Some success in the garden.

Apologies for the photo quality, not only was it raining today which makes the lighting a little iffy to begin with, I don't have a machine that I can edit photos on right now. Even without edited photos I'm glad to be able to share that our remaining squash plant seems to be doing well. As you can see from the plethora of blossoms it is adding fruit constantly. Not having a trellis isn't seeming to hurt it at all. I'm looking forward to being able to cut summer squash and steam it.

Our tomatoes have also set fruit, and seem to be doing fairly well. Some of the fruit appears a bit crowded as you can see here, though it seems to be growing fine. From how close the fruit is set these are probably sungold tomatoes since I think that's the only kind of cherry tomato I planted this year. The tomato plants are very stunted this year compared to the past, and we didn't even plant them late. They just haven't been doing well. Some of that is probably us having not used the bunny fertilizer we've used so liberally in the past, some of it is probably the very strange weather we've been getting with cold nights, and scorching dry periods.

Given the attention we've been able to give the garden at all this year I think it actually speaks very well to the benefits of mulch. If we'd given as little attention and watering to our plants in the past they'd probably be dead by now. With mulch they seem to be able to retain moisture well, and stay hydrated which has prevented the tomato plants from having strange split tomatoes, or just turning yellow and drooping after a week of no rain and hot sun. When we garden in the future I intend to make sure we mulch our garden beds, because the cost seems to be well worth it!

Short grass problems.

One of the not entirely unexpected consequences of mowing the lawn short relative to our wild grass and perennial woods clearing. With the drought we've been seeing this summer, despite our nice moist climate relative to the valley, after mowing the lawn regularly we're seeing a lot of sad and browning grass. It's not the vibrant greens that I'm used to seeing our lawn, but it is starting to look more like a normal lawn. With a bit of rain it'll look fine.

On the GoFundMe front we are closing in on enough to put the %50 down payment on the furnace. Right now with the donation matching my father is offering we could reach that goal very quickly. We hope to reach it before August 1st so we can get the house on the market with a firm date of installation for the furnace. Thank you all for listening, sharing, and donating. Our community has been such a huge help to us.

Now on to the rest of the gardening situation.

Welcome rain, warm nights.

Despite the challenges right now we're moving along with life as we address them. Lately our predator concern has come from the hawks that are out a lot lately. The electronet doesn't help with that, but the chickens have been sticking to the tall grass and weeds to hide from the aerial threats. I'm always glad to see animals doing the smart thing to stay alive when I can't be there to preserve them 24/7/365 since I'm at work during the day.

On the funding side of things, the furnace situation is rough, but the go fund me has been incredibly helpful, and people have been generous, kind, and helpful with money, advice, and love. Our strength and wealth is in our community and friends, and this has really highlighted that.

Chickens, and mulched terraces.

Of all the things we got done this weekend despite the rain, mowing the lawn wasn't one of them, though the rain was why it didn't get done. The rain also made the necessity of doing it all the greater. It's amazing just how fast our grass grows. That said, while I covered most of what went on I missed a few things, and didn't get all of the photos I wanted to share for Tuesday.

So many seedlings!

Our seedlings have come up! It's a really joyful thing to watch the first seedlings come up inside, and see them doing well. Right now most of what has been started inside is tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant. We started a good variety of various seeds this year and I'm looking forward to seeing how they come out, and being able to share a lot of seedlings. One of the main differences in our seedling starting right now is that we have the seedlings up on the baby clothing rack that used to be our seedling station. It works though!

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!

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.

Much needed rain from a misplaced Spring.

The serious rain we've needed has finally come, and now it won't stop! The chickens however are undeterred, though in the times of heavy rain if the chicks and mom don't go inside, she does protect them, and given how independent they've become it's fairly adorable. The chicks have been growing fast, and are feathering out. They're also starting to stray a bit from mom, though still very much within line of sight. I'm excited to see what they turn out looking like. I also need to check because one of the Cinnamon Queens may have gone broody, but I was too tired to bother her this morning.

Cold Antler Farm visit, chickens, and planting.

As usual we had a bit of a busy weekend, and part of that involved meeting Lucas here, who showed off to us all day. We met him at Cold Antler Farm where Jenna Woginrich was kind enough to show us around and be hospitable to us. We loved seeing everything on her farm.

She actually has a similar sized lot to what we have, but much more of it is in use. She keeps very busy, and has a variety of creatures on the farm in addition to logo creation, book writing, and a variety of other activities from archery to draft horse use. Left are Jame and Ciersie that were very affectionate and hung around us most of the day. The Critter learned how to headbutt things from them which has been so far fairly entertaining.  Going out to visit, see, and experience was our Saturday and a day well spent relaxing together and seeing someone else doing something similar to us, just a bit further along. Of course, Saturday and Sunday we had other things to do.

Hot weather, healthy kits, a broken egg, and asking for rain.

Having missed Spring entirely, or so it's seemed for the past few days, it was nice this morning for it to look like it might rain. We'll see whether it does or not, but I am hoping we see some good rain today. The kits have been sprawled out at the hottest part of the day getting the best of the breezes we have up the hill. Without that the weather would be much more unpleasant, and in the valley where I work, it is that much hotter and less pleasant. I've been taking my exercise during lunch so I've come to really appreciate getting home to the slightly cooler temperatures and winds.

As you can see Above Dawn is just as gentle to, and protective of her daughters kits as her own. The three in with her are doing well, and should be getting moved over to the bigger hutch shortly. A few weeks straight of sickness has slowed so much down.

What did we learn from our first big hutch.

I'd like to start with an apology for the photo quality, I didn't have time to get photos with a real camera today so this is busted iPad photos. It'll work for getting the point across at least. Today I want to talk about a couple things, but the first thing I want to do is talk about what we've learned from our first grow out hutch, and the things that I want to do to modify it. If you haven't been following since then this was the construction post for the grow out hutch.
Before going on to talk about the grow out hutch, and learning experiences from it I'm going to touch on our seed starts. Obviously our peppers are doing well, and we started them very early given the short season. Just this past weekend we started the tomatoes, and last night when I took a look, a bunch of seedlings have started their thready sprouts. I'm really happy to see them coming up so quickly, and so many. Looks like I dropped some extra multiples beyond the two I intended to toss in to each seedling pot which is normal. No matter how closely I work to try to only drop one or two seeds in a hole I always end up with some extra seedlings per hole which is fine since I'm going to be splitting them out to larger pots anyhow. Just wanted to touch on that briefly, before going back to talking about learning from the grow out hutch.

Rainy day thoughts on homesteading and hobby farming, and which we are.

On this rainy Thursday there is a lot going on, but not a lot to talk about it looks like. It is a good reminder of just how much the weather affects our day to day life, and controls what we can and can't do. Today though, it isn't changing what we were going to be doing. Almost all of what we are doing is preparing for the arrival of the Critter with house cleaning, and baby stuff preparation. Other than doing daily animal chores we haven't been doing anything really "homestead" related. At least, not homestead related beyond the fact that we live there. No photos worth getting from today or yesterday, so it's another old photo post.

Actually, on that note I wanted to think about homesteading and hobby farming. Before going on with the discussion let's set out some definitions.

Chickens, rapid blight, and dark mornings.

Meet our new chickens! I know, it's a horrible blown out picture, but it's getting dark in the morning, and I got home after dark last night. So, for the time being photos are going to be fairly meh for the blog since it's camera phone in the dark, but anyhow. Chickens. After the moving of the coop over a week ago Saturday, this past Thursday night we went and got our new hens. We were given 4 Cinnamon Queens for our wedding, and our friends generously held on to them until we could do more to secure the chickens, and another friend gave us a trio of layers that were older and thus leaving her farm one way or the other. Those are a pair of Black Australorps, and a Rhode Island Red. Hopefully when we start letting them out the Lady of the House can get some photos of them that are worth sharing.

Late summer garden, a visitor, and new litters of babies!

Kits have been born! These three are Dawn's current set of kits, I'm not sure if she was done fully yet, so I'm hoping to see a few more in her nest.  Twilight also kindled today, but I wasn't going to reach in there and try to get kits out without a second pair of hands, and the Lady of the House is not feeling well today. She's doing ok, just a bit under the weather so I was on my own for kit checking. So, let's talk about what's been going on other than babies being born.

Ground running tomatoes, peppers, and a turtle.

Alright, so it's not yogurt. Again. I'm sorry! I didn't have the time to get the photos off the card for that. Last night ended up being sort of a long one, and I ended up with less time than expected. The Lady of the House and I have been considering goats for some time, and some friends due to personal circumstances need help with their goats for a while. So, we're going to be helping out 3 times a week with goat feeding for some Boer goats. We'll see how it goes! Lesson one, don't go head to head with a buck. Also, don't go back of knee to head with a buck. Really, don't go back of knee to anything with any creature, it's a bad plan. But, back at home, we're starting to feed greens we're %100 sure of again. The rabbits are happy.

A quick overview

 So, as I said last Thursday, we're back!!! I figured I should start off with a quick review of what's going on. Sorry about the photo quality, I didn't have the time to get photos and edit them. So, instead we're going to have meh quality photos. Ahhh well, at least it's a cute young bunny. There are more baby bunny photos below the cut.

The babies are out and moving around, so are the chickens . . .

For a few moments I wasn't sure what photos to start with, but in the end you can't go wrong with a handful of baby bunny. The one Above is one of Halley's kits that is JUST starting to open it's eyes. Right now Halley's kits are still just barely at the opening their eyes stage. Twilight's just a couple days older on the other hand are already moving around.

One kit down, and decision making for early winter.

 We had a sad, though not entirely unexpected morning coming out to find one of Twilight's kits dead. We didn't do weight checks this morning because of the cold, but yesterday afternoon's weight check one of them had lost a Lot of weight all at once, and didn't have a nursing impulse when I tried to get it to nurse off a very obliging Twilight. On the up side, all of the other kits are doing particularly well!

New friends, moved kits, and escape artists.

It really struck home in a new way just how much the season has changed already. Never mind the frost warnings, well, mind them but the thing that struck me is how much less light we already have. The same time we're out every morning, and just before we leave there still isn't full sun anywhere on our garden, there's barely full sun on the side of the house. Logically I know exactly what time the sun rises and sets, but seeing the light difference really stands out to me due to my lighting design background.

Frost on the 5th?

Today is a little bit of a scramble for us, not because of what has been happening, but more because of what we are going to have to be doing today when we get home from work. First we have a drop off for our foster rats from Mainely Rats Rescue  at a new home near by which always makes us very happy. The other part of our evening is trying to prepare for a sudden and very early first frost that is predicted as possible for tonight!