Thursday, June 10, 2010

Hurry Up and Grow!

Ryan has requested that I post photos of the garden for all to see, since the last time you saw any photos was when everything was just starting to sprout. So here goes:
Cole crops . . .
Green beans and lima beans:
Tomatoes and peppers:
Sweet corn:
Sunflowers:

Right now were at the stage where we're not harvesting a lot right now; just weeding a lot and encouraging everything to hurry up and grow!
And to fit the crazy 2 weeks ahead schedule of this summer, we picked the first ripe black raspberries a couple of days ago.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Friday on the Farm

As promised, here is a picture of the little poults living in our garage:

As you can see, they are not very photogenic, and will pretty much try to do anything in their power to get away from humans. We don't know why this group of babies is the most flighty we've ever had. They came from the same breeder we got ours from last year, and last years poults were extremely human curious, they loved to check us out and were often intent on pecking at wedding rings, buttons, or other shiny things we might be wearing. These guys are the complete opposite of that; we will have a fun time catching them to move them to their outside pen.
Due to an odd, overly warm spring, a lot of our plants are ahead of schedule. At the end of the 1st week of June, we are already nearing the end of strawberry season, and many of our roses are in full bloom. We have a new one we bought for $3 this spring, that was just twigs when we set it in the ground, but now after just a month or so of babying, we are rewarded with this:
I didn't think that much about it, but Ryan brought it to my attention that this yellow rose with pink edges is very similar to the ones we wore and carried as boutenieres and bouquets at our wedding. I knew I picked this variety for some reason!
As strawberry season draws to a close, we've been searching for new to us ways to preserve this bounty of produce. We made jam, and froze some, but you can only use so many frozen strawberries. Yesterday, I sliced up a bunch and put them in the food dehydrator we borrowed from Mom and Dad. They have completely dried out in 24 hours, and have went from bright red little slices, to dark red, dry little bits of strawberry sweetness. They will be a welcome treat on cereal or as a snack later this year.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Summer Time on the Farm

It seems like the weather has moved directly from late April to July, and now we're back to late May again. And while this proves to be a bit much for our human bodies to adjust to, the plants and animals here on the farm seem to actually thrive in it. It was just about 2 weeks ago that our strawberry plants looked like this.

Since that picture we have collected several gallons of strawberries from our little 50 plant patch, and I have tried my hand at strawberry pie, strawberry ice cream, starwberry jam, and next on my list dried strawberries and strawberry fruit leather. Besides lots of eating fresh strawberries straight off the plant, before they even make it to the house. Yum!!!
And while we seem to have strawberries on the brain, and if you look at us we might seem a little red from all the fabulous anthocyanins we've eaten lately; strawberries aren't the only thing we're growing around here.
Requiring just as much daily attention as our strawberry patch are the noisy little birds found in various buildings around the property. On May 7 we upped our farmyard bird population from 6 chickens and 2 turkeys to now having 36 chickens and 6 turkeys! Granted most of that population isn't a month old yet. Though in 3 weeks they have went from being covered with down fluff to growing feathers, and being able to be outside part of the day now. The 30 baby chicks are living in the old turkey shed. The day we put them out there, they looked like this:
Now they look like this:
For more on the animals and other happenings . . . check back tomorrow.