Farm Update

We really do enjoy living out here. There is more work than in a housing development, but we think there is more payoff too. It's some of the hazards of country life I am not so fond of. Like reaching for a measuring cup and finding this:

Ya, I actually walked out to the shed and made Leigh come all the way inside to take it outside. Two reasons for that: 1) I didn't know if it jumped and 2) I didn't know if it bit/stung. I have a saying: Better him than me! :)

Elliot loves to "work" outside. Sometimes he legitimately helps. He gardens, helps feed chickens, collect eggs, pulls weeds, and then there is times that he hammers nails into wood and digs holes to fill up with water. Either way, he's outside using his imagination!

Here he is wearing Julia's purple sweater. It was about 65 degrees and he couldn't find a jacket of his own. Instead of waiting for me to find one he said, "I'll just do it myself!"

This is our Muscovy duck. She's kind of fun. She doesn't need a pond, can't fly (she flies about as well as a chicken) and doesn't really quack. You can't tell but it is raining hard in this picture. All the chickens took refuge under the coop, she ran out to sit in it! When the times comes, we'll see if we like eating duck, and if we do, we'll be getting more of these guys!

This is our stately rooster. He spent most of his time perched up high looking over his harem.

Mr. Rooster met his end this week. He is currently in the freezer waiting for an upcoming dinner. He began "cock-a-doodle-doodling" (as Noah says) at 3:30 in the morning and didn't stop until about 10am. One day I was complaining that the 5 dogs we share a property line with bark incessantly and their owners do nothing about it, and Leigh replied "Says the only woman in the neighborhood with a rooster". Ooops...point taken. 

That was not the real reason he became dinner. It was more that he is not the breed of chicken we want to breed, and he was starting to attack us. He actually beat up Elliot pretty bad one day. We have now made room for another rooster.  

The fall garden is sprouting in the shed and in a few weeks we'll transplant the cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce into the new beds in the garden. Elliot is also growing a pot of cilantro he is SOOOO proud of. In a few weeks I'll get the summer garden totals up.