Look who's smiling!

Beautiful weather this morning!  Low humidity and in the 70's.  Heat wave expected to start tomorrow so today is the day to get ready. 

The Guinea Guy...

So here is the man who got this all started..

The guineas are happy in their new environment and they stick close to their new home but as you can see, a few get brave and venture out to do a little exploring.  

Soon they will be helping us maintain our various insect, tick and snake population.  And perhaps provide us with some eggs for breakfast too!

*For the cool story about how these guineas got here, check out the "Miracle Eggs" post in May.

New Home....

The guineas hatched 6 weeks ago yesterday and yesterday we moved them from the brooder box you see in the front of the photo to their new house and fenced yard behind it.  We know they can fly over it,  but some day they will share it with chickens and for now it is like a playground fence for them.  

It was quite the change for them to be out in the open but they acclimated quickly.  

They still have a little ways to go before they are fully feathered but they've grown a lot!  They also started making "guinea sounds" recently.  

Click the link below to see them trying to fly.

Guineas learning to fly

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.