Stuff Goin' On!
This summer has just been flying by...I can't believe that the kids go back to school soon and I'm pretty sure that Isabel is having a tough time wrapping her head around that one too! So far we have been laying pretty low this summer and getting things done at home, all while appreciating the little things...kind of like these chickens! It doesn't take much to make these girls happy...give 'em a watermelon and they are in Hen Heaven! (On a side note...I think that hen in the middle has glaucoma!)
Speaking of the hens...these girls have been putting their beaks to the grind stone and producing a lot of eggs this summer...it must be their free range foraging or possibly all of the excercise running from Chief?!
Would this face do that?! Um, yep...his summer has been very busy as well with his "work"...he thinks that it's his duty to keep the hens in tip top shape and I swear if he could talk, his first words would be "lock & load girls!!" Isabel said the other day "let's not tell him that isn't his job...he'll be sad!"...I'm afraid she might be right!
...and Pippy's summer?! Well, she likes to sleep...
...and hide from Chief...she's a busy girl!
Despite the continuous rain storm this season, things were growing better than expected! I was lucky enough to have been able to pick a few baskets of strawberries for jam, sauce and some for the freezer...
...and our vegetable garden has finally taken off!
We lost our pumpkin, squash, watermelon and some cucumber plants to wilt disease and had to reseed a few things but everything else has come along nicely.
We are fortunate to have all of these fresh vegetables and my "canning factory" is already in full swing...
...and we are basically overrun with green beans but I'm sure we will put all of it to good use this winter!
Something new this year is James' tobacco garden! He apparently has always wanted to grow tobacco and this year he started some plants from seed indoors and now we have a tobacco jungle out back...not a popular crop around these parts but they look nice!!
James has put ole "eagle-eye" Isabel in charge of spotting the Tobacco Hornworms on the plants but she has lodged a work refusal when it's time to pick them off!! Have you ever seen one?! The same type of bugger that you find on tomato plants and those suckers are gross!!
Also new this year, is the addition of more bee hives! We had 2 last year but lost 1 when the Queen bee started to strictly lay drone eggs which will cause a collapse of the hive ("Drones" are male bees and unlike the female worker bee, they do not have stingers...a drone's role in the hive is to mate with the fertile queen...although their role is crucial to the hive development, there is no gathering of nectar or pollen, no making honey...no work...hmmm, interesting...that's all I've got to say about that!)
We split the existing hive into 2, then purchased 2 more, leaving us with 4 hives! We have already harvested 6 frames of wildflower honey as my "girls" are busting their little humps! Man, it's good to be a bee keeper!
One little day trip we set out on was to the town of Aylmer to pick up some antique kitchen tools that I found on Kijiji.
Aylmer is tucked in the middle of Amish and Mennonite country in South/Western Ontario and is picture perfect with rolling hills and beautiful farms no matter which way you look! It started to pour rain, so these two photos were the only ones that I managed to get but believe me, I could have spent all day there just snapping pictures!
Although I didn't come home with tons of photos from Amish country, I did however get this!!! I was whistling Dixie the whole way back to our neck of the woods, very happy with my heist! Earthenware mixing bowls, depression glass, granite ware and more...life is good when I can get my mitts on these little gemstones (not that life isn't already good but this just makes it better!).
Even though we have mostly stuck around home this summer, with little outings here and there, we seem to make our own fun and it really is about the little things that make us happy!