Finally the heat has broken here today. I am so thankful for our central air! The fun business of summer continues but it was oh so nice to have a week off from swim lessons and almost a whole week off for Proeun from his day job. I thought I would give you a tour of some of current hotspots on the farm.
Here is the wash area/cooler/packing shed that Proeun designed. While the plan was to have all our building projects finished in May we are a bit behind. Still I told Proeun it is a really well designed building and I love it. Can’t wait till it’s done. I am glad we were able to save some of the gardens.
The bee balm plant we saved from the cooler area is now flowering and waiting to go into my herb garden–once I figure out where I am going to put it.
Jimmy and Blackie are growing nicely. At the end of the month they will join the boys in their separate housing and in September we will begin breeding. I have 5 female goats and that hopefully means 10 babies next year. Still deciding if we will sell or keep most of them.
Summer Squash finally! I hardly canned or froze anything last year because I knew we would be moving. It seems like ages since I have had good homegrown food. I can’t wait.
Other news around the farm is the chickens are laying!!! Yes, we are enjoying farm fresh eggs again and I am looking for new and interesting ways to cook eggs. There is really nothing like a good egg.
We are also learning about hay. We have a 2 acre hay field and have asked a neighbor to help us manage and bail it so that we can produce some of our own hay for the goats.
We also are putting in more pasture and once we can afford fencing will have alot of space for the animals to roam.
Our pollinator habitat is planted and growing. When you start with a new hive you limit the bees space so they will fully utilize their boxes. Once they fill up one box you add another. We have just added the 2nd box. These are considered the “hive boxes” and what the bees require to make it through the winter. Once they fill these up then we can start adding the “honey supers” which is where we can harvest the honey from.