Cool article!

Came across this on Gun and Garden's Facebook page. 

 Click this link to see the Gun and Garden magazine's article!

Being tested....

Aphids and caterpillars have created setbacks for us.  So discouraging to see a beautiful plant go from healthy and thriving to withering and peppered with holes.  

These aphids hit so quick and hard that we had to pull our sweet pea plants out before I got a chance to take a picture to show what it looked like.  Here you can see they were spreading to the tomato plant but we stopped them there by spraying them with water and a little bit of dish washing liquid.  Not very organic - I know, but when desperate, sometimes you do things you'd rather not do.

________

Next we got hit with an infestation of caterpillars!

  

See what they did to the collards?

They also spread to almost everything else in the raised beds so today we zapped them with a spray that has .25% pyrethrins in it.

Hoping for drastic and quick improvement.  Would love to hear what has worked well for you if you've had either one of these intruders attack your garden.

From pen to plate

You probably don't think a thing of it when you pick up a pork loin or bacon at the grocery store, but when you pull a package of pork chops from the freezer that have a label with your family name on it, well...... 

*Our processor surprised us and  customized a label for us!*

....that can be a little different.  

We raised our pigs knowing they would be processed to provide meat for us and as a friend reminded me, they had a really good life - better than the ones that provide meat in the grocery stores........but, at first I wasn't sure if that was cool or creepy.  Would I really be able to eat the meat of an animal I fed everyday?  (Well, my husband fed everyday.)  As it turns out, the uneasiness faded away after the first piece of meat we cooked.  

One of the unexpected things about what we've been doing is a new sense of connection to the land and animals and how it all works together.  

Can you really do this in the suburbs?  In many cases the answer is yes.    

Gardening geek

We've had so much fun doing the garden this year.  I'm putting this out there as a warning..... it becomes addicting.  You may find yourself checking progress several times a day and taking pictures like these.

Fluffy to feathery ~ change happens quickly around here!

The little keets are growing fast.  This is how much they changed in only 2 weeks.

We had to get them in a larger brooder box and I also kicked them out of the house.  

They are cute, but they can get noisy and I'm not big on indoor animals.  Their new home is on the porch but that won't last long either.  When they are big enough, they will be out in the yard and ultimately free to roam and hopefully rid our property of ticks and snakes.

 Can you see some of them in there?  They are running to hide behind one of the logs I stuck in there for them to perch on.  Scaredy keets.

Let me tell you these guys (13 of them) can go through the feed!  I was having to refill their feeder so often,  I decided to add a shallow tray - left over from our recent Chinese take-out - with feed in it. 

Meet Thelma and Louise

These are female pygmy goats that were born Easter Sunday.  

They are pets with a purpose.  Once they are older, we hope they will help us clear the under brush in the woods behind our house and perhaps later- if they become mama goats -  they will provide milk.

Crisp Cucumbers!

 Gaining a new appreciation for bees and the work they do!

Seeing lots of these on the plants!  

Home grown cucumbers sometimes take on odd shapes, but they taste oh so good!  No waxy or rubbery cucumbers here.  : )

You can grown them too!