Farm Fresh: Sharing our farm blessings

 We are so blessed to have this farm and for our kids to learn about animal husbandry and how to raise healthy food.  This year we have been finding new ways to share the farm with our "extended" family at church.  We have been bringing "fuzzy" treats to our Sunday School class. Our class only has 7 kids normally, but all the primary children come to our room after their class because they know that we bring fun baby animals to hold. So far we have brought: kittens, chicks, ducklings, and rabbit kits. Next time, we will bring our turkey poults.

We also have hosted two primary "play dates" on the farm, and are planning to do one more before the end of the summer.  We gave the kids a tour of the farm and let them hold all the baby animals.  We set up different stations so that they could all hold the same kind of animal at once. 

The littlest ones love sitting on the tractor and playing in our giant sand pit as much as seeing the animals!

Uncle A came to visit for a couple days.  We had some fun adventures playing together.  Brother M jumped over Uncle A with his RC car and they played a late late night game of Star Realms while I was working on some tasty things in the kitchen. 

The summer has been mild until this last week. We are having some 90F days. Brother M has been working hard to keep the rabbits cool in this heat (which is the hardest season for them).

The tomato harvest has picked up.  As soon as we had 30 lbs on the counter, I made our first batch of tomato sauce.  We have been out of it for about a month or more now. 

To go with the sauce I made some homemade noodles with dried (powdered) carrot greens in place of part of the flour. 

The tasters were skeptical at first, but homemade noodles, meatballs, and sauce won them over. 

The harvests have been great this year.  Plenty of potatoes.   Baby A learned the joy of finding buried treasure with brother S and miss L. 

We also harvested 100 lbs of spring carrots.

We planted the corn after the peas were done and it is making great progress.  Should be ready to harvest in late September. 

Brother S carefully planted and has been weeding his melon patch. Lots of melon babies are looking good so far. 

We have also been raising enough flowers to keep my kitchen and dining room always looking cheerful with fresh flowers. 

And the animals are multiplying well. Mama muscovy has taken good care of her brood. They have graduated to the big duck house. 

Speaking of which, we moved a bunch of things around.  Rabbit cages are mostly all in the high tunnel until I finish building their new permanent hutch alongside the barn (winter project).  I gave away a bunch of the oldest/rustiest cages. This hoop house has been moved to the East woods to be a pig shelter! We are picking up some IPP shoats next Saturday.  I am hurrying to finish their fenced area in the woods. That will be my main project this week.  

Baking with berries.  Lots of fun decorating parties have been making messes in the kitchen.