COREY'S B-DAY

Today is my son-in-laws birthday. It amazes me that so much time has passed since the first time I met him. He had blonde streaked hair and I thought he was so cute. He drove a convertible and my daughter who had never really dated before was just crazy about him. I am so proud to call him my son. He has always provided for and loved my daughter and treated her with respect.

Some of my favorite pics of, "my Corey":

HOMEGROWN

I don't know if I have listed all of the food we have grown and eaten this year but it is quite the list and we only put in a small garden, next year we hope to double and add lots of other different things. We will be planting lots of fruit trees also. Clay wants a big orchard.
Our homegrown list:

blackberries
black walnuts
4 different kinds of tomatoes
3 different kinds of zucchini
cucumbers
cantaloupes
pumpkins
green beans
cabbage
green onions
regular onions
potatoes (red skinned)
sweet chili peppers
jalapenos
grapes



Clay has been experimenting with salsa, it took him 3 batches, all were good, BUT batch number three is awesome. We love sitting around eating chips and salsa. So addictive. He will use this last recipe again but is still going to be experimenting with different kinds with different things added.

We are always taking fresh produce to neighbors, people at work and friends. We love being able to share in this way.

CLARIFYING

Erin asked if the owl and rabbit pictures were "professional" and yes there are.
I try really hard to get actual pictures of our wildlife here but it is so hard to do and then the picture that is taken just does not do the animal justice. It is so awesome to see them and then I take a picture with my old, old ancient camera and then I look at it and go, "where is the animal?" So some times I look up Missouri animals and then I find the exact animal and put that picture up to share with everyone. Next year in the spring I am going to catalog and identify all the different flowers I have that bloom all over the place. I have added a few new ones myself this year. It seems there is always a new "clump of grass" that overnight turns into a beautiful flower that will stay for a day or a week.

One of our hens has gone broody and is now sitting on the nest all the time. We have marked those eggs and leave them there for her all the time. Not really sure that we want for her to have babies this late in the year. We will have to pay to feed all of them all winter and feed isn't cheap any longer. In the summer we hardly buy any feed at all. Nature feeds them fine with all the bugs, clover and worms they can eat. The temp. has dropped and was actually able to turn off the air and open our windows for a day and a night. Thinking about taking the pool down, the water temp. went from 89degrees to 72degrees in just a few days. Leaves have started coming off the trees. The humidity is back up today though.

WILDLIFE

One of these groundhogs lives in a burrow in the shed under Drew's old car, I can look out my bedroom window and watch him come out and sit between the shed and the house and eat clover. We don't know how many of them that we have but they don't bother our garden and they are really cute to watch. We have found their burrows in a few other places but it seems they prefer the west side of the farm.


This the part of the flock of Wild Turkeys that come and go through our back yard every day during the cooler months. Luckily for them we raise our own turkeys to eat. Never liked the gamey taste of wild animals. These guys are huge though.
We have been able to keep these guys out of our garden this year, Clay put up a really good animal proof fence. But these little guys we see almost every day in the morning time in our driveway near the house.
The entire list of animals so far that we have seen on our farm. Only the dog, chickens, rooster, guineas and our 5 turkeys have we put there. We used to have a terrible time with stray cats but over time they have all seemed to have moved on.

DOG
GROUNDHOGS
DEER
OWLS
RAT SNAKES
GUINEAS
ROOSTERS
CHICKENS
TURKEYS
RABBITS
RACCOONS
ARMADILLOS
WILD TURKEYS
FROGS
TURTLES

IT IS GOOD

It is good to know that my granddaughter is carrying on the tradition of uniqueness among the girls in our family.
Planning on a trip to Utah in December, YAY

NEW ANIMALS

We now have at least 2 Barred Owls living in our woods out back. Just as it gets dark you can hear them "hooting" back and forth to each other, that plus hundreds of lightening bugs, makes for a really nice light and sound show while relaxing on the swing.

Clay tried his hand at, "canning" this week. Quarts of bread and butter pickles, homemade salsa and tomatoes. Time will tell how well they turned out. Still more produce than we can eat.