Catching Up

It has been a while since our last post here. We have been on vacation for the last week, visiting Ryan’s family in Tennessee. We did some sight seeing, and helped out with some projects on the homesteads there, had some family meals and game nights. All in all a good vacation, but it did not leave much time for blogging. So let’s just try to catch up to the present real quick.

Thursday the 10th, The Farm Store had a sale on fence posts and chicken feed. So we got some.

Seppi and Winnie were the only ones finished with school so they got to help pick it up and deliver it.

Mulch Mountain is not as mountainous as it used to be, but it’s still fun to climb.

We pulled the ruminants off the laneway and put them into the north lane, just to clean up what they could for a couple days, while we got electric netting set up for paddocks in the south pasture.

There’s enough there to keep them happy for a couple of days, anyway.

Now out to set up the fences.

Some of the paddocks are set up here, but we are moving the turkeys around to fall in behind the cows and sheep in the rotation.

Such a good big brother!

“Me need go potty!” She hasn’t quite got the sequence of events down.

We had to leave a good chunk of it undone because we had other plans that day. So this section of netting is just lying there, waiting for us to get back to it.

Friday 18th, in the Morning Mr. Sep went in to the hospital to get this thing taken out. He was totally cool about going to the OR, they gave him a whiff of sleepy gas, and then reached in and pulled it out. We should keep it as a souvenir and a reminder why Daddy is still in the National Guard (Love it or hate it, it pays for medical insurance).

Saturday the 12th our friend who is an electrician came over to help us get our electrical and water pump hooked up.

We were after it pretty early in the morning, right after our Rosary Ruck.

Much of the work was inside the shop at this point, linking the new system into the existing electrical system of the shop.

But we did have to run wire outside, and put in a switch and a light fixture so now we have lights on the corner of the barn.

Very proud moment when this thing sputtered to life and started spraying water out through the hose.

After the electrical work was done we sat down and had a breakfast of farm fresh sausage and eggs. Then Daddy went home and picked up Winnie. The older kids were with Deedee and Papa on an apple picking expedition, and Mommy had a headache, so Daddy and Winnie farmed together all day.

Some old hand tools salvaged from an estate sale, for use when Daddy builds his workbench.

Jerusha, the Jerusalem Artichoke. She is behind a fence because the leaves are like catnip for deer and we don’t want the deer browsing them to pieces until she has had a chance to get fully established. Turns out that was a good call because every leaf that was reachable by a sheep shoving his little snout through the woven wire was gone.

Moving the animals was pretty simple thanks to the gate set-up we put in earlier this year.

Then a simple funnel of electrified netting directs them right where they need to be.

Now the cows and sheep are moving through the south pasture again.

And the “Turkey Birds” are all set to follow them around the “great rotation!”

Sunday the 13th we had to do a little work, because Deedee and Papa are helping to move Great Grandma Betty from her old apartment into a new apartment. This requires some downsizing. Gigi passed one a considerable amount of sewing supplies to the girls, and since Sunday was the only day we could get up there, up there we went.

This is only about half of it.

Uncle Adam is getting old, so Seppi and Winnie had to help carry everything inside.

Such a big girl!

So now we have a neat little sewing room at the farm. Someday, maybe, we will have time to sew in it.

Monday the 14th we were expecting rain, so we hurried up an pulled all the blue indian corn. Some of it was not quite blue yet.

Winnie took care of that corn.

More than happy to help.

Such a weird year, harvesting barely ripe corn in October, in cold cloudy weather between rain storms.

Hardly more than a handful when all is said and done. Maybe if we get bored we’ll grind it into cornmeal, just to say we did.

We also harvested the last of the buckwheat. Instead of cutting stalks and bringing them into the shop, we simply pulled the stalks in bunches and shucked the seeds off of them by hand into the trash can.

Learning from last year’s mistakes, we are taking care to get it good and dry before threshing and winnowing.

And we had enough sweet corn to bring home for supper as well.

Along with honey quince from the last of our quinces.

On Tuesday the 15th we ground more wheat.

With the burrs set close to grind extremely fine flour it is a little too hard for the girls to turn effectively, especially since we decided to move the grinding indoors on the island in the kitchen to get it out of the damp.

It took Daddy about 15 minutes to grind a little over 4 cups of berries into a little over a liter of flour.

And it was some pretty hard work. We are literally making our bread in the sweat of Daddy’s brow.

Winnie do it!

With the one remaining quince (we only got 4 this year) we made a quince and chicken dish which was absolutely delightful. Everyone loved it except Ellie, who doesn’t really count (she doesn’t like very much food right now).

The chicken was one of the old laying hens we harvested a couple months back, tough, but tasty, and after stewing from two hours in the quince sauce, very toothsome and delicious.

Then the weekend of the 18th through 20th was a drill weekend. Mommy had to retrieve Daddy’s rucksack from the farm, and she was happy to show him that she can heft and carry an 80Lb rucksack.

Ellie-belle got to come out for the last day of drill to help Daddy clean guns (seriously, this is one of her favorite things to do). Unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs that evening. Not to worry…

Daddy has Army gear for that.

Warm and dry!

The day after drill we flew out on vacation, and yesterday we got back at nearly midnight. So that brings us up to the present and we’ll see where we can go from here.