Indoor animals

Most of this blog gives attention to our outdoor animals, but since I had this cute picture, I thought I'd show you Buddy and Ivy too.  Ivy is on the chair in her 'froggy' pose, as we call it.  Buddy is being Buddy.  A second after I snapped this picture, he was jumping at the back of the chair trying to scare Ivy.  That is how their day goes.

Corn on the cob

Last year was our first year growing corn.  It was growing beautifully, but when it was just about time to start picking it, each morning we were devastated to find cobs half eaten.  This year, we planted more corn and put up a fence around it.  It seems to have worked.  We started seeing some damage, but instead of just a single meals worth of corn, we picked corn for lunch and dinner for about a week straight.  Next year, we'll stagger our planting so we have a longer harvest season. 

Here is our corn garden this year...

And here is a close-up of a nice, big cob...

And here is Dan in the corn patch...

Egg count

This week has been a sad, sad week for egg laying.  Each week for the past 3 weeks has been getting progressively worse.  One of our ladies died this week of unknown causes.  The only thing we can think of is heat stroke.  That is also the only reason we can think of for the decrease in eggs.  I just hope this 110 degree heat index weather passes very soon.  For the animals sake and mine!

large: 15, small 75 = 90 eggs.

Weaning bunnies

Today we started weaning baby bunnies from momma D1.  Late in the afternoon, I took 2 of the 8 bunnies from momma and put them in their own cage.  I don't think they've been nursing much, although I'm not there at night to see what they're doing.  Momma didn't seem to care that I was taking them out... maybe she's thinking "it's about time!".  The two bunnies were curious about their new home, even though it looks exactly like their old home and is right by momma.  I plan to wean 2 bunnies per day for the next 4 days to help momma's milk dry up gradually.  After this, it will be just a few weeks until time to butcher the bunnies. 

Hornworms, again!

We have blasted horn worms on our tomato plants again this year. They appear magically, damage the plant, eat the tomatoes, then move on. Annoying little buggers! The two little grenades in this pic are horn worm poo. Eww!!! The great news is that the turkeys LOVE to eat hornworms, so we've been tossing every one we find to the turkeys. You just haven't lived until you've seen a turkey with a 4-inch hornworm dangling from it's beak being chased by 8 other turkeys who want a piece of that worm!

Sunday Brunch

Ham from our own pigs smoked on the charcoal grill:

Homemade potato salad:

Corn picked from our garden just a few minutes prior to eating:

Angel food cake and a Thayer original... homemade gingerbread gelato (YUM!):

Stretchhhh.........

There's nothing like a good stretch!!!