Turkeys, and thoughts about trait selection.

The Lady of the House was kind enough to get some really lovely photos for our Patreon Patrons so we could get them their special content for the month. Normally I'd be doing that earlier in the month, but it's been busy here. That said, as a side effect of that we have some extra beautiful photos to share. Unsurprisingly they are of turkeys and the remaining chicken, because they are looking great lately. Also I want to talk about trait selection and why breeding has a place in this circumstance.

Acclimation, and Fall.

At the beginning of summer we had to remind ourselves Summer wasn't over. Now it is, officially and for practical purposes both. The Autumn Equinox was on the 23rd, and the weather has cooled drastically, leading to very chilly mornings. It is even getting chilly inside at night because it isn't really heating up during the day. The nice part about this season isn't so much around the house itself, but on the way to and from the house. The really beautiful moments on the drive break up the unpleasantness of an hour long commute. I've learned over the years an important thing as winter comes.

Oops!

I forgot my phone with the data for the post today in the car when the Lady of the House took it for the day so the post today isn't going to happen. I'll either get it up this evening, or do it tomorrow.

Sorry for the mix up!

The good, the pretty, and a bad review.

After a busy weekend where we weren't home as much as we might normally like, we have some good, some interesting, and some bad. First things first, another harvest from the bean plants has turned up a lot more beans to can. We let the beans get bigger this time, and are going to be canning them shortly. It's amazing how many beans we're going to have canned for the winter with just a few plants. If we do a full spread next year of beans we're going to have probably more beans than we need, which would be a nice change from not being able to put enough up for the winter. Next year we'll be out weeding more which will make a huge difference. The bush beans actually do a good job of out competing our weeds though, which is kind of nice. The balance between the pole beans and the bush beans really is the bush beans produce more, but are more of a pain to harvest. Sounds like a job for the Critter when he's old enough to take directions since he's closer to the ground. That's over a year off though, just planning ahead!

Asparagus, garlic placement, and dreaming.

The Lady of the House and the Critter both have a cold, and we're holding up but we're all a bit fatigued the past couple days. Thanks to that we don't have as much going on as we'd like during this week. Fortunately the Critter is fine with it, it's the rest of us that are suffering. Above is a photo of how well the asparagus is doing. It's tough to get a good photo of the asparagus because of just how much it blends in with everything else around it, even when we have brought things down to mostly just be ground cover under it. The entire bed of asparagus is doing great though, and I'm looking forward to seeing how well it is doing next year. Thanks again to Kathy Harrison from Barefoot Farm for the gift of the asparagus. I know that the entire house is going to be thrilled to have easily accessible asparagus next year.

A touch of frost, greens, and more.

On this cold morning, we have lots still on plants, and some that I strongly suspect won't make it through the first killing frost, but won't be ripe by then. Always a bit of a challenge with our location. As for the beans, at this point it just comes down to picking them off the plants. Even with the weather, the beans don't seem to be done flowering as you can see Right. Even the scarlet runner beans set more flowers just recently despite being heavy with beans. 

Quick Hit: Turkey taming with Critter.

Today's going to be a quick post because we've been very busy for the past couple days. The Lady of the House has been taking the Critter out to work on taming the turkeys, and that's a bit of an adventure. We want to get them more tame because we want them to come when called.
If we can get them comfortable with being close to the Critter, they'll definitely be comfortable with us. From the photos you may think that's already happening, but you'll notice my hands are on the Critter in every shot. That's because of the action you see in the shot Below. The Critter has a tough time not trying to go and pet the chicken and the turkeys. They're not a huge fan of that particular action. In fact, it's why the black turkey who clearly has a better survival sense than the others.

The Critter does however enjoy going out and throwing scratch to feed the turkeys, and watch them doing their thing. I think that as the Lady of the House and the Critter do that every day we'll be able to get a lot more friendly with the Turkeys which is going to be good. The one thing that I'm not thrilled about at the moment is the Turkeys enjoyment of perching on the car. So far it isn't harming the car, but I'd rather they not be up there. They like being up high though, so, I suspect it will continue to be as it is.

Fresh food, and turkey containment in winter.

We have to remind ourselves, Summer isn't over yet. At my job, the students are arriving today which makes it harder to remember it isn't yet fall. The weather is helping at the moment, but the nights have been getting cold, and the leaves as you can see are already starting to come down. We didn't put any effort into tomatoes this year given the string of failures due to blight in the past couple years. Even with that we're seeing a few tomatoes, mostly from the volunteer plants, but some still from the plants leftover from the seedling swap. It's nice to have some brightly colored treats in the garden. For the rest of our tomato want, we're going to be trying to purchase seconds tomatoes from a nearby local farmer and turn those into sauce.

Starting to focus on fall projects.

Dawn is getting perceptibly later. It's not dark when we wake up yet, but it's getting there, and the plants are getting fewer hours of light day by day. Right now that isn't affecting the growth of any of the plants, but it will within the month. Many of the plants have started fading already and setting their last fruit since they know what's coming well before we do. That said, we're going to want more production than we've gotten this year so we have some new things to try this winter.

Moving ahead, leaving things behind.

Today we start with the unlovely, and move on to the lively. This weekend as I mentioned last week we got in a dumpster to clear out things that have turned from treasured personal possessions to trash. Things ranging from books, to only copies of photos, to very practical things like sleeping bags. All of that has been emptied from the barn, and the barn itself is now very much usable again. It has gone from not so much full as too cluttered to use, to organized, and with sufficient room to easily park the car with room to spare for a second vehicle. The shed is also empty of everything extraneous. Oh an emotional level it's tough throwing out things that in the past may have been precious, but let's be honest, our life has changed. There are better uses for the barn now that we're going the direction we are with our life. Once the fencing material is out of the barn there will be even more room.