We have Oyster Mushrooms!

We also have little girls running in the pastures and feeding the chickens...

Fall planting

I love fall, and it's not just because of the return of the Pumpkin Spice Lattes to Starbucks (that I'm sipping on as I type). Yes, it is one of my few guilty pleasures that I cannot seem to reproduce at home! While I hate to see the days of summer squash, green beans, and tomatoes go away, I am excited about entering a whole new season of veggies to grace our table.

Allen made the semi-annual trip to the Farmer's Exchange on Wednesday to get everything we needed for our fall garden. After spending all day out there working today, I'm proud to say our garden has been made over for the fall. Seeing the compost we've been working on for years put to use is such a good feeling! The thought of slow-cooked collard and turnip greens leaves my mouth watering.

I am also looking forward to being able to start providing our community with fresh produce once again. The lack of rain and arrival of our third child cut our ability to produce enough to sell short this summer. Hopefully we will soon be offering baskets of fresh, locally-grown produce once again.

My apologies for the double posts without pictures but it's definitely too dark to document the beautiful garden tonight! Photos to come.

Transformation Complete!

We now have a "play room". Technically, it's also still the laundry room (and probably will be multitasking as an office in the future as well), but what was once a closed in porch is now officially a room. The girls were in heaven this afternoon with their new play space, and I am elated to have some more square-footage (and a new space to have them out from under my feet!). I am also looking forward to doing the laundry in a warm room this winter. No more mad dashes trying to get wet laundry moved over to the dryer while shivering! Since the room is still in being organized, I will save posting pictures for later. A big thanks to Hal (Allen's dad aka Papa) for helping Allen with the finishing stages of this project, and to David (Allen's friend) for helping in the beginning. Great work all around!

In other farm news, our "loaner" white silkies have successfully hatched a few of their own eggs. Ma and Pa Silkie will stay with their babies for a little while to avoid putting the babies into the brooder, then will head back to their home. The little white babies are super cute!! I am really looking forward to having them run around the farm.