It definitely was fall today.  Our trees are pretty much naked here and we have leaves blowing around in the wind.  It was windy today so the chickens live yet another day.  Unfortunately, I've noticed one of our bronze turkeys waddling.  I believe he has developed some leg trouble and I doubt he'll make it until Thanksgiving.  I was hoping to have fresh turkey for dinner but it looks like he may well be in the freezer before the end of this month.  Oh well, that's ok too.  I don't want him to suffer. 

Mrs. Hen managed to hatch another egg today.  The other egg wasn't fertile so we moved mama and baby into the brooder coop where they will be warm and safe.  Minnie is definitely setting.  Madison was able to check the nest when Minnie was off to eat and she thinks there's a good 30 eggs in the nest.

Speaking of the brooder coop, Marilyn over at Heritage Hill, reminded me that I hadn't posted a pic of the brooder box Rich built.  So here's a pic of it in use:

I found the plans for it here.  They are from 1940.  Rich made it in a triangle instead of a square so it would fit in the coop.  It's doing a great job of keeping the temp right for both sets of chicks which are about 3 1/2 weeks apart.  I have a red cochin bantam pair and a belgian bearded d'uccle bantam hen, Goldie, to act as moms and dad to the babies.  The older chicks are almost bigger then Goldie and they prefer to sit on top of the box.

Since we couldn't butcher, we decided to dig potatoes.  While Rich was digging, I went thru the corn patch and found some squash and a few pumpkins.  Oh wow, I'm so pleased with the harvest from these 2 gardens, considering how badly they were neglected.  Take a look at this:

We planted 300 hills, lost an estimated 20% of the plants.  Rich thinks there is well over 200 pounds of potatoes in the wagon.  I already had dug 30 pounds out earleir so I'm very happy.  We have a few green ones in the bunch and they will be thrown out when I get them ready for storage.  We should eat good this winter!

We also spend a good portion of the morning putting my main garden to bed for the winter.  All the tomato plants have been pulled and placed in the compost pile.  The green bean plants were fed to the cattle as well as the pumpkin vines.  All that is left is the mint, chives and parsley for herbs and a few onions.  The brussel sprounts are waiting for a good killing frost.  I also have carrots, beets and lettuce (my fall garden) that I will continue to cover until they get a little bigger or I get sick of covering them, whichever comes first .

I'm really surpised at my strawberry and raspberry plants near the garage, they are still green and waving in the wind.  The raspberries by the grove have all been hit by frost.  So I will wait with mulch the beds until they are froze off and asleep for the winter.

I think that covers most of my day.  I still have peppers and apples sitting inthe kitchen... maybe tomorrow they will be somewhere else .

GoodNight!
Carol

To start my day, I canned 16 1/2 pints of applesauce and 7 half pints of apple butter.  Boy did the house smell yummy!

After I finished canning, I headed out to the garden.  I pulled the remaining sweet pepper plants and removed all the fruit and ended up with this:

I don't know what those small yellow red peppers are.  They grew on the plant straight out, very pretty.  I am asumming they are a hot pepper.  I don't really know.  They were in my banana pepper row and I didn't buy any single plants.. anybody know what they are?  Here's a close up:

I'm hoping to get all of these into the freezer by the end of the week.  Austin enjoys eating them fresh... eats them just like you would an apple.  Crazy kid!  lol

That's it for today!
Carol

Today, Rich and I butchered 11 of my broilers.  We decided to pick out the "big gals" and skin them as they will be stewing birds.  We still have another 3 or 4 but my chicken cooler was full so the rest will wait until annother day.  I'm so happy to have those out of the way.  I figure there is about 90 birds left.

I was back in town at the house again tonight as Madison had Gems at church.  So I had 2 hours to kill.  I headed out to our apples trees and picked up a large bag and a 2 1/2 bushel basket full of apples just from the ground.  These will be the critters treats.  I could barely lift the bag, it was so heavy.  There is still apples on the ground but I quit as I wanted to get some apples off the trees.

I picked about a grocery sack full of fresh apples that I plan on making into pie and applesauce.  The trees are just loaded with fruit this year.  I'm somewhat glad we only have 2 trees.  I didn't get a chance to check the crabapple trees but I'm sure they are full as well.  I'll do more picking of apples next week.

Well, I'm off to bed.
GoodNight!
Carol

I had a productive day in the kitchen. I've been picking peppers over the last couple days.  Yesterday, the winds were so strong that it snapped off one of the yellow pepper plants that was loaded with fruit so we threw them in the pile.  Now, we had toom any to eat fresh.  So with my MIL and Madison's help, we chopped up the green, yellow and lilac peppers.  I bagged them in 1 cup measurements and froze them. 

After that, I headed out to pick the jalapeno peppers and managed to convince my MIL to take them all as I have 6 times as many growing yet.  She was delighted.  Madison and her chopped them up so they would fit into her freezer until they got home.

While the girls did the peppers, I raided the corn patch and found a clothes basket full of sweet corn.  I don't know how its even growing out there in the weed patch and with my neglect.  We roasted a few ears on the grill for lunch and the rest will be made into cream style corn tomorrow.

I noticed several spaghetti squash growing in my weed corn patch.  I hope they taste yummy.  They are the only squash that grew for me this year.  I suppose I should look for spaghetti squash recipes.  This is a new veggie for me.

Madison's 4H records were turned in today.  We had a nice chat with Brooke about the netherland dwarf rabbit breed.  Madison definitely wants one.  I also got a call about loinheads... a gal I know wants to sell her herd to us.  I'm not sure we can handle that amount of rabbits so we need to look and think about where Madison wants to go with showing these critters.

Well, school starts tomorrow so I best get a few things in order before bed.
Goodnight!
Carol

Madison is doing much better.  She is her chipper little self again, talking with lots of energy.  She says her neck still hurts and its tender to swallow.  She doesn't have full range of motion in her neck but she is doing lots better.

I'm feeling a bit better as well.  I can't believe I picked up a bug in the middle of summer!  Good Grief!

I managed to pull the brocoli plants out of my garden, all except one that is a bit younger then the rest.  I think the plants were bolting... they just weren't producing the lovely little compact spears anymore.  I also pulled the rest of the lettuce bed that had gotten lost in the pumpkin vines.  The rabbits greatly appreciated the greens.  I replanted lettuce in another area.

I harvested the rest of my beets and have them cooked and peeled ready for canning tomorrow.  I also need to get to canning some tomatoes before they overwhelm me.  The cabbage looks like its ready.  I will make freezer coleslaw out of those heads.

I had to water all the gardens again.. it is pretty dry here.  I noticed that the soybean field has dry spots.  I hope it doesn't affect Rich's harvest too much.  We really need the crops to do well.  Our goal is to get a house out here. 

I'm not sure if my sweet corn is going to develop or not.  Lots of ears but they don't feel very full of kernels.  I did manage to find a spaghetti squash in the midst of the weed haven I call a garden.

Rich just informed me we are picking up hay and straw bales tomorrow.  Unfortunately, Austin is working so it will be slow going but we'll get it done.  He thinks we should have close to enough hay to feed our critter for the 5-6 months of winter.  That's such a good feeling.  Last year, we didn't have that and had to  buy feed for the goats.

Well, I better get to bed.  Goodnight!
C arol

I worked in the potato patch this morning.  Oh, I let it go too long and now I have a weed patch but the potatoes seem to be producing despite my neglect.  Here's what I dug up pulled out with the weeds.

And a few more:

I put the smaller pototoes in my crockpot with a beef roast and carrrots for supper.  Oh they were delicous.  I still have much more weeding to do as you can see:

I traveled to St. Cloud this afternoon with Chas and Madison to get our latest addition to the farm, Puga.  Puga is a minature pot belly pig.  Her owner no longer had time for her with school and work so we offered to give Puga a new home.  So we brought her home.  She weighs about 18 pounds and is as cute as a bug's ear! 

OK, maybe you need to love pigs to think she's soo cute!  LOL  I better go, we need to get things set up for Puga in the barn.
Carol

We just got done freezing 20+ pounds of green beans!  I don't think I've ever snapped that many beans in one sitting.  Rich and Madison helped with the prep.  Then I did the blanching and they did the Seal-A-Meal thing.  They really love working that "toy", lol.  I'm happy they are out of the way.

We also have peas to do tomorrow.  I'm hoping to have a pressure canner before we have any more produce to process.  Madison has a dental appt in a neighboring city and I'm going to see if I can find one there.

I'm so happy with the amount of veggies I'm getting from the garden.  The tomotoes are just starting to turn so I'm glad they are a little slow.  Karen's corn is ready she told me today so Friday I'm heading over to their farm to pick sweet corn to can.

I'm off to bed.  Tomorrow is a long day.
Carol

I got to sleep in this am... until 6:40 am... LOL  I have to get up with Chas (when she is home) at 6 am.  So is 40 minutes extra considered sleeping in?  Apparently, my body has it's own clock. 

I have been a morning person ever since I stopped working nights at the nursing home many moons ago.  I love to quiet of the house in the morning before everyone wakes up.  I have a cup of coffee and just enjoy the peacefulness, until the roosters start crowing.. but I love listening to the critters waking up.

This was one of those mornings.  I wondered outside and to the garden.  OH DEAR!  When did this happen?  My garden has gone crazy with growth!  Now, I was out here befoer the fair helping Madison choose her vegetables and I do not remember the garden looking like this!

I have a hoop house frame for the beans and peas.  There is one wild bean stalk going up the tree.  Not sure how to harvest those beans.

And this is my tomato plot....  looks like a rain forest to me.

I can see the error of my spring planting!  My tomotoes are planted too close together.  Actually, they were taller but a thunderstorm with high winds knocked down the almost 6 foot tomoto plants trees.

Honestly, when I was planting I didn't think the garden would do well... as this is the first year for the plot; second, until last year there was a pile of junk here. 

Rich said an old stucco building stood here when he was a child.  When the building went down, it became a place to pile junk.  Besides what was left of the building, there were parts of feed wagons, lawnmowers, bicycles, wheels, tires, glass, shingles, just to name a few things.  So I didn't think the garden would do so well.  But Rich said the garden goes here!  We put on turkey manure, as well as the compost from cleaning the barn in 2006.  Rich tilled it all and I planted amoungst the nails, glass and shingles the ground was still spitting up. 

That brings me to today and me scratching my head trying to figure out how I'm going to harvest those tomotoes.  So far, the tomotes (that I can see) remain green.  Anyone have a hint? idea? suggestion? 

I forgot to mention that yesterday afternoon, Madison attended her 4H awards program at the fair.  She received 2 lovely plaques for grand champion in the Exploring Animals and Veterinary Science exhibits.  We are so very proud!

Carol