CAMP IMAGES 2011

Brandon had a really fun time at camp.  Just thought I'd share a couple of pictures here....

reading and meditating on God's Word

tube tug... he said this was one of his favorite games



don't know if he's in this picture, but this was his team.



The Wilds of New England (view from the road)

this is the chapel - dining hall and kitchen to the left, snack shoppe and nurses office to the right

another place he spent many fun times.

Great camp and hope he can come again next year!

Welcome to the Jungle

Well, it has been a dry summer here, but the Lord has allowed the garden to do relatively well anyway as you can see from the following pictures.

a sea of squash

The most wonderful thing is we had 2 rainy days in a row and the soil needed moisture so badly.  Our cucumbers are coming along now and the vines are covered with tiny fruit and I was so concerned that they wouldn't develop 'cause it had been so dry. 

Judging from the way nature is hurrying this growing season, I expect there will be an early frost this year.  We'll see how that prediction comes out :)  OK I'm not a prophet, but you can tell sometimes by the way things happen in the garden.  The plants got a late start, but they are really rushing to produce seed.

funny, I didn't see this leek flower when I was taking the pictures
this morning.  I was thinking that the leeks must have gotten buried
in the wild flowers, but they must be holding their own.  The parsnips are
coming along well and we'll be having some of those either next year or
the following year.... yum.

The corn is growing quickly now.  Looking forward to having a corn roast in the late summer.  We are about 2-3 weeks behind in the growing season from the Upper Valley where I work.  Our summer squash hasn't done much, but folks at work are bringing in extra summer squash.  Funny how a few hundred feet of elevation can make such a difference.  Even on our hill we might get a frost at the house, but the garden get nothing.

You must disregard the weeds please.  Amazing since I just weeded
last weekend.  The rain really makes the weeds perk up as well
I guess.

I love wild flowers as you can tell.  When we get the house together I will have a wildflower bed, but now they reside in my herb garden... they have lots in common, so it's a good match.  The only thing that didn't grow for me this year in the herb garden was the lavender *sniff, sniff*.  I'm not sure why except we had a dog come and dig up a part of the garden and that may have been where they were planted, but I thought it was above there.  I don't mark my sections very well as you can tell. 

Our poor Muscovy mommas have had a really rough time hatching eggs.  In the old dog house we had two setting hens.  Between the two they managed to hatch 4 eggs.  One died right away, another was lost... probably to a cat or dog, and the other two are so small.  The hens are really curious about these little yellow balls of fluff...

not even sure if you can see them... they are under tha ladder.
Their two mommas are behind the board, but are right there keeping a close eye

then Poppa steps in and chased away the curious hens.

see how tiny... we hope these two make it.

Poor mommas they tried so hard to hatch little ones.  It was just too hot the past few weeks and they were not able to keep the eggs cool enough.  We opened up the coop, but there just wasn't any relief.  They finally abandoned their nests.  We usually have two settings per summer and it has been much cooler, so they may be successful next time.

Hope you are enjoying the summer.

Busy Summer Days

I'd have been writing up a storm if I was "bored", but there seem to be no days like these summer days to keep a person busy.  This weekend Brandon (grandson) and I painted the green house to my specifications... red with white trim.  If you do it yourself, you get to choose the colors.  There's always the garden to weed and for some reason, though the plants are sluggish this year, the weeds are flourishing.  We have new fencing to put up for the chicks who needed to get out of the brooding area  and meet the great big world outside. 

On top of all the normal business there has been a little "trama".  Several who are very close to me are going through some deep water.  I don't feel at liberty to share too much.  It makes one stop to think... does God forget us and let us flounder?  NEVER!  Don't ever for even a nanosecond believe that lie.  When trouble comes, that's opportunity to lean on the Lord and He is always there.  I used to think that
the reason God sent trouble was because we had not been faithful in some area, but I no longer think that lie either.  Of course God allows trouble for a reason, but think of Job.  When did trouble hit him? 

Job 1:8
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?


OK, I certainly am not as perfect and upright as Job, but if I were, would I even suspect bad times were on their way?  Well if my thinking were messed up I might think that trouble would never overshadow my doorstep.  That's what Job's friends/wife thought.  "Well Job, what did you do to bring this on yourself? " 
 
Yes, I deserve all the trouble I get, but even if I were a perfect person, trouble would come as it does to all people.  All people face trouble and if we have trust in God it will cause us to draw even closer to him.  
 
OK enough about trouble, here's some fun pictures from around the farm.  I don't get to blog much, so there aren't so many pictures this year.  
 
A friend gave us a goose that was "naughty" terrorizing his wife, kids, and dogs.  So he ended up here...


Brandon's first butchering.  Not sure he was too impressed.
Don't think I'll raise geese for meat... not that great.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

The garden had a slow start, but through the past week has recovered quite nicely.  In an earlier blog I posted pictures of the garden, so you can compare if you like. 



This is the shady area.  We have peas, kale, Jacob Cattle beans,
pakchoy (which has bolted due to heat) and a few winter squash in
the front.





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the top of the garden.  Things grow the best here.  More
Jacob Cattle, tomatoes, and pole beans, and of course more
squash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the herb garden from the back, plus lettace, carrots, corn..
I took a picture from the front, but for some reason the camera
didn't save the picture.  It's pretty from the front because
the wild flowers are in bloom right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the chickens are growing like little weeds.  Don't know if you remember the last picture...

Beginning of June.  This was the day after they arrived.  They
have long since graduated from this tiny tub/heat lamp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These bad boys will be ready for butchering in a month, maybe even
sooner.  They would lay in their feed and eat all day if we let them,
but have been supplementing with fruit and veggies.  Hopefully
the meat will be leaner and they will stay healthier this year.
So far they are doing well and we've lost only one... he got left
out in the cold accidentily when they were just little chicks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



The little Rhode Island Red hens depend on the big boys for warmth
at night.  Even when the temperature dips to 40, this room stays
about 50-60 because of body heat.  It is all opened up during
the day to keep them from cooking in here.  This coop was a camper
trailer that we got for free.  Works very well as a coop for us and
it's moveable.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that's the news from our neck of the woods.  Glad to be able to let you know we're still alive. 

 

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Update garden and new little chicks

So yesterday we got the new hens... well iddy biddy hens they are....

not even sure you can see them too well but the bigger white birds where the iddy biddy ones from the last post.  The Rhode Island Red hens are about the same size here as the meat birds were when we got them.  It is easy to see how fast they grow. 

We have had soo much rain the past week that the garden hasn't done a lot of growing.  We need more sun.  Today is nice and the next couple.  The next update will probably show more progress.

from front to back - pak choy, radishes, jacob cattle bean, kale, peas, rhubarb,and behind that are some winter squash



front to back - winter squash, to left jacob cattle to right cherry tomato (had a little space to stick in a few more items)
behind that more pak choy and the strawberry patch behind that is the slope where cucumbers, summer squash, beets and more radishes live, then along the fence at the bottom of the hill are some sunflowers. 



in the foreground is the herb garden - camomile, basil, oregano, caraway, wormwood, rue, more basil, lavendar and various sorts of wildflowers - not blooming yet
behind the herb garden to the left are carrots, chard, parsnips, our blueberry bushes, then corn
and behind them the pole beans.

My grandson will be here next week, so maybe we'll work on a little weeding expecially in the perennial bed and then I'll post some pictures of flowers.  The peonies are blooming and iris and columbine too.  I'm just too ashamed on the condition of the beds to post pictures just yet.  I went down on Tuesday and did a little work, but they're in bad shape because of neglect.  The flowers bloom reqardless of my lack of attention, but they look a lot prettier if I spend some time there weeding and fussing over them.

I'll write more later.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Lil chicks

This was last week... they've tripled in size since then.  Time for a new picture.  These are the meat birds.  It's have to believe that in September they will dress out at 11-12 lbs.  They just grow incredibly fast.

The Garden continued

We has a little excitement in the chicken coop today.  Mr. D went into the coop to collect eggs.  I was in the garden not far away and soon I heard him yelling for me to come.  I came as quick as I could and he had a board across a metal trash barrel.  He told me to go get a lid big enough to cover the can.  We have lots of barrels, so I ran and grabbed one quickly.  Inside the can was a fox.  Apparently Mr. D had caught him in the act of terrorizing our hens.  He had killed 3 and was looking for more.  Well in my opinion once they get the taste for chicken there's no coop safe from that fox so we did the only thing we could and that was his demise.  It's a sad thing for the fox, but happy for the hens who will not worry about him again.  I don't think he was very healthy anyway.  It looked to me like he was suffering from mange and had quite a few ticks.  I took pictures of him, but didn't want to post any here.  There are many out there who are not happy that you have to kill any animal, but farmers know there are some limits.

The garden is doing much better after the recent rain.  Strawberries got a little too much water just when the berries were developing, but we picked all the red ones we could find and hope the rain will ease up now and the rest will be good too.  They sure are yummy.  We don't grow enough to save them up, but we enjoy them right away.  I had mine with some yogurt.  Yum, Yum. When Brandon come next week maybe we'll have enough to make some shortcake or have some over ice cream.

Here what the garden looked like this morning:

Amazing what a little rain will do.  Notice the cover over the strawberries.  If we didn't do this the Cedar Waxwings would be all over them.  Sorry the pics are so blurry.

This is only about 1/4 of the garden.  The corn is also up and the squash, cucumbers, tomatoes etc are all doing well.  I'll take some better pictures next time. 

Hope your gardens are all doing well this year.

The garden is in and started - From last week....

I wrote this last week, but of course did not get it edited and posted.  So here we go...

Progress on the garden...

On May 28 we tilled the garden.  For two days before that we hauled in a couple loads of manure and put in all the compost and chicken manure from last year.  This makes the soil rich and dark and great for growing veggies.  We also get plenty of weeds, but the soil is soft, so pulling weeds isn't a huge issue. 

We planned out all the spots for the veggie seeds we had... here's our list from earlier...


Miragreen - peas
Gotta Have - It corn
Ozark Beauty - strawberries
Gentry Hybrid - summer squash
French Breakfast - radishes
Macintosh apple tree
Herbs ...
Sage
Dill
Basil
Thyme
Marjoram
Jacob Cattle - beans
Romano - pole beans
Straight Eight - cucumbers
Burgess Buttercup - winter squash
lots of winter squash seeds, lettuce, carrot, pak choy seeds left
Ruth Bible beans

Some were ordered, some were saved from last year....

We planted some other things too...
Lavender
Several different types of Basil to see which we like the best.
Pak Choy (free seed)
Kale  (green -eating and also flowering)
Beets
Carrots (from some free seed that were given to us)
Lettace (free seed)
Since we pull the last of the Parsnips we planted some of those, but we won't be harvesting them for a couple years.
We planted three variety of winter squash that we especially liked from last year all from saved seeds.  The planted we started early are doing well.

I also planted some flowers in pots for sunny areas.  I can't see paying such high prices for flowers.  Some of these that I planted are prennial, so they will be back next year too, some are annuals which will only be around this year because we have not space to keep them indoors.

Nothing purking yet... was very dry for a couple weeks....

to be continued.