TEMPORARY LIVING ARRANGEMENTS

Fowl are growing and we're having to shuffle birds. It seems that Walker and Tribett are getting the short end of this stick.

They are spending their nights in the chicks' playpen.

And they aren't very happy about it.

That's Walker talking trash about me.

Big Chicks are now living full-time in the goose pen - and loving every second of it.

They have, by far, the cutest personalities of any of our current birds. As soon as you walk out the back door, they all 10 start chirping and jumping and doing that hop/run/fly thing they do! And they run to the fence to see if you'll come in and let them peck your freckles! And it hurts. But they're cute!

The Little Chicks now have free roam of the brood pen. They're happy with their new digs and quickly getting over their fear of people. They don't run to the corner, screaming, when they see us coming now. Progress!

This weekend we plan to let the Big Chicks out in to the yard for a little while - just to see how they do. Of course we'll have to put the dogs under lock and key first, and watch them like a hawk. But I know they'll love the freedom and the grass and the bugs! We just hope we can get them back in at bedtime!!

Harvest is really starting to pick up. This is the toughest time right now - school is winding down, which means there is a TON of stuff to do. Vegetables need to be picked EVERY day - sometimes twice a day. (Did you know squash and zucchini can grow a foot in a day's time? I plan to document it in time-lapse photography! I'm retiring, you know...)

As you can see, our cooler overfloweth - with squash. With the craziness of my days this week, I really can't get around to sell any of it. Most of this will have to be blanched and frozen. Since the world didn't end on Saturday, it looks like Big John and I will be eating squash for a while! Could be worse - could be eating worms.

And we're also getting lots and lots of cucumbers. Our weekends now consist of making pickles! We've got our system down and hardly ever yell at each other during the process. We start out strong, but usually by the end of the 5th hour, we're tired and grumpy. But we've made a lot of pickles in just three short weeks!

So we won't go hungry. Pickles and squash. Squash and pickles.

Know any good recipes?!!