Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Time is just flying by! Lots has happened since my last post. Three days after our neighbor told us about
Vinnie, he knocked on the door holding a kitten.
Meet Tigger. Our newest addition. He weighed under 2 pounds when Dave brought him over.  Someone had dropped him off on our road :-(. He is a sweet kitty, part Siamese, I think. Has a huge appetite & won't leave my keyboard alone :-). Vinnie & Tigger get along great. Mia is very unhappy. She hisses & growls at both of them, especially Tigger.  Hope she adjusts soon. I feel sorry for the old girl.
Vinnie got his teeth cleaned & groomed & looks like a different dog.

He is much cooler now. He had 3 pounds of fur taken off! He is adjusting so well. He barks when he should and puts up with Tigger pouncing on his tail.
I finally found homes for the two roosters. It was a struggle. Craigslist and other online forums didn't work. Finally I tried FreeCycle (thanks Karen!)  The coop will be done in a couple weeks. Steve has worked so hard on it, putting all the other projects on hold.
I finished painting it tonight. I'll have to check in the morning to see if it needs another coat of red. We still need to make the ramp, put the screening on the windows and put up the outdoor run, which is already made except the door. I ordered three "predator lights" the other day. They are solar & have a red blinking light that is supposed to scare off bad beasts.  They are set up by height of the predator. That is why I got three of them. We'll try different heights for coyotes, racoons and deer. No, deer are not predators of chickens, but the orchard is behind the coop & I thought it would be good to keep them away from the trees.
On the garlic front...I sold some to The Driftless Cafe a couple weeks ago. We ate there Saturday night & had the garlic appetizer plate. It was very cool to eat our garlic at our favorite restaurant. I am gearing up for individual sales of garlic for seed or eating too. My final total of garlic dug was 1,470.
It was a huge amount of work, then add in the 90 + degree weather and high humidity. But it is done. All hung up and most of it is dried already. We mowed the garlic bed this weekend, put composted horse manure on it, then neighbor Jim tilled it in yesterday. Today I seeded it with buckwheat that will be tilled in a couple weeks before I plant the next batch of garlic. I also ordered two more kinds of garlic. That comes to 32 different kinds for next year.
Last week I visited Kristin, Tim & Jaelyn. It was so much fun. I love playing with Jaelyn & hanging out with them. Soon, very soon, there will be another little one to play with. September is approaching fast. The baby's room is almost done. Here are a couple pics from last week...

 It is getting late...next post will be about the garden & what I am preserving.

4 comments:

Sue said...

Barb-that's a LOT of garlic, but how proud you must be to have it being served in restaurants!!

And Vinnie looks great with his trim-up! A very handsome addition to the family.

Lois Evensen said...

Yum, Garlic! We love it.

Your family is beautiful. :)

Anonymous said...

Jaelyn is getting soooo BIG!!! Love your new kitten. He sure is cute and Vinnie's new hair~do looks a lot cooler than all the hair he had! Glad you found homes for the Roosters. Hope their not going in the freezer!! lol...debbie

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

I've enjoyed your post. Its been a really stressful week for me, and reading about what's going on in your world has been a nice escape for me...Thanks for that!