A Heavy Apple Crop 2023

 I should have thinned these long ago!  My Bad!  Branches are near breaking and there is no more room, literally, for apples to grow! Will figure out what I can do with unripe apples.  

While many people had bumper crops of cherries around here,  in June this year, for the first time in a long while, we only had one cherry.  I guess our apples decided to make up for that? 

Still struggling with getting the raspberries to grow.  I had one survive from last year of the three I planted.  So I bought two more, and planted them, and one of those is trying to hang in there while the other from last year is still doing its thing.  I don't know how long I need to wait for the berries to actually produce. I guess I should read up on that. So, I guess I will be planting again next year, in hopes that I can have three plants, eventually. The biggest issue are the moles.  Ugh! 

Blackberries, on the other hand, have certainly thrived this year.  I did bake a fresh blackberry pie today. The fruits of my picking labor, I guess. 

Bountiful BlackBerries 2023

 The blackberries are hitting heavy this year. Probably helped that we had a couple sprinkles of rain in July, but nothing to really consider rain. The temps have been in the mid 80s most of the month, with just a few days in the 90s.  The perfect temps for wild blackberries.  Picked 5 pounds yesterday evening, and hope to get another 10 pounds in the next few days. 

The nice feature about wild blackberries is that they have their own pectin, and if cooked just right, make great jams and jellies.  Cooked down a couple pounds of berries today to make up a couple cups of jelly. 

It's cooling now, but, yah, I had to sneak a couple of spoons before I put them in the fridge to finish. YUM! 

It's the end of the month.  Sold four hens and returned the recently injured hen back to the flock.  She's being chased by the two older hens.  I am hoping that settles down soon enough.  Poor gal lost her ranking near the top and has to start all over. 

I was able to find a good home for the two Marans that I had, and the two smallest hens, a Wyandotte and a Rhode Island, that have been kinda stunted in growth because they were so small before even going into the main flock, and each have some leg issues. They will be in a small flock now, and that should help them to thrive. 

Slow Start to Garden 2023

Big Sigh.  While I did get a good start on some of my crops, like corn, potatoes, and dill, my other crops have been more of a late start or a restart.  Lost all my garlic that I tried to winter over to something. Basil has been planted in a bad space so I started a couple more in a planter, as a just in case. The ones in the planter are finally starting to kick into gear.  

Only half of the green beans that I planted came up, and so I have replanted more, today.  The cantaloupe are flowering, but seem to be mostly (all?) male flowers. Only one short row of carrots have sprouted.  Have replanted carrots three times, but seems the hot weather is the major issue with them.  

Lost the first tomato plant I had.  Had to buy another start and we do have several tomatoes maturing.  Lost one of the two bell pepper plants.  The second one that I purchased has bloomed before the first one I had. 

Have never grown sage before, and it seems to be doing very well.  No complaints on that one.  Oregano keeps wanting to bolt on me. Hot hot too hot weather.  I also am trying a different type of rosemary plant.  Fingers crossed that it does better than the last one I had. Replanted a new planter of thyme and it is finally starting to kick into gear, as well. 

Lettuce?  I have replanted lettuce three times now and normally would have harvested two planters by now.  Something kept eating them as soon as they started to get about two to three inches tall.  This third planting (about two weeks ago) is coming up and I have it covered with a mesh in hopes that I can actually get some lettuce off this batch. \

Corn IS starting to sprout some ears.  It is not as tall as the sweet corn I typically grow, but it is supposed to produce quicker. Not that it has, really, but yah... it's all about the weather. 

I am waiting for the Russet potato leaves to start to die back so that I can harvest those.  I'm guessing probably two more weeks.  The Red Lasoda potatoes have not even started to flower, so I'm guessing that will be a September harvest. 

Although I planted a seedless grape start in 2022, that first year was rough on the plant and it died back to the root when we had a very late freeze in April. It did finally start to grow last summer, but we didn't have any grapes. This year seems to have been a better year and looks like we might get a few grapes if something (wild animal or insects) don't eat them before we can.

It's always a challenge with such extreme weather pattern changes from year to year. 

Pullet's Bad Cut 2023

 Sometime, our pets and our birds do crazy things that end up hurting themselves. This past week, one of our pullets seemed to get her head stuck to her detriment.  I still am not certain where she did this, but the whole back side of her neck just below her head was bloody from one side of her face to the other.  I didn't take photos because, in truth, it looked pretty bad and, well, yah. It was gnarly. It wasn't still bleeding when I discovered the injury but was still very red, albeit totally scabbed over. 

I washed it off, best that I could without drowning her and then applied a bunch of Povidine, then isolated her for her own protection from the others. 

Almost a week later, the scab is crumbling off, with only a small scab on the very back of her head (top of her neck) left.  It still looks gnarly in the center of that scab, but her head feathers are covering it up so that it's not so obvious that she was injured.  All the feathers are missing where the scab was originally, but, yah, it's not infected.  The skin is healing and hopefully, soon, new feathers will grow back in place. 

They Proved Me Wrong! July 2023

I saw this Sail Tarp (Triangle Shade) online for a great price.  Marked down a lot, I'm assuming, because it's probably not purchased a lot? Instantly I loved it, because I could see great potential of using it for the ducks.  They would be able to hide under it quickly to get away from the hawks and owls that swoop over our field, looking for food. While I don't think they would ever attack my ducks, I know that those predators really scare my ducks. The ducks quickly scamper into their coop to hide.  I wanted to give them another option, while also giving them some shade, which would allow them the option to keep an eye on things without running into their coop. 

My tallest stakes are four feet, and no amount of "taunt" is enough to keep the center of the tarp from drooping.  At the lowest point, the tarp dips to 2.5 feet from the ground. My ducks are all about 2 feet tall.  I honestly never thought that they would hang out under the tarp with it being so close to their heads.  But, nonetheless, I put the tarp up inside their pen to at least get them accustomed to the tarp as a non-threatening object, until I have the taller stakes to lift the tarp higher. 

So, today, after about a week, the ducks have proved me wrong.  They will and do go under the tarp for shade. First I saw Indigo, then shortly after that, I saw Diego and Sparks, and then finally saw Toast hanging out under the tarp, in the shade. Today is not a hot day, by any stretch of the imagination but , yah, they are using it. Wish they had been braver earlier when we had temps in the high nineties, but, hey, that's just the way animals are. 

I started most of my garden pretty late this year.  So, I have been really thankful that our hot days didn't burn the plants. We are getting some quick growth from our little crops. Corn, the most.  I need to take a moment to really weed around them, but the stalks have really grown a lot in the last few weeks of warmer weather. 

Shredded Straw for Nesting and Coops

Ever since we started raising ducks, we have been using straw for their bedding as it is inexpensive, more absorbent and the ducks are less likely to try to eat it BUT straw can be brittle, and sometimes sharp on their feet and underbellies. Last fall, I saw a guy using a wood chipper to shred the straw for his ducks, which I thought was a good idea, but didn't want to invest that much money on something dedicated to breaking down straw.  After more reading this past year, I decided that I would try a leaf mulcher, but I wanted something that was inexpensive, battery or electric, and easy to use.  Most of the inexpensive leaf mulchers were combo leaf and small branch chippers, and well, I didn't like their designs. I opted for a glorified weed whacker in a barrel type of leaf mulcher.  It's noisy, dusty, and kinda messy, but it got the job done quickly without a lot of extra effort. Dumped a five-gallon bucket of straw into the device, and whizzzzzzz, it was done in less than a minute. 

While I won't "promote" any particular product, but I'm guessing you would be able to figure it out if you went searching for leaf mulchers. 😁

And the final product to the right of the original bale. 

Summer is Here 2023

 So this week, the majority of the pullets are 19 weeks with a few that are 20 weeks. We had one pullet start to lay fairy eggs a few days ago, but has since stopped laying. The three older girls continue to produce well, and are close to 12 months old now. The two Comets produce extra large eggs and are a hit with our customers. The one remaining Black Copper Marans is only laying about three eggs per week that are medium large... a little larger than medium but not quite large. 

The ducks are over 12 months old and also are producing very well. The eggs are mostly large, with an occasional medium and an occasional extra large.  They like to hide their eggs in the tall grass so it feels a bit like an Easter egg hunt every morning. 

Weather has been typical June. Some rains, some thunder storms, but mostly sunny days with temps in the 80s.  It's been very nice. 

Garden is started albeit very minimal.  Not sure we will get much this year, but better than nothing, I guess. I have planted about half of what I planted two years ago.  Didn't do a garden last year. Less work, I guess, but that means less produce, too.  

Two years ago, we planted 50 Christmas trees out in the back part of the field. Only three survived the drought.  I didn't have any watering system set up.  We are going to install a drip system this year. I purchased 600 feet of hosing to get the water all the way from the house to the trees this year. So far, so good.  This year, I only purchased 25 Norway Spruce starts and plan to purchase 25 White Pine next year.  The three starts that did survive were White Pine.  Mowed a path between the two rows of trees but, the grass is so tall now, can't really see the trees.  They are marked.  The pink and white ribbons are the Spruce while the white only are either the remaining Pine, or will be the Pine next year. A lot of work goes into planting them, and to end up having 95% of them die last year was disappointing. Anyways, we will just keep adding 25 each year until we have a decent area covered and the wild life will have a bit of extra protection. 

Until we have the drip system install, I walk out across the field to water the trees.  While I'm out there, I look for nasties... lupin and ragweed.  I pull them and I am hopeful that one day they will be totally gone. The ragweed is the worst 'cause it is sticky and makes me itch.