Growing Season

Growing season is officially here. That has a double meaning for us. Our crops and livestock are growing and so is our little homestead.

Oinkers

We got 2 little piglets in early June. The boys named them Gassy and Moe and they gave us a run for our money the first day. Literally. The first night we housed them temporarily in our chicken coop run (which is fenced with chicken wire). The next morning, Ryan was off working and I was running errands. When we arrived back mid morning, little piggies were gone. After searching for a while, somehow by the grace of God, one of our boys spotted them at the end of our dead end road, lying under pine trees (pine trees are in the first picture above and continue for another 1/8 mile). Finding them turned out to be the easy part. After a 3 hour chase through the overgrown pines, they were contained. (This was not the best marriage bonding experience just to keep it real... but we can laugh about it now). I now believe there should be a sports team named "Piggies". They're fast, can turn on a dime, strong, and get a little scrappy by biting you when they've been caught.

Their snouts amaze us with their ability to dig and rut.

Now our pigs are happy and healthy in their pasture. They are contained by an electric fence which they respect. They are really fun animals to have part of our farm.

Chicks

The beginning of June, 78 chicks arrived. Last year was our first time raising meat chickens, in which we learned a few lessons with the first batch of 30 all dying on us. After we realized they were lacking minerals in their feed, the second batch was much better. This year we wanted to try a different breed called Red Ranger. They are good foragers but will take a few more weeks to get to butchering weight.

Instead of moving their house every day, we are trying out a new system of letting them free range during the day, and enclosing them at night. So far so good, we've only lost 2.

Bees

 

The honeybee hive is thriving and growing. They are amazing creatures. This has been an exciting addition to Glory Acres.

Mouser

We added some much needed rodent control, her name is Fern. I can't say we are big cat people, no offense to cat people, but Fern has really stolen our hearts with her sweet, friendly personality, and her playfulness and tolerability with our boys, especially little Tuck man. And she's proven herself to be a good mouser already.

Wood Shed

This is the beginning stage of our wood shed. The frame is constructed with cedar logs.

Teepee

I peeled all the bark off the cedar logs from the wood shed. They came off in such nice strips I thought there has to be a purpose for this... what would the Native American's have done? After affectionately getting the name "Dream Weaver", our teepee was born. This is a start of the boy's playground.

Garden

This was last summer's garden area:

 

 Quite a transformation to this year:

I'm trying add companion planting and beneficial flowers/herbs to help reduce diseases and unwanted pests/insects.

cabbage and tomatoes are companions :)

lettuce find it's home under the shade of the pea trellis

We have raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, grafted apple trees, asparagus, in the rows and a couple pear, plum and cherry trees in the back. Unfortunately the deer have found these (of course they like ours more than the wild ones that are everywhere right now), so we're figuring out a fencing solution.

 Happy growing season to you all!