June

Wow, the last month has been a blur here on the farm.  Mostly because of a precious new arrival, a temporary arrow for our quiver, that has stolen our hearts and stolen my sleep!  I can’t give any details, but we count it a blessing every day for however long he stays with us.

The garden is progressing, although it is still not doing as well as I had hoped.  I know it takes  several years to build soil back up after many years of neglect, but I had hoped all of our compost would make up for that.   The garden fence is slowly coming along, unfortunately dogs and chickens can still get through…

 

Our pigs are also growing slowly.  We don’t know a lot about pig breeds and we were told they were Berkshires by the woman we bought them from.  If any one knows about pigs, please feel free to comment with your opinion!

Some predators got into our chicken tractors the other day and got one of our meat chickens.  It is always frustrating when they get killed or die when we have got most of the feed into them.  It is a risk that is part of farming though. Moving the tractors has been a lot easier since the addition of some wheels that can be lowered when it is time for Mike to move them.  He moves them once a day to give them fresh pasture to eat and also to give them a clean pen.  It works well and it is always surprises me how they all attack the fresh grass.  We have a few extras from this batch that are still for sale.  They will be ready July 8th.

 

The mobile hen coop has been very efficient.  The flock is doing well and we will soon be over run with eggs as all our pullets are starting to lay.  If anyone is looking for eggs, we have a few dozen extra a week right now and will have lots more quite soon.

 

Mike has removed the bee feeders from the hives and the honey bees are busy making honey.  When the feeders were removed, Mike had to cut off some honey comb that they bees had attached to the bottom of it.  We all enjoyed trying some of the green honey,  but it wasn’t ready yet so Mike fed it back to the bees.  Our lawn is humming with bees because of the clover being in bloom and we have had a couple of bare feet stung.  I have found the best remedy for us is Benadryl internally and a mixture of 1 tsp olive oil, 10 drops each of lavender and peppermint essential oil that is applied to the affected area every 15 minutes.