A Saturday at Home

This past week we spent mending from a cold. It was a quiet week. By Friday we were feeling much better but the mancubs still seemed tired. This is how they spent part of Saturday afternoon. Watching Wallace & Grommit.

Saturday was a quiet day too. But we were able to enjoy some time outside and just be together. We are such homebodies. :) But J and I love being home with the boys, spending time outside in the garden, or playing soccer, digging in the sandbox, or climbing trees. We also got some things done that really needed some attention. J put the nestboxes in for the laying hens. Soon! Soon! they will be laying eggs! I can't wait!
This year we purchased some Auracanas. They are a breed of chicken that lay colored eggs. The shell can be pink or green or blue. They are quite beautiful, and the birds themselves are interesting, coming in all colors and even different shapes. The one above, is one of our Auracana roosters. His name is Blacktail, and I think he is a real beauty.

These birds are meat birds. A few from our second batch. We'll only keep them for another few days and then they'll go to our friends to finish growing on their land. Aren't they getting big?

This time of year is so interesting to me. I love harvesting things from the garden. Saturday morning we harvested some of our sweet corn. It was too pathetic to take a picture of, the ears being quite small and some even misshapen. I consoled myself by taking a picture of this instead.

Grandpa Ott's morning glory

The pears seem to being doing well this year, and seem to be ripening earlier than usual. I am thinking about trying to "juice" some in our cider press. I love having a pear tree, but don't really have many ideas for using them. I'm afraid that the chickens get more of them than we do. Any ideas of what to use them for?

I know I'm strange, but I realized as I was taking a picture of this, that every year I take a picture of the tomatoes that I grow. How weird is that? I guess I just think they are really beautiful. Love apples.

I was able to get three quarts of tomato sauce for the freezer and use some to make eggplant parmesan. I have dreams of growing enough tomatoes to freeze for use throughout the year. Bushels and bushels of them. Enough to make homemade salsa, and pizza sauce and marinara for the whole year! Ha ha! Perhaps when the boys are older....or maybe not. Maybe that's what the farmer's market is for. What a land of plenty we live in.