Day 221

1.-3. From my morning walk  with Juli after toastmasters. I love the caravan!

4. Got the pigs settled in a new pasture.

Day 175

Well, apparently it's time to fix the fence between the home paddock and the back pasture. It's obviously sagged low enough that Mooser (the holstein steer) got over it easily enough to feed off of the pigs grain this morning. I had banished him and the other two cows into the back pasture, as I'm tired of feeding extra grain to the pigs and they've basically been having a hissy fit ever since. The moo and mope all day long. Silly cows.

The sheep in the orchard got moved to a fresh pasture today. Now we can finish mowing the orchard!

 Also, the turkeys are now finally ensconced in their pen and hopefully they'll stay there. I'm tired of going out to put turkeys away at 11 pm! Just as I'm ready to head to bed, it's ooops, I forgot about the turkeys. Sigh. I've lost two this week thanks to problems with the electric fence and one night I think I got out there too late. Which meant that after coming home from volunteering at Champoeg for 6 hours, I got to slit a turkeys throat by moonlight. How romantic, right? The poor turkey had a dislocated projecting coracoid (wing) bone, which looked rather painful and the only solution seemed to put it out of it's misery. Daniel trooped out with me to the processing trailer to supervise, since he's a pro, but I did the actual dirty work.

Day 148

1. A lazy morning. Working on my crossword puzzle (I"m slowly getting better!), enjoying the flowers from the wedding on Saturday. Also note the cat's collar that needs a new battery and the row of lazy heads sitting on the couch under the window. :)

2. A visit to the much loved plant nursery! Finally, finally, finally got some vegetables. And some roses to replace the ones Tonka ruined, argh. And some annuals

3. And a few cacti to add to Dad's cacti and succulent box that we keep out in his office.

What else? A little bit of placing and planting. Scott was here for dinner. Also cooked the first ham from the pigs I raised. It was delicious!

Day 75

1.-4. Jacob and I took a farm tour today. 

What else?

Visiting Amanda and the fruit stand, putting the cows back in their pasture (!), enjoying Mr & Mrs Cook over for the afternoon, tidying up and recovering from all of the wedding festivities, enjoying Andrew's amazing pork chops from the pigs!

Day 74

1. Mom and Daniel picked up the pork from the butcher

What else? Not one of my most stellar days. But, it all ended okay.

Enjoyed the boys last HOOPs basketball game. 

Day 258 Saturday

Piggies in the morning sunlight

Picking blackberries with Scott, Jacob & Mums

Fresh salsa for parish group tomorrow

Other happenings - 

Swimming with Jacob, 

working on the top secret project, 

a delicious dinner outside with the family and Zach & Hannah and Samantha

making food for parish group

watching M. Hulot's Holiday

Day 257 Friday

Trying to start doing chores earlier...

Jacob waiting at the feed mill with me

The apple cider press awaiting use

Hannah W and family over for picking apples, making cider and picking blackberries

Cute piggie buttocks!

Other happenings - working on the TSP and using my new router guide, having Hannah over for an impromptu dinner

Day 256 Thursday

1. Piggies

2. Chickens

3. Duckies

4. Daniel channeling his inner praying mantis....

5. Other happenings - Kate coming over for a visit, going to the airport cafe as a family to celebrate Jacob doing well in school

I'm working on getting back my blogging mojo. It's taken a while to figure out a new rhythm now that I have a new phone. And I still have photos from our camping trip to transfer from my old phone to my new one. 

Day 229

1. A close up of the grain scoop this morning after I pulled out of the duck's mash bag. Apparently our bantam hen had gone into the bag to lay her egg...

2. Piggies!

3. Jerk Chicken from Cooks Illustrated July 2012 issue. It was delicious! Also served it with black beans, rice w/ a dash of lime juice, salad, and honeydew. The honey dew went really well with the chicken juices.

4. What else? Starting to pick up school again - Jacob read to me for about an hour. Also piano lessons and brought the apple cider press up near the house.

Day 198

1. The processing trailer all set up. We hosted/helped present a  class on how to processing your own chickens today through OSU. 
2. Laura from OSU talking about new regulations
3. Some table decorations
4. PIGS! (technically this should be old news as I got them on Saturday, but I haven't had a chance yet to blog about Saturday, so here they are!) Our new night time entertainment is watching them eat dinner.... and our morning one was watching them try and snooze in the sun. There's four of them, they all want to lie in a row, and no one wants to be on the end! So each one took turns realizing he was on the end, would get up walk around and then plop down on top of the middle two. Then a minute later, the next one would repeat the process. It was amusing.
5. What else? Spending the day getting ready for the class, giving a little farm tour, making ice cream  with Rebekah F (oh yes, they were visiting!) for afterwards, making watermelon lemonade (yum!), saying goodbye to Rebekah, having dinner with the class and teachers, cleaning up, farm chores, Jason and Ellen arriving (yay!). 

Day 197 (Sunday)

1. Parish group of Joseph and Hannah F's...
2. All of the piggies!
3. Rebekah & Cal with Brownie the cow
4. A picture of yours truly with the pigs
5. What else? Church of course, visiting with friends, doing farm chores with R & C

Day 196 (Saturday)

1. On our way to get pigs(!) Scott and I encountered a road closure... we were wondering how much of a closer it really was, so he ventured past and we saw that it really was closed, but he had to take a picture as proof of his daring-do.
2. A lovely gravel road detour we took courtesy of google maps. It reminded both of us of California gold country.
3. Pigs! At the pig farm
4. Mama pig and her piglets under a persimmon tree. I bought four of her piglets.
5. Driving past a buffalo farm
6. Pigs (my very own!),. They are about two months old, 3/4 Gloucester Old Spot (GOS) and 1/4 Tamworth (If I remember right) and all males. 
7. Jeffrey Allen- Mom and I have been wanting to go into this store for a long time. We finally went in and what a surprise. It's a store full of beautiful Chinese home decorations furniture. Like a little museum!
8. What else? A baby shower for Hannah F, running errands with Mom all afternoon and Cal & Rebekah F arriving late that night for the weekend. This was my Facebook status:

Busy day today! Left the house at 8am to go pick up four baby pigs (!), came home got them settled in and rushed off to a baby shower, then ran errands for 5 hours, came home, convinced the pigs that instead of running around the pasture they really did want to stay in their pen (while trying to not ruin my dress), then spent time fixing the pen, had a quick dinner and then it was time for the evening round of farm chores (which finally ended at 9:15). And then the day ended with ice cream and Calvin &Rebekah arriving. Yay! But, my goodness, I think I'm going to be dead by the time summer ends.