Working Together

during the fall season there was hay to cut, feed to grind, cattle and pigs to move and feed, and of course, our poultry situation to always be improved upon!  there is no picture of seed cutting this year, but that went on as well.  one of the funniest stories came about because of it.  ben kept seeing wolf spiders in the back bathroom when he'd get up in the nite to go cut.  it started freaking him out and he was batting them off in his sleep.  he called the spray guy and took care of the problem.  but we gave him a good scare with a plastic, spider.  while he was making eggs, before the bus came, i put it on his shoulder without him knowing.  he fre-eeaked!!!  so funny....all the kids and i had a good laugh at his expense.

i got seriously ticked with our ducks.  they were straight run and 2 ended up being males, 1female.  we kept having the darndest time with the water always running out...until we discovered it was the ducks making huge messes in the water and spilling it everywhere.  after school one day, the boys and i dug out the whole, rotten thing and locked the ducks outside.  i may or may not have said a four *#@^ letter word.  it was bad news in there, rotting the floor out.  the ducks were finally in heaven outside in their pond under the leaking riser and no more messes for me.  however, when brian moved, we bought 4 heritage turkeys and they can fly....so then we had to put a top on the run to keep them in.  all was well for a few months.  until it was butchering time of the conventional turkeys.  2 huge ones died the week before and the actual day before while we were at church.  what a tragedy!!!  the 3 older kids were the only ones who got to make a little money off that deal.  they all loaded up at the crack of dawn on a monday morning when they had the day off, and watched the turkeys and one duck get packaged up.  the largest tom was 35#!  still, i think we may give it a try again, although i'm not sure what went wrong...

we were able to eat from the garden right up until the end of october.  lots of melons, carrots, squash, and tomatoes.  and then, cleaning it all out on the nice, warm days...

bridon and bentley have a few jobs they like to do for our neighbors.  here we have bridon going out to scoop up dog poop in their yard.  oh bridon.  bentley did some weed eating on the ditch bank as well.

we had a couple of sows that farrowed and the piggys were so cute.  one was a runt, and he made it a good couple of days on a bottle before he keeled over...poor guy.

ben was busy swathing and doing quite a bit of planting.  the kids had fun going out for rides and we'd take dinner if we could.  on sundays, our family had the animals to feed.  we'd all hop on the motorbikes and enjoy the fresh air and move everybody around and do all the chores.

the new batch of chickens started laying this fall as well.  it's a good life to be busy working and growing together!