The End of August Update

It's taken me a long time to get these pictures.  We went to CA the middle of this month for my grandma's 80th birthday.  It was a wonderful trip that was super jam packed and recovering from it has taken longer then anticipated.

It was thrilling to come home and see how beautifully everything was doing here at home.  When we left the summer crookneck squash was almost ready to pick, as were the cucumbers.  When we arrived home both were producing and we have had a steady stream of fresh produce trickling in from outside.  The tomato plants are so big they are falling all over the place, even with cages on them.  Red potatoes I'm digging a bit later then I could have and are now quadruple the size of an average red potato (which works for me) and taste wonderful!  This is our first year growing red potatoes.  Corn is huge and, save for a few stalks that fell over during storms, seems to be doing beautifully.  With luck (lets hope the raccoons don't know where we live) we'll be eating corn by the end of the month.  And the squash is doing AMAZING!  It is so beautiful to see this sea of squash vines climbing throughout the garden.  They were planted under the corn and have spread out over potatoes and a few other beds.  To be honest I really don't have a clue how much squash is in there.  It's a huge area and the plants are waist deep for me.  I know on the ends I can see pumpkins and acorn, spaghetti and butternut squash, maybe even a few other varieties.

Two of my Blue Andalusian hens

 Chickens are all doing well.  It was only after I started writing this that I realized that I never posted about the stinky little visitor we had a few months ago that killed half our chicks. :(  A skunk dug under our chicken tractor and killed my rhode island reds, all my meat birds and the fancy mistake birds.  All that we were left with was a buff orpinton rooster, a buttercup hen and a turkin hen.  It was quite really frustrating.  We fixed the chicken tractor (put a good sturdy bottom on it) and have had no predator problems since.  We only found out it was a skunk after our dog, Midnight, recently found it near where the tractor had been and got sprayed.  (Poor Midnight grabbed the darn thing by the tail and got sprayed in the face.  Glad the skunk got a beating though, and Midnight is doing fine now.)
We've just moved the chicks into one of the runs off the main chicken coop and they seem to be loving it.  A lot more freedom.  That tractor was getting awfully small for all of them.  It's been a very intense chicken year and I'm thinking that next year we will probably be getting laying breeds and less fancy breeds, but we'll see how I feel once these girls start laying.

It's been a busy year for us.  We all feel quite please with everything that has been accomplished so far and look forward to the harvest months ahead of us. :)