The Peach Harvest

Early this year we planted a peach tree.  It bloomed beautifully.  There were about 50 little peaches.  Then I read up on peach trees and removed about half the peaches.  It still seemed like we would get a pretty good harvest the first year from our tiny tree.  Drum Roll please......

There were FIVE.  Two got eaten before I could take a picture.

For a better perspective on how giant my peaches are, I have placed a DIME on top of one.

The hand of my SEVEN year old.

More Tomatoes!

This is what we picked this morning!  I will definitely be planting Yellow Zebra Tomatoes again.  They are big and sweet.

Big Yellow Zebra Tomatoes

This is the first heirloom tomato picked this year.  It is a Big Yellow Zebra Tomato.  This is my first time trying this variety.  The tomato plants are large and so are the tomatoes.  It looks like they are going to be good producers.  There are lots of green tomatoes out there!

Sliced up for lunch.

Peppered turkey with Swiss Laughing Cow, red onion and Big Yellow Zebra tomato on fresh bread.  Yum!

Homemade Chicken Feeder

Rowdy made this chicken feeder.  

 

Getting ready to go nighty-night.

Peaking out of the roosting box. 

How to make a chicken feeder:

1. Gather your supplies.  You will need a plastic flower pot, size depending on how many chickens you are feeding.  You will need a plastic saucer that is at least 2 inches in diameter bigger than the bottom of your pot.  Any wire or coathangers you have lying around and 1 eye bolt.  You will also need a handful of screws, utility knife and a drill.
2. Carefully carve out some holes on the sides of the pot, at the bottom, about 2 inches square.  Poke three equally spaced holes at the top of the pot for your hanging wire.
3. Turn pot upside down and place saucer on the bottom.  Screw the saucer to the bottom of the pot with the screws going up through the pot. You don't want to let your chickens get scratched up.
4. Cut three equal lenghts of wire, measuring from the roof of your coop to the heighth you want it from the ground, adding a couple of inches for twisting the wire.  Put a piece of wire through each hole and twist it a good many times so that it will holdup with the weight of the food.  Pull the wire up together at the top, like a tepee and secure to the top of the coop. We used an eye bolt, screwed into a rafter. 
5. Rowdy suggests hanging the feeder chest high to a chicken.
6. Fill with food!

That's it folks.  We also feed our chickens scraps. Raw fruits and veggies, like lettuce leaves, watermelon rinds, tomatoes that have been poked by birds (dumb birds!), whatever we might not want to eat.

Solar Power

Solar power is plentiful in this part of world.  My kids are now strongly opinionated about their towels.  They like'em crunchy! 

The Coop

Here is our coop.  This is our farm dog.  What farm would be complete without a border collie?  Bridget would love nothing more than to get in there with those chickens!  On top of the coop you will notice all the must haves for urban chicken farming...1 pair chicken poo flip flops, one large can with a gardening shovel to collect chicken poo and 1 large can for refilling the chicken food.  That is all you need folks!  You notice how Rowdy Rooster designed the coop with a low roof...this is so that Rowdy Rooster and I don't have clean or care for the dirty birds ourselves!  We're no bird brains.

Six Sassy Chickens

Meet the sassy chickens! They live under the shade of a rather large purple leaf plum tree. They have the good life. From left to right....Martha, The Unknown Soldier, Eliza, Jane, Ruth and Mary scratchin' around on the ground keeping everyone up.