Barnyard and babies

Sunny Saturday: Today was a beautiful November day and we made the most of it because I think cold and snowy weather will be the norm here soon. We cleaned out the animal pens and coops, rode bikes, recycled some scrap 2x4's, and ate lots of farm fresh eggs.

 pumping up the bike tires - Molly and Jonny got Blain these bikes for his 3rd birthday and unfortunately we never got around to fixing them up to ride. Well I bought a pump earlier in the week and we pumped up the tires to teach Chloe to ride a two wheeler and let Blain ride his bike with training wheels. They had lots of fun but I think it will take a while for Chloe to ride with no help :)

 

 Blain riding his bike

 I absolutely love how smiley and cute Zeyta is right now. She is in my favorite baby age - just needs to learn to sit to reach my ultimate favorite baby stage - immobile but likes to play with toys :)

 That face just makes me smile

What a good Daddy!!

Nate had to present his data and goals info to his district this week. Well he had an object lesson with nails and small sanded 2x4's that became little buses today for the kiddos. It's nice when we have a relaxing day after all the chores are done!

Dog pile on Blain!

The Farm: We have reached a point where we are starting to drown in eggs. We are getting at least 10 eggs per day with the most being 15. It also doesn't help the egg supply "problem" when we find secret nests like we did today with 7 eggs in it. But I am trying really hard to be creative in the way we eat the eggs so we don't burn out on scrambled eggs :) The piggies are also getting big! They are just over 3 months old now and I'm dreaming of our piggy harvest!

I also wanted to write our official results for apple products before I lose the paper. I brought two ziplocks full of dried apples from our trees on the trip that I'm not sure how to count, but they were delicious. I've also made 2 batches of fruit leather from this year's applesauce. Avenlea and Blain love the fruit leather and it makes a nice healthy snack for me as I'm trying to keep that "baby weight" off now that I finally lost it all!
19 qt juice/cider

41 qt applesauce

15 qt piefilling

8 1/2 jelly jars apple jelly

 I love all the colors! I'm really glad our marans lay dark eggs, they are cuckoo marans so I wasn't sure how dark their eggs would be but they are significantly darker than all the other brown eggs. So far we have 2 marans laying and I believe about 5 americaunas (Jag for sure). I've seen a buff orpington and a rhode island red too in laying but the others are still a mystery.

 Kingsley (formerly Queenly) loving his new head rooster status

 Chubs with her kitty - this tiny cat lives with the pigs and follows them around. I saw her snuggling up with them in the hay a couple days ago when I went out to feed them in the morning. It's so cute but I worry about how she will feed herself once the pigs are gone. I know I shouldn't worry about it because she's not ours but I still feel bad and hope she makes it. I might sneak her some milk or something if we ever find a cow to buy. I look everyday on the classifieds for our perfect cow. We've called on a couple but nothing has come along that is close enough or ideal enough to drive for :)