Pumpkins!

Picked up a truck full of pumpkins yesterday. 

The farmer charged only $25 per truckload. I got a lot of pumpkins. 

The hogs love them!

Peppers!

I swear I picked a peck of peppers. Update 11/8/2014 Finally were done in by the frost last week. 

Hogs

Three of Abigail's daughters have come back with Abigail. The big reddish brown guy is a Tamworth/Berkshire mix. He's the same age, plus or minus a week, as the little black American Guinea hoglets he's eating with. 

Hambone is the boy's name. The three girls are Smaug (she's the smallest), Floppsy, and Mopsy. Cottontail is still with my friend keeping her hoglet company. 

New Goats

So last week, we picked up Catherine's pet lamb, Lola.

We also got a 5-month Nubian/LaMancha male as a companion for Freckles.  His name is Francisco; I had him castrated this week. Helped the vet do it in the driveway. 

The other female we got didn't work out; she was too tall to keep confined. She kept hopping the fence between one pen and the other. Don't need a wandering goat eating up my garden. So I traded her for a Nigerian Dwarf/Mini-Saanen mix who is currently in milk and will be three this year. Her name is Fiona. She's the second one from the left. 

Little Fern is also a new addition to the farm. Her parents are Freckles and his sister, Frida. Yeah, I know. I sold Frida back to the woman from whom I purchased her initially. But she didn't  want any babies so I got the doeling back. Fern was born May 11, 2014. 

She's getting the hang of the bottle. Slowly but surely. She didn't run from me when I went in with her second one of the day. 

Clogs

Picked up a pair of garden clogs from Amazon. Got a white pair for me and a black pair for the husband - mostly so we could tell our shoes apart. 

The white was TOO hospital-looking.

So I broke out the Sharpies!

Much better. 

Sun burned, sore, but productive.

Planted a lot today. Yellow means the bed is planted either with seeds directly or transplanted with seedlings started indoors. 

Before we planted, we used the Weed Dragon to burn off all the weeds. Then we covered the beds with compost, and went over the beds with the rototiller. 

I'm beat. 

But the garden is looking great! 

I also got some herbs planted in pots and put some lettuces mixes in the cold frame boxes outside my kitchen. 

Busy Mother's Day. 

May

Got six more pullets recently. I traded them for printer ink. Barter is alive and well. 

I can't remember what the black ones are but there are two Rhode Island Reds. 

They are getting braver. The first day or two they were here, they stuck close to the coop. But today they were venturing out into the yard, scratching and pecking for bugs and grasses.