Ryan's been working on our new farm quite a bit, mostly chainsawing to clear out trees for our driveway. He's making progress, although slower than both of us would like.
We're also finishing out our primary growing season, so Ryan has been to the poultry locker twice in the last week and a half and the lamb locker once. Animals are actually looking to be normal weights this year! First time in three years we have a normal batch of turkeys. Still higher loss rates than we would like, but a normal batch is much appreciated.
We load turkeys in the dark (otherwise they are very difficult to catch!), so I snapped a shot of them on the trailer.
And what would farming be without something jury rigged somewhere? In this case, it's trailer lights. Our trailer lights don't work because, frankly, they're probably older than I am. We have a trailer lighting kit, but it's for a car being towed and doesn't exactly mount to an ancient livestock trailer well.
If you're thinking: "Duct Tape!" you would be right. Except we didn't have any handy. That means electrical tape!
Yeah, this lasted about 60 miles before Ryan had to bungee it. I tried.
We have a fox around the farm again (big surprise). About a week before the first turkeys went in to the locker, the fox got one moments before Ryan saw it, so I can now say I have field dressed a turkey. It wasn't actually as bad as I expected and it was delicious. I know, horrible picture. I forgot to take one when I had more than one piece left because it was yummy and we ate it first.
I've been doing a little quilting, I had a friend request some placemats. She's young and far cooler than me, and considers pink to be her signature color. So I whipped up some placemats for her.
I have enough pictures taken for a tutorial for these, but I don't know if anyone wants one. So leave me a comment or send me an email if you want one.
H and Z and I had a bit of a date at a local place called Goldie's in Prairie City. Best tenderloin in driving distance. H was all three-year-old, in full princess getup.
Here she is in crown, tutu, "necklace", and "wand". Yes, that is a ball of rubber bands beside her. No, I'm not sure why.
Z has been taking halting steps, he takes a couple and then falls down. 4 days shy of 11 months old, and that kid is walking.
Still no movement on selling our current farm. Sigh. Hopefully soon, but I don't know how optimistic to be as we head into fall!
I almost stepped on this little guy on the way out my front door this evening, and was actually carrying the camera. So I'm sharing him with you. We live in a little valley, so we have water management issues. Lots of them. Like we have a swamp around our compost pile. That means we have frogs, toads, snakes, and all kinds of bugs. Everything has to lay low a lot of the time, though, because chickens hate snakes more than anything else and will go out of their way to kill them. Yet another thing you learn when you raise chickens: they will eat almost anything...