Basil, the farm at night

Rog took some good photos of the farm during the sunset.

We have another intruder in the barn. It has been digging tunnels. We filled in the tunnels, and it redug. We laid chicken wire, and it ATE THROUGH THE WIRE. See pictures. Any hints on what the hell this is would be helpful.

We also trimmed back some of the basil and are in the process of drying it in the dehydrator.

Dia gets two toys

Remember when Dia didn't know how to play? I'd throw a ball, she's look at me. I'd give her something fun, she'd walk away. Now she stockpiles so she can lay on two toys at once.

Chickens - 3 months old

I've always posted links to YouTube videos, but I thought I'd give the blogger video tool a try, so these may look a bit different. The pictures are of the accidental rooster that may be getting rehomed soon because, well, we don't want a rooster.

Harvest #1

Blue potatoes, roasted and mashed. Green beans. Cucumbers. Making first batch of pickles this weekend.

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.

Flea Beetles

The bane of our existence, the flea beetles, have been pulverized by the diatomaceous earth. It far exceeded our wildest expectations for an organic pest control. We haven't even bothered applying the Neem oil because if new babies hatch we'll just dust the plants again. If only we had found this stuff before our eggplants were turned into skeletons. They MAY come back, but it is highly unlikely. The potatoes are in great shape though and have almost completely repaired themselves already. The downside to the diatomaceous earth is that it will repel most insects, even the good ones. For this reason, dear reader, please don't go out and dust every plant you have with this stuff, the ladybugs and bees and spiders will also leave your garden. We will use it with great care to save our plants from infestations.

Also, I know we have many readers, but very few commenters! We enjoy comments, so feel free to leave us some!

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.

Dia gets a backpack, bully stick

Dia got a backpack! We understand that German Shepherds are happiest when they have a job to do. We like to go hiking and camping and thought that it would be worth a shot to see if she'd carry her own gear. She was weird about it when I strapped it on her the first time, but after she figured it out, I think she really likes it! She seems so proud to follow us around with it on. She does seem happiest on a mission... we've started taking her to the dog park and she's pretty ambivalent about other dogs. She seems to get bored even when all the other dogs are going nuts and playing. But we take off on a trail off the dog park and she's all about it. There's a trail we want to take her on that's about 3 miles long. We're training her right now to get used to carrying the backpack by putting it on her with a water bottle on each side and walking around the property.



And lastly, she's really into these things called Bully Sticks.

lettuce, flea beetles, worms

We're being eaten out by Flea Beetles. They eat huge holes in the plants and turn them into skeletons. They particularly like eggplant and potato leaves. We're going organic, so we're faced with some pretty mediocre choices in getting rid of them. They've decimated the eggplant already, but the potatoes should be okay, they're much hardier than the baby eggplants. We're combating with diatomaceous earth and yellow sticky cards. Over the weekend we'll add some neem oil to the ground to suffocate the eggs. The diatomaceous earth is a very fine powder that acts like glass to tiny bugs and cuts them and they lose water and dry up.

In other garden news, we harvested a round of lettuce and spinach. Here was tonight's dinner:

Last weekend Roger harvested the compost from the worm bin. It yielded maybe 20 pounds of good worm compost. He then moved the worms and their eggs into a fresh bin.