New Addition to the farm and family

Hi Y'all, I wanted to give you  a quick update on what we have been doing around here and post a couple of pictures of the new puppy.  Rachel sold her horse this spring and wanted to get a puppy, well we finally found one and she is cute.  She has only been here 5 hours and she is spoiled.  She is a Catahoula Leopard dog in case you are wondering.  Bella and her are getting along fine, Bella would think she was a lot of fun if she would just stop trying to nurse. 

We had a storm come through on Monday and blow our corn down, it was head high.  Even though we have considered twine and duct tape, I am hoping that it will stand back up if we leave it alone.  We are praying that is what will happen anyways.  We can't complain our neighbor had the roof torn off his barn and some friends down the road had a tree land on both their cars.  Thank you God for it just being our corn.

I have been making jam and a tomme of cheese today.  We are picking  tons of yummy vegetables and I have a confession to make.  The yellow cherry tomato plant had a few ripe tomatoes on it....they didn't make it into the house.  I considered them part of my lunch.  What the rest of the family doesn't know won't hurt them, right?

I went for a walk around the perimeter of the pasture yesterday and found that the chokecherry trees are ripe but it doesn't look like I will be able to harvest any for jelly since the birds have eaten all of the lower ones and are doing a number on the high chokecherries.  Chokecherry jelly is interesting, it is already high in pectin so you don't have to add any when making the it.

I had to banish the pumpkin that Paige brought home from a field trip last October since it was finally starting to get some white spots on it.  Truly amazing that it lasted so long and in such great condition.  Did you know that the more nutrition, sugar, enzymes, and minerals a vegetable or fruit has in it, the longer it will last without spoiling?  This is something to think about, I know that when I am forced to purchase from the store the vegetable's and fruit just don't last as long.  All that mass production where they produce the crops with chemicals to get them to the market as quickly as possible.   All the chemicals and artificial fertilizers keep depleting the soil so more and more has to be used.  I would much rather eat something that I knew was teeming with good stuff for my body.

I didn't mention that we were also catching up on laundry.  Our washer broke down 4 days ago and my wonderful husband a son tore it apart and figured out which part was broken, ordered the part, and put it in today.  Did I tell you that they are my heroes?