Local Farm Tour

This past weekend my daughter and I went to six farms in the area, that were giving tours. It was the 16th annual harvest celebration. There were activities at each farm for the kids and great information for the adults. We go almost every year. Three of the farms are ones that we see each year and three were new. We had a great time!

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       First stop Lazy J Tree Farm. We went on a hay ride around their 80 acre farm, bobbed for apples and bought a wheat/rye grain for $.25 a pound. Now I just need to find a stone grinder to grind it.

Second stop was Trade Winds Alpacas farm. There we met several vary nice alpacas, learned how to spin, weave and felt wool. Up close those alpaca animals are very interesting looking. I loved their huge eyes.

 















Third stop was Freedom Farm. We watched a Robin Hood skits with riders and their horses. We also got to pet and feed a bunch of horses.

 

Forth stop Nash's Organic Produce. There my daughter carved a pumpkin and we watched a cooking demonstration using all local foods. We also ate our way though several yummy samples.

 

 

Fifth stop Dungeness Valley Creamery. There we saw very cute calves (cows are so cute when they are little and so yummy when big), receive a free sample of raw whole milk. I wasn't sure I would like it because I don't like whole milk from the store but it was very good. We also learned how to make butter and yogurt.

 

The last stop Jardin du Soleil (House of the Sun). It is a lavender farm. We learned how they make lavender oil and my daughter made a pine cone bird feeder.

We started at 10:00am and finished the tours at 4:00pm. Boy were we wiped by the time we were done, but it sure was fun. It was great mom and daughter time.

Linked to:
Rurial Thursday
Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop

Picking Time

 My kids and I picked apples and plums this weekend.

We picked three big boxes like this one and one really big box of apples for the chickens. This is all off of one tree and there are still a lot more apples left.

I used one box to make 2 quarts, 8 pints, and 8 (4oz) single servings of brown sugar and cinnamon apple sauce.

I am going to make plum jam and cut the plums in half, then can them. But that may have to what until next weekend when I have more time.

Linked to:

The Country Homemaker Hop #39

Fall is Definitely in the Air

It seems the animals are putting themselves to bed earlier and earlier each night. I can't walk anywhere now without going through at least one or two spider webs. Good thing I'm not afraid of spiders and we only have one poisonous spiders here. They are rare and hide in wood piles.

In the garden the sunflowers a looking beautiful. Some of them are over nine feet tall. I planted several varieties. I love the many different shades of yellow they produced.

My pumpkins are finally growing. I hope by the end of October they will be ready to be made into jack-o-lanterns.

I harvested the rest of my potatoes. They are mostly red potatoes. One is big enough to feed the four of us. I dug up small, medium, large and extra large potatoes.

It feels like my canner is going nonstop. I'm canning tomato sauce and pasta sauces with roasted vegetables.

Although my first clue fall was in the air was school started and I had to go back to work. No more playtime with the garden and animals. It's work from sunup to sundown until winter comes.

                                

Garden update

My first big harvest.

 

I have zucchini, peppers, swiss chard, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, basil, a carrot and green beans.
I will be use most for dinner the next few nights; salads, soup, and zucchini boats. I love eating a meal that almost nothing comes from a store.

Goodnight Chickens, Goodnight Ducks

One of my favorite things to do after dinner is to go outside and say goodnight to the chickens.

These ladies are in our chicken tractor. I usually stand outside and look up at them and say goodnight lady.  They answer back "brooock".

This is Bugs she will wait to roost until I catch and give her a couple of flying termites. (hence the name bugs)

 

Then I go down to the other chicken coop and tell these three goodnight. Meet Curly, Larry, and Mo.

 

Next I collecting slugs. Yes I said slugs and I find this activity fun. Yes, again I did say fun.

Why do I collect slugs, you may ask?  I collect them to give to the ducklings.

 They get very excited when I say want some slugies. They start quack/ peeping (it is a strange sound) and tripping on their own feet and each others trying to get to the slugs.

 

Goodnight Duckies 

What I did over the Labor Day Weekend.

I learned to make bread. Who knew making homemade bread could be so easy? I made three loaves of bread.

 

 I also experimented with pickling peppers. That is green bell, yellow bell, purple bell and jalapeno pepper. In two weeks I will try the peppers and if I like them I will post the recipe.

 Peppers, peppers and more peppers become....                               pickled peppers.

 

My son, nephew, and I picked blackberries. (big kid son, little one nephew)

 







These two buckets of blackberries became 10 1/2 cups of juice. I made 10 half-pints of blackberry jelly and froze 5 1/2 cups of juice for later use.

 



 

What did you do for the Labor Day weekend?

 

 

                                 

 



Ducklings' New Home Is Done YAH!

My husband finally helped me build the new duck area. The ducklings were very happy, they couldn't stop peeping and quacking. I didn't have my camera when they were playing a game of torpedo duck in the pool. That was quite funny to watch.

 

 

They seem to love their new home.