the garden anymore. The first two years we were here, Ed was a slug killing machine! Plus keeping things mowed helps, as they have no place to hide during the day. They really don't care to be out in the hot sun.

Have a wonderful Thursday!