It is frustrating that in the summer I feel like I am so busy I never get to blog.  I guess it is life on the farm and there is always room for improvement.

Garden:  The garden is still going.  We had our second frost last night.  We covered the beans and the peas, but we left everything else to get frost kissed.  My husband is building some amazing low tunnel covers for the garden out of recycled material.  The hoops are made of PVC that was given to us by a friend that was working on their house.  The plastic is from another friend who had a clean up job and took down an old green house. Finally the base is made out of pallet parts.  I think that it looks great.  Right now the crops are in 30 inch beds with 36 inch isles, to get the wheelbarrow through.  Once the soil gets better, we will make the isles much smaller.  Our thought is that we will make a 36 inch isle, 30 inch row, 12 inch isle, 30 inch row and then finally another 36 inch row.  We have to do a LOT of soil work on this property and I need to be able to get a wheel barrow to each row.  This would still allow me to access the row from one side.

Chickens: We have some new chickens on the farm.  We are experimenting with Icelandic chickens.  These chickens are suppose to be amazing foragers, help control bugs, good mothers, and avoid predators. They only lay medium size eggs and are not good meat birds, but we really need to control the ticks are on the farm.  This is a compromise with my husband who does not want guinea hens. For the most part they have been a pleasure. We had them get out one day, and they do like to roost very high up, but at least they can get out of danger. I have no idea why the picture is sideways!

The rest of our laying hens are molting.  There are feathers everywhere, it looks like there was a massacre.  We are going to be thinning out the flock, getting rid of the hens that are not laying, and redoing the inside of the coop in the month of November.  I am really looking forward to a fresh start and a clean coop for the winter.

Pigs:  The GOS pigs have gone to butcher.  They were not as big as we would have liked, I think that is the difference of over wintered pigs and over summered pigs.  The over winter pigs are much bigger. We have added a resident pig to the farm to help a friend.   His name is Preston Poe and he is a Pot Bellied pig.  He lives in the field with the goats and after an adjustment period he seems to be doing well.

Rabbits: Our rabbits have miscarried three times in a row, so we are done breeding rabbits at this point.  They are up there in age and I think that it was time.  They are now pet rabbits, they have served us very well and we want them to retire in comfort.  We have outside pens for all the boys and we are working on getting outdoor pens for the girls, now that we know they are not having anymore babies.  We are debating about getting a new breeding trio, but who knows.

Goats:  Life is never boring with goats.  There is many things to talk about, but I think that can be a post all on its own.  For the most part goats are doing well, and I am gaining gray hair by the day!