We’re getting more fencing and, yet again, I find that different lengths have different price-per-foot (and not in the way I expected where longer rolls are more cost effective). Looks like we’ll be getting a bunch of 50′ rolls instead of a few 150′ rolls.
| Item | Length | Cost Per 1 | # Required | Total |
| GardenCraft | 50 | 16.99 | 12 | 203.88 |
| YardGard | 150 | 79.99 | 4 | 319.96 |
We’ve been feeding a calico kitty or two — still not quite sure on that one! She wasn’t around for a few days, and voila … now there are kittens. An orange and white one, two gray ones, and a mini-calico kitty. We need to find someone who does low-cost spay/neuter so we don’t get overrun with cute fluffballs!
We picked a few ears of corn today — Hickory King fresh from the stalk:
The chickens we hatched earlier this year have started laying their first eggs — our first chicken to lay an egg (Queenington) laid a large egg, and the rest of our egg layers followed with fairly normal chicken-egg sized eggs. I didn’t know that it was common for chickens to start off laying small eggs (called fairy eggs) until we got the Bresse hens. They’re not great for hatching (really tiny chick incubates and often cannot even get out of the egg), but the eggs are perfectly edible. I think we’ll be making pickled eggs with this year’s tiny eggs.
The calendulas that Anya planted in the raised bed blocks are blooming — beautiful, large flowers:
The silk on the Hickory King corn is really pretty
In addition to growing open pollinated, heirloom vegetables — we’ve got a flock of heritage turkeys. These guys are Black Spanish turkeys. Unlike the broad-breasted turkeys raised commercially today, they walk around and do turkey things all day. They are all waiting by the gate as we walk over to the poultry pasture, and there are always a few turkeys following us around if we’re working in their area.
The two males we have from last year were amazing with the little poults this Spring. They’d take a share of poults and snuggle them at night to keep them warm. They’d march around them as the little ones pecked around during the day. Even now that the younger turkeys are almost fully grown, the older turkeys stand guard and make sure everyone gets access to food and water. Watching the adult turkeys with the younger ones has been right educational, and I am eager to hatch some of our own poults next year!
While these Mortgage Lifter tomatoes grow really large … they have a lot of bits that need to be trimmed. Seems like a tomato bred by turkeys and chickens (who get to enjoy all of the trimmed off bits).
The corn is getting really tall — no cobs yet, but the stalks are about as tall as they’re meant to get.
It finally cooled down enough for the tomatoes to start ripening …
