Independence Day Parade

On July 4th, Amy fulfilled a life-long dream of driving a float in our little town's Independence Day Parade.  Wilmore's own Crazy Chicken Lady pulled a chicken float with live chickens.  The float was a hit, even though the weather was not.

It's Growing

Yesterday, I posted this picture of this cucumber in our garden.

Tonight, I walked out and noticed it had almost doubled in size

And then I found this one on another plant that I didn't ever see yesterday.  I guess that's what happens when we have 85 degree days...summer is here!

Homestead Update

I can tell its summer.  Not only am I behind in blogging but most of the blogs I follow have been posting a lot less as well. Just too much to do and lots of daylight to do it in.  They biggest news on our urban homestead is the ducks have started laying.

First eggs found out in the garden

Also found some in the tunnel to the garden

I penned the ducks up a few nights and they eventually got the idea to lay their eggs in the duck house...though not exactly in the laying boxes.

Week 1's duck egg harvest

This is a chicken egg on top and a duck egg on bottom.  I expect the duck eggs to be double in size once they start laying for real.

The other harvest right now is blackberries. I planted a few canes last year and man, are they producing!

Essie finding blackberries!

The harvest isn't great yet, but its enough for the kids to find and eat.  I love hearing them say, "wow, our garden is great this year."

Everywhere I look, the fruit of our labors are starting to show.

Pepper

Zucchinis 

Cucumbers

Tomatoes

and more tomatoes

For all my fussing with the tomatoes this year and losing 50 plants to frost in April, I still think we'll be up to our ears in tomatoes in another month or so.  I ended up buying some plants, had some given to me and had even more in my in my little greenhouse so we are back up to about 50 plants.  (can you say SALSA!?!?!)

I leave you with a final video of the ladies.  Almost every day I let them out of their pen so they can roam with neighborhood. Don't worry, the neighbors are all on board and some even feed them now.  They wander back to our house at dusk and if I leave the door open, they put themselves to bed.  Seriously, chickens are the easiest animals to care for. 

The sweet lady that lives 2 doors down feeds the ladies on her back porch.  I love to hear her talk about how her mother always kept chickens.

Another perk of having an URBAN homestead is you can enlist the neighborhood children to help.  I had a flat of marigolds to plant around the garden so I called in the kids that were around the house and the job was done in 5 minutes.  And, they kept asking for other jobs.

One other homestead project I needed done was replacement of the single rain barrel.  My family decided to visit last week so of course I had to take advantage of the time my Dad was here.  He had major back surgery last month so my brother-in-law Jeremy was enlisted to help as well.  The fitting around the nozzle broke and in the end, my Dad and I decided to just replace the whole unit, now that we have some better ideas for rain barrels. 

Finished project

Planting Time

It's a bit early, but the tomatoes we planted inside in January were taking over our house so the girls and I planted them in the garden last week.  We've had to cover them already once but they were dying in the pots so we had to get them out.

Ready for planting

Some egg shells from our lovely hens go in the hole first to help combat blossom rot

as my lovely assistant Chloe demonstrates

getting ready to put a plant in

Essie's turn

A little H2O

Essie kept finding worms to feed to the chickens

 Down the row we go

 

All tucked in

The ladies have now been sequestered to the A-frame, much to their chagrin, in order to keep them out of the garden.

At least one of the ladies had fun in the grass

Spring Break in Indiana

The kids and I are in Indiana visiting the family.  We spent last weekend at my sister Jen's house and she took us to see Grass Is Greenier Meats and Procduce, LLC, which is owned by Jen's friend Toni. It is an organic farm that sells meat and produce.  Totally my dream for one day, but I don't think I can process my own chickens, let alone 80 at a time.

Shelby touching one of the baby ducks

Baby chicks everywhere

Going to see the laying hens

Chloe found an egg on the ground

AJ holding one of the big hens

Essie's turn

Shelby learning "gentle touch" with the hens (and not to pick up chicken poop)

AJ thought it would be a good idea to let the hens eat out of his hands

Jersey calves

Red waddle baby pigs

St. Croix Hair Sheep