Harvesting, Foraging, Preserving, New Equipment!, Critters Breakfast Time, Trying to Keep Cool, and a "Tater" Home makeover

This has been another busy week on the farm.  We had our first canning event!  You know how it goes....always an adventure!


My farmer man and I had been picking green beans and wax beans during the week hoping to get enough for 7 quarts...a canner full.  We were thrilled to have enough to start our canning season here on the farm and planned to can our first batch Wednesday afternoon. 



I assembled all the jars, lids, rings, canning salt and the canner in preparation for the maiden canning voyage of 2014. Only problem was I could not locate the pressure regulator for the top of the canner! No biggie. I had my sister's larger canner out in the loft of the barn. I'll just go get that pressure regulator. A trip to the barn proved unfruitful. Not only could I not find my pressure regulator, but now I can't find my sisters!  Thankfully we have some wonderful friends who were willing to let us borrow their canner so we could get started.

My sweet farmer man helped in snapping the beans and in the processing too. We ended up with 7 quarts on our first canning day!  Five quarts of green beans, one quart of wax beans and one mixed quart. Pretty happy with the results.

Today we canned some dill pickles.  We didn't have quite enough cucumbers so our dear friends, Steve and Eydie, graciously allowed us to come an pick some of theirs.  My Farmer Man and I had a good time working together in the kitchen and we managed not to get in each others way too much.  We finished up with nine pints and one quart of homemade dill pickles.

Here his is! Working away at slicing cucumbers for dill pickle spears.

Our pickles...cooling off and sealing.  That "ping" is a happy sound!

This jar looks especially nice....maybe holding on to this one to enter in the fair!

We have been watching the wild blackberries around the area and are hoping to have much needed rain to help the crop.  We took a ride this week and found that some of the berries are starting to ripen!  We picked half a basket of smaller berries, but hope that we get some rain this next week as there are TONS of red berries all over the bushes.

Not bad for the first picking!

Today we also added a much needed piece of equipment to the farm.  We had been debating on whether to purchase a grooming mower that would be pulled behind the tractor or a zero-turn mower. In the next few years we hope to add alpacas, goats, a donkey and maybe other grazers to the farm, but until then we have a lot of field to keep mowed.

We finally made a decision!  Tractor Supply had a WONDERFUL deal on a Cub Cadet 54" zero turn mower and 18 months same as cash!  I'm all for using their money when you can.  We took a trip this afternoon to Aiken and purchased our new mower.  This will make mowing the grass MUCH easier around the farm.

Loading it up!

My Farmer Man checking out the new toy...um...equipment.

An he's off!

This thing can really mow!

As we are building the farm we are realizing that sometimes making an investment that will save your time is very important.  We have so many things we are working on here on the farm and this new lawn mower will cut our mowing time and weed eating time drastically allowing us to work on other projects.

Our critters are keeping us quite busy!  I fix "breakfast" for the little ones in the brooder and for "Tater" each morning.  They have their chick starter feed, but since they are confined I like to provide them with some fresh fruits and veggies.  Here's a peak at breakfast time...

"Tater's" bowl is the blue one.  One of the others goes to the keets and one to the chicks. This morning there is strawberries, bananas, swiss chard, kale, spinach, and cucumbers.

The little chicks checking out their breakfast

One of the guinea keets with a piece of green!

"Tater" will come running out of her house in the morning for breakfast.  She LOVES bananas!

Another job during this warmer weather is trying to keep everyone cool...especially our big guy "Tommy". I fill large plant saucers with cool water every morning, check to be sure everyone has clear, cool water and plenty of shade, turn on a mister for added comfort and we have fans both in the chicken coop and in the turkeys shelter.  "Tommy" takes full advantage of his "air conditioner"!  I place frozen water bottles in front of the fan each afternoon so help everyone stay cooler. You can find "Tommy" right in front of the fan, many times with his huge chest resting on the frozen milk jugs!  Love this big guy!

My handsome boy!  Just before I brought the frozen milk jugs down to help keep him cool.

We have a momma chicken, "Broodie" who is continuing to raise some guinea keets she hatched out. Most hens are through raising the babies around four to five weeks....not "Broodie"!  Her babies are now almost 6 weeks old and I dare anyone of our other feathered flock members to TRY and get to her babies! She is still very protective and has bitten me recently for trying to help get one keets inside the coop for the night. I'm just grateful chickens don't have teeth!

"Broodie" and our very first buff colored keet..."Buffy"

Mommas is having to keep up with her babies now.  They are very curious and can fly fairly well already.

"Buffy" and her siblings checking out the Big Coop

As you can see, Momma is never far away.  Another week or so and the babies will be out in the coop and the run with all the others.

"Tater" is doing well in her new home.  She has more room to move around and she is getting plenty of fresh air.  We had to figure out someway to pad the run area for her though.  You could hear her "running" across the floor of her pen when it was only covered with two bath towels so I was worried about her having issues with her poor little elbows. As she HATES dirt, grass and pine shavings we had to come up with something that was soft, but easy to keep clean.

Here's what we put together for the "Tater":

Three layers of foam mattress padding...

Crib sized, waterproof mattress pads....

And old towels! Now I will still have to wash a load of "Tater towels", but this way it is much softer for her.

Two of the three essentials for the "Tater"...her lamby and her mirror.

"Tater" checking out the new run area. Much softer and much quieter too.

Taters favorite spot....in her house with her lamby, mirror and her mommy feathers.  She still tries to hid under her mommy feathers although she doesn't quite fit.

This week we have started off with the new clutch of guinea keets hatching!  I have one little one who decided to make his/her appearance on Friday!  She/He was really fussy so we snuggled up on the couch this morning while I was drinking coffee.  There are many more eggs pipped as of now and I hope we have many healthy guineas hatching out through the next day or two.  These are all spoken for already!

So, I'll end this farm update with the cuteness of a newly hatched guinea keet enjoying some snuggle time.

 Hope you all enjoyed this weekly farm update!  Thanks for stopping by.