Around Our Little Homestead – July 2012

Around here, we try to grow more food each year than the year prior. Here’s why. You can see my ambitious list of seedling started last year on this post. You should also check out this post because my chickens make me smile.

I’ll get this out of the way first:

Dead Zucchini Plant

There are not enough words in the English language to encompass the whole of my loathing of squash bugs. Thank you, fair zucchini plant, for the half dozen zucchini you blessed us with before those hideous beasts got the best of you.

Now, on to better things.

This is Zane:

Zane

Zane curled up to sleep in a pallet in the barn. Commence oohing and awing.

Bell Pepper Plants

Our bell pepper plants are doing significantly better than the zucchini plant.

Tomato Plants All in a Row

So are our tomato plants (all 75ish of them).

Tomatillos

Our volunteer tomatillo plants are already providing fruit.

Leek Blossoms

And I saved the best for last, the leek blossoms. These things are huge and they just make me happy.

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Spring, spring, spring!

chickens

Spring is springing around here and I could not be happier to feel warm weather.

I was BAREFOOT yesterday.

OUTSIDE.

I KNOW!!

Ahem. Sorry.

You may have heard that yesterday brought great weather here. I spent a few hours outside getting some seeds started to put in the greenhouse.

********Note from Author*********

This uber-techie thought she published this post last month. Only when she looked at her posts did she see it had “Draft” next to the title. Well.

So while yesterday was beautiful here, I was sadly not barefoot. However most of the rest of this post would actually apply to yesterday. So there you have it.

You’ve Got to be Kidding – Round One

a-kid

We’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of an unknown amount of goats. We bred our two does again this fall and our kids have been counting the days until BABY GOATS.  Each day our oldest treks to the barn with my hubby to see if any BABY GOATS are here.

j-kid

Today she came shouting up the field announcing the arrival of two. Two precious, white (a first here) does. So we bundled up and went with her and took some pictures. I’m still trying to figure out shooting in artificial light. I like natural light, but am learning to like my photos where they are.

m-kid

The kicker for us is that these precious babies did not come from the two goats we intended to breed. So we are still awaiting the birth of the BABY GOATS of the two does we were waiting on before, we were just blessed with two extras. And a double blessing it was because they are both does, more milkers. God is good.

daisy-goat

This is Daisy, who is patiently waiting to pop. She had triplets last year and seems even bigger this year.

While not my official gratitude post this week, we are so very thankful for our goats.

Shooting Manual – Eddie

eddie

What? Didn’t I tell you I lost my mind a couple months ago and brought home another dog?

Yeah.

Meet Eddie. He’s smart. Scary smart. So smart that if he doesn’t get training, he will run around doing whatever he dang well pleases because that is what super, scary smart dogs do. Didn’t you know?

For those keeping track, that is now three dogs for us here. Someone needs to come up with a puppy-eyes vaccine. That is one shot I’ll take. Puppy-eyes joined by big, sweet blue eyes from my womb basically render me a puddle. Which is appropriate since those puppy eyes will do the same on my floor soon after being brought home.

Blessings, Vicki

Baby Goats

Our goat Daisy had triplets this morning, two boys and a girl.

Daisy
Daisy

Hoss
Hoss

Russell
Russell

Jasmine
Jasmine

And just for giggles, here is a picture of Heart, Thomas and Cinderella. Thomas and Cinderella are five weeks old now. They are about half the size of their mama, who is on the small side.

Heart, Thomas and Cinderella

We now have seven goats, nine hens, one rooster, two ducks, two dogs, one bunny and one, possibly two, cats. Oh, and Allie and Ollie (the call ducks) seem to be nesting. So far there is one egg in their perfect little nest.

Ah, welcome, Spring!

Blessings,
Vicki

All Things New

Thomas

Cinderella

We are fast approaching farm status here on the acre of land God blessed us with.  Above are Heart’s kids, Thomas and Cinderella.  Daisy is due any day.  We bought a bunny this past weekend, Honey Bunny.  The call ducks seem to be a little broody.  The chickens are doing their thing, we have a blue egger now.  Ever see a blue egg?  I’ll show you sometime.

I think our male cat has run off, leaving us with just Joy.  Maggie is freshly de-wormed (nasty) and I think Izzy may be a pig.  She has gained about 20 pounds since we got her.

Garden 2010 is underway!  Seeds are started, soon to be moved to our new greenhouse.  Carrots, red romaine lettuce, gold rush lettuce, spinach, red onions, yellow onions, green bunching onions, radishes, beets and turnips are all in the ground.  We should be harvesting our first fruits as early as April 22!  The radishes take 25-30 days to mature, that is about as fast as it gets in the garden world.

Blessings,

Vicki