July Garden/Animal Tour...

It's been a while since I had a chance to post anything about what has been going on around here.  This warm weather and the prolific weed population proved to be no match for my 30 minute weeding sessions in the early mornings.  I needed help!  Mr. Wonderful came to the rescue when he had a 4 day weekend over the 4th of July.  We took 2 FULL days as a family, and weeded almost the entire 10,000 square foot garden.  We didn't worry about weeding much in the walkways or the pig food plot, because they weren't at risk of crowding out the garden produce plants.  It was hard work, but we really enjoyed working together, visiting, laughing, throwing "weed bombs" at each other, and then celebrating with a nice swim in the reservoir nearby when we finished each day.  Standing back when we finished each section gave us a sense of accomplishment, and it was fun to see each section reveal what plants has flourished even with the weeds in there.

Here is a sample of the before and after effect...

We are starting to enjoy several garden harvests.  So far we've harvested a few 8 Ball Zucchinis, some of the 1 Ball Yellow Squash, lots and lots of lettuce, a few handfuls of strawberries, a bumper crop of snap peas, and several herbs.  It is an exciting time to see all that is about to go into full harvest mode.  I should be harvesting and blanching broccoli either today or tomorrow.  We have quite the crop of beautiful heads of broccoli coming along!  There is also one head of cauliflower starting to form.  I've never grown cauliflower successfully before so I am pretty excited about it.

Here are some garden pictures...I can't get the whole garden in any one picture because it is L-shaped  and very large, but you can get the idea.  It is hard to believe that many of these plants we started from seed way back in January and February!

I have learned mulch is my best friend!  Lots and lots of mulch is the secret to maintaining a garden this large. Sure the mulch itself is a lot of work when you are putting it down, in fact the only areas that managed to get out of control weed-wise were all non-mulched areas.  Now we have most everything mulched, after we got it weeded.  It really helps keep the moisture in as well.  We noticed our soil doesn't hold moisture as much as our previous place, so anything to hold it in better is good.

The yard landscape is shaping up pretty well too.  We have had very good luck with the wave petunias we planted from seed, they are really starting to cover some area now and I so appreciate their color where we have such large areas to cover.  I have quite a few in pots as well.

 The front flower bed is going pretty nicely for it's first year.  Considering how little money we put into landscaping plants, I think the area is filling out pretty well.  We planted areas of sunflowers, zinnias, and gourds to help fill in some of the space between the shrubs and perennials we have gotten so far.  I am really pleased with the overall shape and look of the flowerbed areas.  We still have a lot of work to do like bark mulch, edging, and more plants.

Now for a quick update on the animals too...

 The pigs actually like weeds way better than the actual pig food we planted for them so lesson learned on that one...they snub their snouts at beets, turnips, rape seed, and corn plants (but they will eventually eat it), then they go wild over plain old garden weeds.  Go figure!

The turkeys are doing great, Butterball is growing nice and large.  He is the guardian of the smaller turkey we hatched out a few weeks ago, he really looks out for him.  The smaller one, Snowball, is growing quite well also.  He follows Butterball all over the farm.  They both love to follow us while we do chores, they are very personable, and so far they are enjoying the free-range life.  As long as they remain gentle on the garden plants and they stick close to home they can remain free.

We still have meat chickens for just one more week.  We are finishing out the 4th batch which will bring us to 300 birds raised this year.  The project has went extremely well and we are pretty pleased with how it is turning out.  That being said, raising that many birds are a LOT of work.  Lots of heavy lifting with moving the pens twice daily, hauling bags and bags of feed, dragging hundreds of feet of hoses or hauling buckets of water, handling or moving the birds and not to mention the actual processing day to get them ready for the freezer!  Oh and don't even get me started on how expensive they are to feed!  I had no idea we'd be going through over two ton of feed in one 3 1/2 month stretch!  I will have to post a meat bird review soon to give you an idea of what we liked or want to improve on for next year and if we even plan to do it again next year.

I have had to be realistic and step back from a few commitments and other things to make it easier and more realistic to keep up everything we are doing right now.  We've had to change our lives some to make sure  I/we can still keep up with schooling the kids, caring for the animals, and maintaining this place. We've also given up the freedom to take off and go camping every couple weekends like we used to.  So far I have struggled to keep balance more often than I thought I would.  There is so much to try to keep up with when you have schooling the kiddos, church activities/ministries, friends, family, and social events, but hopefully everyone can be patient with us as our priorities change focus with the seasons of our lives.  That was really hard at first, but then I looked at it like a gift after a while.  A gift to focus on simply what I felt God was calling me to do THAT day, without all the other stuff hanging over my head.

Even though I go to bed most days exhausted and I have sore muscles just about daily, I always feel at least a small sense of purpose and satisfaction even if it was a so-so day.  That sense of contentment has always seemed to escape me before we lived on acreage.  For that, I am truly thankful every day!