Gardening for the Dinner Table

We are getting potatoes, squash, zuccini, eggplant, tomatoes, and GREEN tomatoes from the garden. The corn has put on tassles and the sugar snap peas are putting on thickness. We have been oven roasting squash and tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper; the squash also gets fresh oregano and lemon juice. We are eating veggie dinners many nights a week. It is exciting to pick, cook, and eat dinner without going to the store!

Then there are all the eggs we've been eating for breakfast!

NEXT: Wil and Tim are planning a chicken butchering day this summer. Thanks to Backyard Poultry magazine, they think they can now tackle this tedious feather-pickin' task. I'll be glad, once again, to profit from this farm other than just eggs and the great humorous entertainment.

To market!

Wil and Tim took Adam and Lars to market. Wil came home with a nice check and new ideas about what direction we will take with goatherding! I am pleased to see some money come in for this endeavor. We have made back part of what we paid for Pepper. Next we want a female from a "meat" breed to mate with Ethan and sell for more than we got for the males.

Tucker is still around for the time being. He will be farmed out for a while to Tim for grass trimming. Tuck has excellent La Mancha traits, but we are more interested in other breeds.

So much for duck mothering...

After the eggs hatched, Mary kinda lost her mind. She trampled a couple of babies, then kept walking off without the chicklings. She would just ramble around the farm griping. Wil took the chicklings and put them in the brooder with other chicks. They are all fine. Mary is now in the duck pen with the mallards, six of whom are males. Wish us luck that Mary will know a normal duck life now.

Mary's First Chickling Hatches

Proud Mama Mary with her first chickling (chick + duckling), possibly a buff Orpington.

Spring 2007

Pepper's latest twins: Ivey (left, female, mostly white) and Lars (right, male, mostly caramel).

Father is Ethan, a Nigerian Dwarf. Both these twins exhibit the Nigerian ears--and they are SO CUTE! They are not as friendly as last summer's boys, though.

Summer 2006 Twins

Our first babies, Adam and Tucker, born to Pepper last July. Pepper was expecting when we bought her (father unknown). Notice the size and color difference.

Pepper is LaMancha and her boys both exhibited LaMancha ears, to different degrees. Tucker has no ears, and Adam has "elf ears," little flaps.

Brooder Moves from Kitchen to Shed

We have been housing small chicks in the kitchen in a plastic tub (seen below brooder) covered with mesh and a lamp. Now Wil and Tim built a brooder that is 3-4 feet off the ground and can go in the tractor shed. That's good, because those chicks can get NOISY!