Today's Harvest

Today I had to stay home with a very sick Charissa. So...while she slept I picked,

and picked,

and picked,

and picked! Joseph helped out a little.

And now I'm going to blanch those 2 big bowls of beans for the freezer, steam the red potatoes for dinner and bake a dessert with the blackberries. Maybe Kelsey can bake a pie when she gets home from Church.

Rain...finally!

Some may think it odd that I'm from the Western WA and my blog post is titled "Rain...Finally!" Well, we think it odd as well. It's been 84 days since we've had any significant rain. In the past 84 days we've had rain once (in mid June) and it was only 1/4 of an inch. I don't think it counts for much. It started raining yesterday and it's rained on and off all night but I went out to the rain gauge to find we've gotten only about 1/4 of an inch! They say it's suppose to rain on and off all day and we might get another 1/4 of an inch for a total of 1/2!!! But we have another chance of rain on Thursday. So maybe between this today and Thursday my garden will be well watered. I can only hope and pray!
Otherwise the sprinkler goes back on.

We've had records set now for the hottest week ever in WA (records of 102 I think at Seatac Airport) and for the driest summer EVER...84 days and only 1/4 " of rain...will the dry spell continue?

Starting a New of Phase

We are now goatless. Saturday we sold the last 2 goats to a wonderful woman in Graham, WA who has a LOT of animals and they are all her little children. She has goats, sheep, llama, dogs and cats. She loves animals and they will be loved and spoiled. She was so excited to get them.

Now we move on to our next phase...converting the barn to hold chickens and add to the flock. I hope to order 75-100 chicks by the end of the month. This flock will be in the barn and we should start seeing eggs sometime in January. After that the old hens will start going into the freezer.

On another note the garden has started really producing now. We picked our first bunch of beans yesterday and that should increase a little everyday. I think we might actually be able to get some in the freezer this year.

We picked up our 1/4 side of beef on Saturday (just in time for the Dormition Fast) and it is in the freezer. I'm looking forward to pulling out the first package on August 16!