I may not be that productive this week thanks to this lovely cold virus that has me moving at snail pace, but the creatures and plants outside of the four walls sure have been.
Here come the cherries, oh yes, here they come. Last year's harvest was piddly. The year prior to that produced a massive harvest. I had heard that cherries experience biennial harvests, meaning that they will have a good harvest one year, a small one the next, a good one, a small one, and on and on. That's proven true here. The cherries on this tree are sour and great for desserts. We pop them off the tree and right into our mouths because we like the tartness of them, but they definitely have sour going for them. We do have several sweet cherry trees in the fruit orchard in the back, but those trees are still young and aren't producing much of anything yet. I was excited to see that we have fruit buds on all of the fruit trees (apples, plums, peaches, and cherries) in the orchard this summer. This is the first summer that we've had any.
We've got chickens galore. In fact, I need a carpenter to come donate some time and build me a bigger chicken coop. My poor husband. I think we're wearing him out with all of our plans. I really wish I had the construction know-how like he does. He can pretty much build anything. Me? Yeah, definitely not my strong point. At all. We have 32 hens, 1 rooster, and 9 unsexed chicks. I'm still waiting to see what those youngest nine are going to be, although I do have some guesses since they're getting older now and starting to show some signs of gender.
I'm afraid that I may bore you with goat photos over the next couple of weeks. Oh do I love them! They're so fun and sweet. And I love their little "baahs, maahs," they make when they want something. I'm so used to my alpacas. Our relationship with the alpacas is definitely on their terms, and they never want touched. But these goats, oh my, they are affectionate and sweet and love having our attention. It's so different than raising alpacas.
This goat business has not been without fatalities though. Despite our effort to box in one of our young white oak trees, the goats figured out how to get over the fence and eat the tree. Also, as you can see in the one photo above, 3/4 of one of my lilac bushes is gone. Eaten away. Needless, to say, we still have some goat-proofing to do!
The gardens are growing nicely. Although it's been a cool couple of weeks, we've been getting a nice mixture of rain and sun which means that the veggies are growing wonderfully. I am having a problem with a little wild rabbit who has taken the liberty of eating almost all of my kale (Grrrr) and my swiss chard. One of the challenges of gardening, I guess. Some of my herbs are big enough now that I'm going to begin drying them and storing them for the winter. I like to do that throughout the summer so I can have a nice supply built up.
Thanks for all of the prayers for me! I'm still sick, but God has given me the strength to get through the evenings of Bible school. I will say that I'm not getting much done otherwise, though. I had a little bit more energy yesterday morning, did way too much, and was S-I-C-K last night. I'm definitely going to pace myself today.
Have a great day!
It has been such a full two weeks since I last posted! Our church had our annual Missions Conference two weekends ago. I LOVE our missions conference. It has always been my favorite church event, ever since I was a little girl.We hosted the Peffers here at our home for the weekend. The Peffers serve with Crossworld in Brazil. It was an absolute delight to be able to get to know Don and Zoe while they were staying with us. Our kids learned so much about Brazil and about missionary living, in general. We were all sad to see them go at the end of the weekend, but we're so thankful for the new friendship! The last two photos of this post are of the kids making an authentic Brazilian dessert with Zoe.
We've been hard at work outside, getting things ready and planted. Brad made make-shift hoop houses out of our old trampoline pieces and some plastic sheeting we bought at the hardware store. I planted some things in those two beds that are frost-sensitive because it's hard to tell if we'll get another frost here. Even though the temperature is supposed to be near 90 degrees this weekend, there's always that chance of freezing temps again. You really can never be sure here in Pennsylvania. I also planted some frost-hardy seeds in the other beds. There is still so much to be done. We haven't even begun to plow up the ground for the big garden. One step at a time, I keep telling myself.
The chickens are growing up. Out of the 26 eggs we incubated, nine hatched successfully last Thursday. So I now have full-grown hens, teenage chickens, toddler chicks, and now the baby chicks. We've got all stages of chicken growth going on here! I'm always amazed when I incubate eggs. It's always so amazing that those little eggs turn into little chicks. We watched this great video on chicken embryo development while we were waiting for the eggs to hatch.We also candled the eggs about a week into the incubation period and again a week later. That was very educational and interesting, being able to see all of the veins and the embryo floating around the first week, and then seeing how huge the little chicken was a week later! It is a really amazing process!
Then there's Chase, the little wild rabbit the kids rescued. She did amazingly good for over a week, but then something happened and she didn't make it. It was hard. Honestly, I'm surprised that she lived as long as she did as it is extremely hard to raise a wild bunny. It was another wonderful experience for all of us even though it was very sad to lose the little creature in the end.
We are finishing up our "formal" school year. We only have two days left to go. Of course, this formality of counting days only occurs here at our home because of the mandatory homeschooling law here in Pennsylvania. Learning will continue on throughout the rest of the spring and summer as it always does. There's really not a day that goes by that we don't learn something new. So as I bring this school year to an end, there is, of course, the portfolios that I have to get put together. These are, again, another state-mandated requirement for homeschoolers here in PA.
After this fog lifts this morning, Ian and I are heading out to mow our yard. I have lots and lots of manure to clean up. And, oh the laundry that needs done! I would totally pay someone to come do my laundry once a week during these warm months. Laundry is my nemesis. But I am going to try really hard to approach my laundry duties with a joyful spirit. (Smile)
