Finishing Up

We are in finishing up mode on the farm, and so are the trees!

Our last selling harvest was last week. The cool weather did the garden very well. I was pretty happy with the last of our produce that went out.

The little farmers and I harvested the rest of the carrots and stored them for our own use. It was an interesting day. I spent the whole first part of it going crazy trying to sort and store carrots all while trying to keep little farm boy from undoing everything I was doing. I basically just followed him around resorting all the broken carrots that he industriously ferried into my good storage box, quickly trying to remove all the  carrots that were being thrown in with little farm boy's little rodent toothed bit mark out of the side and continually fishing the carrot tops out of my storage sand. I was getting no where and just about the call the whole thing off when the little guy just walked away. Little farm girl tootled after him to keep a eye on him and together they found a sled to pull and ride on. Suddenly it was just me working in the garden... and it was very lonely! 

I had no idea how much little farm girl helped! She had been there the whole time sprinkling sand between all the carrots and snatching up the very best to save for seed, both of which eliminated a big part of the job for me. Not to mention all the enthusiastic conversation and curious questions that come with their helping hands. I was very thankful when they came back with their bright little eyes and busy hands ready to help again. I can't imagine farming without my little sidekicks.

A new row of garlic put to bed for the winter

Here are some neat carrots that came up. One lesson I learned over this year is not to plant everything so close together!

These three are actually braided!

And our first group of pigs has gone off to the butcher. I have lots of thoughts on that but I will wait until we are finished pigs for the year before I summarize that.

And we had to get a little creative this week. We have been wanting to winter chickens in the greenhouse. Matt made the back of the green house removable so we could tow the camper in. We are hoping to improve the soil in here, keep the chickens warmer and hopefully prevent egg losses due to freezing.

Unfortunately we didn't measure really closely and when we removed the back wall we discovered that the camper was taller than we realized and couldn't fit under the curved roof. I was ready to make another plan for them entirely but Matt always has ideas. He loosened the camper off the axle and together we shuffled the whole thing towards the center of the greenhouse. After some playing around and wiggling, and using a wagon to move the tongue rather than the taller lawn tractor, we fit it in! Our eggs will be pastured a little big longer this year!

There has been lots to keep us busy getting ready for winter, including moving hay to convient locations for winter use. Which brings me to something that I have appreciated so much this week.

My farm truck.
I love this thing. It is my 4x4 low, hay on the floor, chicken on my lap, straight through the pasture, not afraid to get a dent, truck. I love what it helps me to do. It hauls hay, feed, lumber, is a ladder for us when we can't quite reach, and its great when I have too far to go for little farm boy to walk, and more than I can carry.
Sometimes though, I just use it because I like it...

I am not the only one who likes it.

And this morning I made a rule that put my mom's "No uni-cycling near the fish tank" rule to shame. The rule is "Chickens may only eat their cheesecake in the kitchen." As soon as I said it I felt rediculous.

Oh, the life of a farm wife!