Garden Goodness

It's October and my tomato and pepper plants are looking better than they have all summer (which for the tomatoes isn't saying much because they're still not looking too good). 

 The pumpkin vines look terrible, but I had already harvested eight or nine pumpkins, but two more remained ripening on the vine.

 The day after I took that photo, the chickens thoroughly devoured both of the pumpkins. All that remains are the rinds.

The corn stalk leaves surround everything on the yard. They blow to south, then to the north, swirl and then get stuck on something. The chickens have all but stripped the green bean plants, although somehow there are still green beans growing on them. Oddly enough, the chickens don't eat the green beans.

Thankfully, all the wheat has been planted. Now we just need a nice rain to get the seeds off to a good start.

Lantana - one of the few flowers that seems to be chicken proof. 

I've got lettuce growing under a protective cage - no chickens allowed.

I decided to make pesto - even though I was short pine nuts and cheese. I cut the basil plants and brought them inside to clean the leaves and also brought in quite a few insects.

The pesto turned out well! I froze it in ice cube trays so I can use it throughout the winter.

Just this afternoon I dug up my sweet potatoes and pulled out the pumpkin vines. I was so hopeful for big, yummy sweet potatoes but nope. I found around six potatoes that were about two inches in diameter. So while there have been lots of garden successes this year, sweet potatoes continue to be a challenge.

Eggs

The ladies are regularly laying 16 to 20 eggs a day! They're beautiful eggs. We enjoy gathering eggs and so far we have more customers than eggs. Levi and lucked out and actually saw a chicken lay an egg - it was amazing. 

Where We Gather

Corn harvest wrapped up for our farm last week, and as is typical on the farm, was immediately followed by more work. Yep, it's high time to drill/seed/sow wheat. And once that's done, it'll likely be time to harvest soy beans! Woo-hoo for fall farm work (and generally speaking I truly mean that).

 More often than one would think, we seem to gather around a tractor/combine while it's fuel tank is filling.

 And where humans are, so are the chickens, dog and cats.

 I'm not sure if you can hire him, but if you've got tractor wheels that need cleaning you could ask Levi. He just might take you up on it if you make a good enough offer.

 Noah on the other hand, found a break from the Kansas wind in one of the freshly wiped off wheels.

  

 The farmers make countless farm decisions in this space between the fuel tanks and the roundtop shed - it's their conference room.

 Corn stalk leaves have been busy blowing, gathering, rearranging, rustling and crunching all over the yard this past week.  Ridiculously strong Kansas wind has kept them very, very busy.

 Levi worked hard to build a pyramid with the sticks he found on the sand pile.

 While grandpa pulled away from the fuel tanks, Levi admired his handy work (although it collapsed a moment later).

The outdoor conference room by the fuel tanks has been a meeting spot my entire life. As a child I would go there to listen to the farmers tell stories, discuss the weather, or make plans for their work. Now as an adult I go their for the same reasons, and because where the farmers, chickens, dog and cats are, so are my children.

More corn...

Corn harvest continues and last night the boys and I took supper out to Ben and hung out at the field for a while.

 The boys hopped in the combine with grandpa, while Ben and I stayed behind in the truck.

 This field is the hilliest of all our fields and for most of the boys' ride, we couldn't see the combine. But then it finally came back into view, see it?

 After the combine bin was unloaded into the semi, the boys crawled out of the combine and up the back of the semi!

 But, much to their dismay, it was time to head home because bedtime was quickly approaching.

 Levi is really getting good at jumping in front of the camera. :-)

Sunday afternoon

Sunday's can turn out to be very long days for us. The boys don't understand what a nap is nor do they think there's any point in relaxing or resting. So while they beg and plead us to play and be outside playing football, we end up getting more and more cranky with them for not allowing us the rest we feel we deserve need. 

So when it worked for our family to head over to my cousin Megan's house so I could snap some 3 year old pictures of this cutie pie:

we jumped at the chance! Levi immediately hopped on the toy Gator and drove all over the place while Noah and Caiden got right down to business - football!

 Chelan even quickly mowed some lines in the grass to make it feel "official" for the boys.

 Delaney was eager to get her picture taken, but quickly got tired of having to follow directions. I think I managed to capture a few decent shots - she's seriously cute!

 I scored an entire flat of tomatoes from Megan! Her tomato plants are literally double the size of mine and she's got the produce to prove it!  I was so excited to freeze these lovely tomatoes. I can't wait until I've finished harvesting tomatoes so I can have a day of canning with them (ten years ago I would not have thought to think about canning tomatoes....my how I've changed).

 Ben and Chelan played football for a while, then escaped to the shade for some farm talk.

 While the rest of us loved on the six adorable puppies that their dog recently had. Speaking of cute!

It made for such a lovely day to visit with family (who truly feel like friends), and then come home for a quiet Sunday evening together.

Pick'n Corn & Pumpkins

When Ben was a kid in Nebraska, a local farmer would pay him the kids one nickel for every ear of corn picked off a field the combine had already harvested. The other evening we found ourselves out in the field next to the farm picking the missed ears. 

We didn't pay nickels, but the boys just kept finding one ear after the next!

Grandma Schmidt was out there with us. She brought out the bucket, which was quickly filled.

Later we got a wheelbarrow and nearly filled that too.

And before we called it quits, we checked our pumpkins one more time and lo and behold they were ready!!

Six pumpkins so far and couple more on the vines still ripening. The pumpkins bring me a lot of excitement - there's something really, really satisfying about growing, harvesting, processing and then eating our own pumpkins. Yum!

Animals Caught

Levi loves to catch the chickens. He holds them, talks to them, pets them and then lets them go. 

 The chickens are very gracious and patient with him.

 Ben also occasionally catches a chicken and holds it, but I don't think Noah ever has. I have no intentions of ever holding a grown chicken.

 Their feet are nuts. Totally nuts.

 Levi and I were gathering eggs today and one chicken remained in a nesting box. Levi was brave and reached under the chicken to get the eggs. The chicken was kind and stood up slightly to allow Levi to see and gather the eggs. And then, right before our eyes, we saw that chicken lay an egg! It was amazing!! We actually caught it in the act. Levi said, "Ooooo, it pooped an egg mom!" Hahahaha. It was interesting that the egg came out wet.

 The other animal that was caught was a baby snake. Axle played and played and played with that poor snake. It was gross and eventually Axle lost interest.

On the topic of animals, two of the six orphan kittens have disappeared in the past two days. None of them died in/under our cars, but they're gone and that's been pretty disappointing.