A Week on the Farm – August 15,2013

Half of this past week, we left our farm and traveled about 3 hours north to celebrate the 90th birthday for my active and vibrant Dad and to have two of our grandchildren baptized. The site of these celebrations is where our family began vacationing 57 years ago. I have not been a regular for all of those years, but all three of our children were baptized there, our daughter was married there 3 years ago and her children were the grands baptized there this year. The gathering was 4 generations, my Dad and step Mom, hubby, both of my siblings, one of their spouses, cousins, nieces and nephews, their spouses and children, two of our children and their families. The eldest, my Dad was 90, the youngest was a nephew at 17 months.
It was a wonderful gathering, though we missed a few family members, we did get a group photo taken of those in attendance. We returned home last Saturday and our daughter and her family left Sunday. We really enjoyed having them here for 12 days and wish they lived closer than the 13+ hours away that they do live.
The week allowed us to add 256 ounces of blackberry, blueberry, and black n’ blue jam to the summer production. Half of that returned to Florida with our daughter.

Finally, the tomatoes are turning red, though with this week’s highs in the 70s and lows in the upper 40s, production is slow. What we get will be put away for winter.

This is 3 of today’s eggs, typical of the variety we are collecting. The Silver Laced Wyandotte and the Delaware are laying the normal sized cream colored eggs. The Red Rock crosses are laying the larger dark brown eggs and one of them is laying the dinosaur sized eggs, often with double yolks. The dogs love when I cook one of them for their breakfast supplement. The number of eggs collected is exceeding the number we are using. One dozen was gifted to a neighbor, another will be gifted to my cousin. Three dozen were sold last night at my weekly Clicks and Sticks knitting group. We still have 4 gals that haven’t even started laying yet.

This morning started with a call from the Post Office that the fall meat chicks were awaiting me to come pick them up. They are now safely, securely bedded in the brooder with food, water, and their heat lamp. They are so cute at 2 days old, but this breed grows so quickly that they will soon not be so cute.

We have recently begun seeing a dog trainer that trains without the use of treats, to try to make us the alpha members of the pack and to get the 185 pound Mastiff to defer to us instead of being stubborn. We are also working to curb his recent anti social behavior toward strange dogs. This is as far as he got after we returned from today’s training.

The last news of the week is the return of our bear friend. He was seen last night and again this morning on the south edge of our farm near the woods. I guess we must be in his current territory. Unfortunately, he will likely be found and hunted down when the season begins, by someone on the mountain who will likely hunt him not for his meat.