OUR HUGE TURKEYS

TIRES

We are recycling free used tractor tires to make raised beds in the garden. They are huge, look how small our big pickup truck looks compared to the tire.

OUR PUMPKIN PATCH

First time ever we have been able to grow pumpkins. We only have 4 but it is more than enough for us for Halloween. Will probably also "can" some pumpkin for later use. Will be making pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread when we finally get them out of the garden.

GARDEN, TURKEYS AND LOVE

Many many years ago I quit buying frozen green beans. There is nothing worse. Now I have to change my tune, HOMEGROWN frozen green beans are as good as fresh off the vine. The other day I made a casserole and opened up a small bag of green beans from our garden that was put in the freezer and YUMMY. Here it is almost the middle of Oct. and yesterday the green beans were picked and I snapped them all and Clay wound up canning 5 1/2 quarts from that batch. For years and years I had pretty much stopped eating tomatoes. The ones you get from the store are expensive and horrible. No flavor. I realized the other day that our tomato plants are done for the year and I am really going to miss fresh tomatoes. That is the wonderful thing about seasons, seasons of all kinds. I know that by late spring next year there will be fresh tomatoes and lots of new green beans. Just like snow and cold weather, you just start getting your fill of them and then they are gone. Then the next wonderful season starts. I remember thinking before spring this past year that I was tired of seeing, brown, just brown, all the trees were barren and brown and how wonderful it was when everything started turning green. The green has been great but seeing all the colors that will soon be here and then the leaves falling and covering the ground, oh and the sound that you make walking through piles of leaves. Yep, seasons are the best.

Everyone here will miss the turkeys. They follow us around the yard like dogs would. The males are HUGE. Just in the past week they have started gobbling. They had been making noise for a long time, but the males really "gobble" and it is a really neat sound.

I miss my girls, my other grandchildren so much that my heart actually hurts in my chest. Love shouldn't hurt so bad.

PAPPY'S WORK PARTY

All ready to go the the annual Hay Ride

Alex tried but in the end Pappy had to get the apple for him.

It was a toss up on who was the most stubborn, Alex, Pappy or the Mule. Alex loved this because Pappy got the Mule to go really fast and they bounced up and down for their ride.

Better hurry, there is so much to do.
Waiting to fill up his squirt gun.Making S'mores


Clay's boss is a big game hunter. He hunts with a Bow and goes on African Hunts all the time. This is one of his "trophies" It is an elephant skull and husks still attached.

HICKORY TREES

We found that we have about 5 Hickory Trees and the Hickory Nuts are great. They taste a lot like walnuts only milder, a little sweet and no bitterness like you have with walnuts. So we are in the process of gathering them and trying to get the nut meat out. They aren't as easy to crack as a walnut but boy are they delicious. And the best part is that they are free. We not only are going to be planting fruit trees but also nut trees in the spring. It is nice to know that we are still able to eat no matter how terrible the economy. It may not be exactly what we want but we will never starve. To finally live in our own home and be able to start being so much more self sufficient is wonderful. No one to raise our rent or decide that they need the house to rent to someone else. We have wonderful neighbors and a true sense of community here. Even though we are new to the area, we have been taken in as if we had lived here all our lives. As time goes on and money a little easier we will be setting up using lots of solar power.

DON'T PLAY "CHICKEN" IF YOU ARE A TURKEY

We had a week of wonderfully cool weather, but now we are back to 80 degrees in the daytime again. I LOVE the change of seasons. It is still nice and cool at night mid 50's.

Our foul like to play, "chicken" with LuLu, our black Lab. Well a few days ago one of our "tom" turkeys got too close and wasn't fast enough and LuLu took out a huge chunk of feathers, skin about the size of an open hand. Poor tom, he seems to be healing just fine, but we weren't sure there for awhile. Of course in another month all 5 of our turkeys will be in our freezer. I wish there were extra money because I would use dry ice and overnight a turkey to each of our girls for Thanksgiving.


We are giving our mailman 4 of our guineas. In exchange he is giving us steaks from his cows that he is having butchered. I love it here where we barter our excess things to others for their excesses. We are going to be getting fresh pork from our next door neighbor when she has her pigs butchered in exchange for one of our turkeys. We are getting rid of the stray white guinea that showed up here a few months ago and the 3 older guineas that are all male. That will leave us with 2 males and 2 females of our new guineas. We were going to butcher them anyway when we do the turkeys but we knew the mailman had only 1 guinea and he wanted more so we were just going to give them to him but then he offered to exchange them for some of his beef.

Well we had a small circus come to Buffalo and so of course Alex went. Enjoy the pictures.

What is entertainment without munchies?

How many hula hoops can you twirl at once?