4 Wheelin' Chick...

I'll bet you didn't know that chicks like to go 4-wheelin'.  I brought a chick inside to cheer Tobers up, who has a fever today.  Whippersnapper set this little cutie chick on their toy 4-wheeler and it promptly fell asleep!  I woke it up when I was taking pictures.

 She is very pretty with her wings feathering out!  She sat there for the longest time.  It was pretty cute, and the boys got a giggle out of it too.:)  

Leave it!

Evan's dog, Dolly, is pretty special to us.  In her training as a puppy we taught her the "leave it" command.  Anything she wanted with high value like a dog treat, lunch meat, toy we'd practice telling her "Leave it." and taught her to leave it along until we gave her a command that it was OK to take it.  This has been incredibly valuable as we go about our daily lives, but never more so than now that we have all these chicks everywhere!  

When we first brought home the chicks in the boxes she was keenly interested and excited about them.  So occasionally we'd tell her to "Leave it" and she'd settle right down, still looking intently but obedient to our command.

I am so impressed that Evan has been consistent with her and that she has taken to the training so well.  She is a smart dog and I am so happy we took the time to teach her some of these basic commands because it is sure making our lives much easier during stressful times like getting 200 chicks settled into their coop.

Dolly loves the chicks and wants to play, but is using restraint and watching intently.

Hopefully she continues to be a good girl around the chickens and uses her instincts for good.

A Couple Odds and Ends...

We planted our seedlings a few weeks ago, and they are coming up nicely so far!

Sunshine got her closet drape all sewn up.  It looks great, and the fabric was really great to work with too.

We are also working on a mural in the boys room that is a simple silhouette hunting scene.  I will have to show pictures when we get it done.

Tree Fort...

The tree fort has really taken shape this week!  The boys have been working really hard on it and it is quite impressive.  They have to give a big shout out to their Uncle Ray for bringing them supplies the other day.  The really brought their progress into high gear after they got materials.

They are having a great time up there even though the temps have been pretty cold these past couple weeks.  To be honest I haven't been up there yet, but Mr Wonderful tells me it is already full of all kinds of stuff.  I wonder if it looks anything like their bedrooms.  Surely not.

Whippersnapper has a BB gun up there.  Notice the window boxes!  That will look really cute with flowers this spring.

They still have the railing to finish and a few finishing touches, but it is pretty functional already.  They are really excited that they got this far too.

So there is the latest from the tree fort.  Maybe next time I will get brave and go take pictures inside of it too.

Fall Happenings...

Time for a little fall season catch up session!  

Buck season went well, as you can see.  Sunshine and Mr Wonderful tagged out, Spud Man enjoyed his first year buck hunting, but wasn't able to bag a buck this year.

Sunshine grew lots of gourds this summer and she managed to sell close to $100 worth!  They made great fall decor and were a big seller on our local classifieds page.

Beautiful shapes and colors!

We've been enjoying some of our pastured meat chickens.  We rub them down with olive oil and add rosemary, sage and other seasonings...then we smoke them for a couple hours and roast them in the roaster.  Oh my goodness they smell and taste amazing.  Really need to keep more for ourselves next year.  Mmmm mmm.

I enjoyed all the fall colors before the winds picked up and blew every leaf away.  No raking leaves here!

The kids and I spotted this buck during elk season and managed to snap a quick picture of him before he took off.

Spud Man wrapped up a successful year of growing hogs.  He raised 7 in all, 2 of his own that he paid for.  We pay for the feed for his hog in exchange for him caring for the rest of the hogs we bought for our own supply and to sell.  It was a good arrangement and he is pretty excited about having money to give, save, and spend!

That is a small sampling of everything going on these past couple months.  Life is very good at Summerfield Acres!  We are finally getting some much needed family time, rest, and even a few projects worked on.  

Fall Crops? Maybe.

We are attempting a few fall crops this year.  We've never planted a fall crop before, but we thought we'd try since we have the room and some things were done for the season.  The first one we planted was the broccoli.  I had planted an open pollinated variety called De Cicco but I didn't care for the growing habits, they had small little florets mixed in a ton of foliage and very little yield per plant.  So I pulled out that variety and planted my favorite variety this year called Imperial from Johnny's Seeds  it is an excellent variety with large heads and seems to handle the heat of summer well.  I am not sure how well it will do being planted the first of August, but we will try for a nice fall crop and see how it goes.

Here is the row marked off with jute string and seeded already.  We will put a fresh layer of mulch around the plants once they are up and established well.  We also need some more on the walkway as the weeds are starting to peek through because the mulch is too thin.

Here we just finished pulling out all the old pea vines.  We planted some snap peas and they were excellent!  We had one package of seeds left so we replanted as many as we had for another fall crop of these tasty peas.  They were our favorite crop to snack on while in the garden while they lasted!

As far as the fall crops go, we plan to also plant another crop of cauliflower (Amazing Cauliflower from Johnny's Seed) and a purple cauliflower variety  (Violetta Italia from Burgess), carrots (Bolero from Johhnys Seeds), radishes, lettuce, and spinach.  I might even start some ornamental kale (from Harris Seeds) from seed if I get really organized!

The kids' help is very much appreciated, just knowing the kids enjoy the garden, love eating the veggies that come from it makes it feel more worthwhile.  We've been blessed by so many aspects of this process from early February when we started seeds indoors, clear through the season so far the kids have been right there with me, excited sharing in the memories, hard work, and fun of it all.  I wouldn't have it any other way, even when there are mishaps and squished plants, or premature harvest efforts.  It doesn't hurt that I have a husband who thinks weeding is therapeutic, he enjoys weeding in the early mornings or evenings on the weekends whenever he can.  For that I am SUPER thankful!

Sunshine has really taken voluntary ownership of the garden this year, I find her tending plants, helping to train them up the supports, weeding as she walks to do other chores, etc.    Just today, she asked if she could make some pickles.  I was busy working on the new school year's lessons plans so I told her to go for it!  She harvested some cucumbers and canned a few jars of Low-Sodium Sweet Dill Pickles (they are a family favorite that many request us to make for them) she managed to do the whole process herself and they turned out beautifully!  She even cut some in the sandwich stacker style.  I was pretty impressed she took that on without hesitation.  I guess those years of doing it together has really paid off.  

Tobers and Whippersnapper are excellent harvest assistants, they regularly bring in the bounty for me.  I think it is like a scavenger hunt for them, many times they bring things in I didn't even realize were ready or couldn't see like they can at their vantage point (and a few things that weren't quite ready too, oops).  They are a really big help.  Spud Man keeps busy with his pig plot portion of the garden and weeding enough to feed his pig each day.  The pigs actually like the weeds better than the actual crops we planted for them to forage.

I will try to keep you posted on how the fall crops turn out, hopefully there is something positive to report back on in a few weeks time.

Garden Tour Early August...

The garden is doing pretty good, there are a few crops I wish had done better (like the green beans, cucumbers, and corn), but overall they still look good and we are getting some bounty from even the weaker crops so we have much to be thankful for.  The weeds have been very healthy this year and keep finding ways to create more work for us, but the deep straw mulch helps so much I can't complain too much!

Here are a few overview pics of the garden and you can see the hay field has been cut for the 2nd cutting too.

Cucumbers, cantaloupe, dill, celery, chicken run etc.

Green beans, tomatoes, and flowers.

Swiss chard, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, onions, carrots, zucchini, crookneck, and furthest out is the pig plot area that has mangels, canola, turnips, carrots etc.

Sunshine is checking out the Crenshaw melons.

The strawberries and corn beyond that.  The orchard is beyond the corn.

1 Ball yellow squash, I love these for stuffing!

Broccoli head, we have harvested about 75% of the plants now (we have about 90 plants) and we have about 34+ quart bags of  broccoli in the freezer (plus we've eaten a few meals worth too), our goal is about 45 bags.  We will continue to get some side shoots off the harvested plants later in the season to help us get to our goal.  We also plan to donate some of the larger remaining heads to the local food pantry if it is ripe on their next distribution day.

Some of the cantaloupe are gaining in size and might have a chance of ripening in time before frost.  We were unsure if we should grow melons as they take up a lot of space and we have never had good luck with melons, but we had to at least try now that we have so much more room to grow things.  So far so good on these.

My first year growing cauliflower is, so far, a success.  It tastes good, we've frozen a little here and there but mostly we've been eating it for dinner.  We did a few bags of frozen mixed broccoli and cauliflower which will be nice in the winter.  I am still learning how to tell when they are fully ripe and when to tie the leaves around the heads to prevent sunburn.  

We had to replant the cucumbers 2 times this year so they are a little later and I haven't gotten the yields I hoped for to be able to make pickles.  The only seeds I had left to reseed with were a space saving type so the vines are relatively small but are producing well for such small vines.  They have great flavor so far.

The lemon cucumbers are almost ripe and Mr. Wonderful can't wait for the first one of the season!  He LOVES these little gems.

The lettuce patch is hanging in there surprisingly well for such high temps lately.  It tastes good still and I'd love to plant this kind again next year!  Too bad I am not sure which mix this was. 

Here is a nice purple kohlrabi, we also have white and they both taste really good.  We sold about 22 to the local fruit stand because we had too many.  What we have left we should be able to eat before they grow too large to be tasty.

This spaghetti squash plant is really happy!  It is producing lots of squash, probably more than we'd eat so we might have a few to share and sell at some point.

At the end of the day with all the watering, weeding, harvesting, and tending....this is how we feel....

Then again, living here is a dream come true and no matter the hard work we are blessed and really enjoying it!  God has been so good to us.

Second Round of Pigs...

We got 4 more pigs last week!  They are pretty cute and oh so curious.  Spud Man is pretty excited to have a new batch to watch grow.  Our first batch are all sold (we are keeping one for our own meat supply), and they will be slaughtered tomorrow.

This new batch will get to enjoy all the crops we planted for them in one section of the garden, as well as any surplus we have from the rest of the garden too.  We can't wait to see how they do!  The largest crop we planted was rape seed/canola.  Then we also planted mangle beets, carrots, turnips, wheat grass and of course other garden crops in surplus to allow for sharing with the pigs and chickens.

Their names are Oreo (because it is black and white), Swiss (because it has circle dots all over like Swiss Cheese), Ring (as in onion ring), Nacho (no idea where that name came from).  They all have to have food names....because that is what they will be....food.

So we are off on another phase of the project.  We can't wait to try the first batch of bacon in a month or so.

Infuriating Underground Animals...

I need some kind of rodent squad to come and rid the place of all things mole, gopher, and mouse!  

I grumble every time I run across something like this...

...and especially this.

Then, I remember I have a few secret weapons.  First line of defense is our fierce hunter, Betsy the cat.

There is just one problem with fierce hunter cat....she is a hunter, she doesn't usually kill them.  She plays with them until they are severely stressed, and exhausted.

Sure they are worse for wear when she's done, but they are not usually dead.  So normally what happens is these next two characters come on the scene and finish the job (or steal her potential dinner, not sure what you'd really call it.)   They look harmless, but they are rodent killing machines I tell ya.

I think they even give us a little doggy smile when they kill one for us!  Unfortunately, they don't always notice when the cat has done her job of wearing them out so...

...in comes my other secret weapon.  My fearless rodent killing daughter.  See how fast she moves?  The camera can't even catch the speed in which she disposes of them for me.   By this time, after the cat has had her fun, it is the least we can do to put it out of it's misery after the cat has a hold of it.

Sunshine has to be the most level headed 14 year old girl I know of, not much phases this girl.  I was busy looking around for something to hit it with, and she just stepped over, stomped on it nonchalantly like she does this 10 times a day, no biggie.  Meanwhile, I thought something along the lines of "Der, why didn't I think of that?"  I blame my sluggish response and reasoning on the fact that after 4 pregnancies, I have lost some of the brain cells I once had at 14 years old.  That is my story and I am sticking to it.

We really need to learn to set gopher traps, because so far the gophers are most likely winning.  I think they might be reproducing faster than we are killing them. Oh, and we really need to catch the mole that keeps tunneling all around the garden every day too!

Learning to Pace Ourselves...

Turns out that having this much garden area to weed, so many nursery plants to tend, large areas of lawn to mow, irrigation pipes to change, animals to feed, and things that need water is a lot of hard work.  I knew that going into it, but I don't think I had realized just how much time each and every day it would take to keep up.

So much time, in fact, that it makes it difficult to get the kids' schooling done on a consistent basis each and every week.  We've been on a great consistent schedule all year but when late March came we found it difficult to remain focused on school lessons.  We've probably only been able to finish a whole week of schooling 3 out of the last 6 weeks.  The 3 other weeks we might have only completely at most 1-2 days of lessons and the rest of the week was swallowed up by projects, chores, and town errands.

I have been feeling conflicted about not being able to be consistent, on one hand we've been enjoying the lighter school schedule and more time doing hands on things.  Yet, I'm feeling some worry that if we don't keep up on math and reading and learning new skills we'll fall behind.

Several options keep floating around in my head.  For instance, maybe stopping for summer break early and picking back up late July.   Or possibly cut back to just math and reading for a could months and let go of some other subjects for a while.  Or keep schooling on a lighter schedule (a couple days a week) all summer long and not take a larger break.

Overall, I'd say this is our best school year yet as far as consistency goes, and as far as depth in learning and lessons.  This is also the strongest our scripture and spiritual aspects of schooling have been.  That being said, it still isn't where I'd consider it ideal.  I might never attain my ideal of what school would be in a year because I have a tendency to have unrealistic expectations.

I enjoy reading this book to the boys.

If I can wrap my head around the bigger picture, and not just focus on lesson numbers, scope and sequence, and grade level expectations.... sometimes I think that these kids are learning more than they ever could from book lessons in our everyday activities!  We could just make the farm projects the lessons for a while, similar to what we have been doing already but adding more intentional lessons to it (Shhh they won't even know they are doing school).  Make them calculate the things, measure, divide, find %'s etc.  Make them weigh and measure things to do with the farm.  Help them with patience, perseverance, and proper techniques of skills that will serve them later into life.

I think we already do all this pretty well, but I know I could amp it up another notch to make it even more useful....which would mean me taking the time to help them to do more when it comes to the math, figuring, estimating for projects.  They are very hands-on with helping me, we work through problems together, talk about how to solve issues.  I know they are learning so much, but I still worry about all that proper book learning too.  Reading, writing, and math especially concern me at this time.

I sense the kids are just as much out of school mode as I am, if I try to force it in a traditional sense (books, worksheets, and formal lessons) we will likely all suffer and so will the farm projects.  I have been thinking about how much they'd REALLY learn if their heads and hearts are outside.  Then, I think about how often as a child in public school we actually finished an entire textbook.  Food for thought I guess.

Sometimes, I think they'd really enjoy having a tutor come once or twice a week, they might like having someone other than Mom have them do learning things.  I would like having a little pressure taken off and lightening the load some too, plus, having someone help me gauge progress would be nice.  I have faith that God will give me the strength to educate these children if I continue to seek to be obedient to Him.  Who knows, maybe He will send me a tutor for a little divine help too!

As you can see, we are learning how important it is to pace ourselves.  I used to commonly fall into the all-or-nothing trap, where I thought getting it all done equaled success, and getting only some of it done equaled a failure.  I am getting wiser as I go along and I am learning that progress is progress and should be celebrated even if it wasn't as much as I'd have liked to have gotten done.  Something is always better than nothing when it comes to working hard, setting goals, and staying focused long term.

Boys Will Be Boys....

I admit our boys have a unique childhood.  They are allowed to spend large portions of their childhood days filthy dirty, digging in the dirt, building forts, and of course working hard. 

I can't even imagine the fortitude it took to dig a hole this large and not be totally exhausted afterwards!  

Then there are times they aren't just dirty but real mud balls! 

Always important to have a girl supervisor to make sure things are going according to plan.  Notice the "forms" for their concrete operation?  They were building the foundation for a fort, they had it perfectly smooth and then they decided to just dive in, I guess they just couldn't take it they had to get muddy!

Boys this dirty get hosed off outside, see how much you learn as a country kid?

Then there are times that play gives way to hard work.  Tobers is chopping thistles here.

Whippersnapper raking gravel. 

Then back to play for a while.

Don't worry, we make them reinforce the sides of all tunnels with 2x4 lumber and keep a close eye on their operation.

Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek into the boys growing up activities!  You can only imagine my laundry pile now can't you?