Moles

We have mole problems. They tear up our yard, and nothing we do will get rid of them.

Today, while moving some straw bales by the house, we discovered a nest of baby moles.

We didn't have the heart to kill them. We put the bale back over the nest.




We've been doing some hiking at a state forest nearby.

Roger makes a path, large produce prizes

Roger has mowed us a path back to the end of the property. He then mowed a large area under a tree and dug a fire pit. We have chairs and tiki torches out there now. It's the best place in all of Indiana to sit, I swear.




We are drying tomatoes from the garden, tiny apples from the neighbor's trees, and chili's to make crushed pepper.



We also have some really large produce! I took pictures of these... a huge pink tomato and chili and jalepeno peppers.

Garden

We've had a good onion harvest this season. Also, we introduced the baby chicks into the barn. We put up a chicken wire fence across the lean-to and are keeping the chicks on the back wall with their own food and water. We're doing this in hope that everyone will get introduced and not fight when we take down the fence.

Roger is working on mowing a path to the back end of the property. See the tiny tiny white dot in the picture? That's Roger.

Lots of new plants!

Roger assembled the cart for the mower, plus we have several baby plants on the way!

Last of the meat birds

We have put the last 10 meat birds in the freezer. Thank goodness that's over. That was A LOT of work.




Roger has been working on putting together the cart that came with the mower. He worked on it for about 5 hours yesterday and still hasn't managed to get it finished. He is very frustrated with it.

Lawn tractor

We were waiting until we had enough money to buy a real tractor, but we were looking at needing at the very least $5,000 for a used, 1950s tractor without attachments. (There are lots of 1950s tractors around here.) A new small tractor was going to be about $10,000. So we sucked it up and bought a riding mower. Not just any riding mower... a 22hp, twin engine, 48in John Deere. This sucker has some power. It also came with a attachment cart for free (Lowes was running a special). We can also buy a snow blower or snow blade attachment.



In other news, this is the Cornish X Rocks last week. The rest of them are going to get processed next Saturday. They're monsters.



And lastly, a picture of a happy dog.

Landscaping, chickens outside

The chickens have upgraded to outside! It wasn't really ideal for them to go outside at two weeks of age, but they have filled up the wading pool and were going stir crazy. I transported them in a giant bin and basically dumped them out on the grass. They were pretty upset, but then got really excited when they discovered bugs. They play this awesome game where one finds either a) a bug, or b) something they think is a bug. When this happens they grab it and run away and the entire flock follows trying to steal it away.


You may notice that the chickens are half feathered and thus, pretty ugly. It's normal, they're losing their fuzz and gaining real feathers. It's only ugly on the yellow guys.

They spent the night in the lean-to under the heat lamp. I was really worried about them being outside and it being chilly, but I went out this morning to check on them and they were all up and running around. I went out around 11pm last night to check on them and half were under the lamp and half were balled up together in a corner. I picked them all up and moved them under the lamp. I think the space was so big they didn't realize there was a heat source.

In other news, Roger did some landscaping. He pulled up these ugly wooden pieces of wood and laid down really nice looking rocks. He added topsoil and now the flower beds look really nice!




We also moved out the compost bin Rog built. He's going to attach doors to it tomorrow, so pictures of that will follow!

And lastly, for your entertainment, baby birds trying to sleep but keep being interrupted.