Hooray for Fall!

It's been a little while since the last update, so here are some things going on around the homestead lately:

:: With much help (thank you!) we were able to finish our part of the roof project two weekends ago. The chimney work was (mostly) done last week, and we're told the roofer is fabricating the pieces for the new roof this week, hopefully to begin installation next week.

:: The garden is about done, with the exception of carrots still in the ground, drying beans drying on the vines, some last tomatoes and the potatoes we can't get to while the bees are flying (note: it is not advised to plant crops you would like to harvest (safely) directly in front of active bee hives.) It was a rather disappointing year for the garden after a promising start. The real champions were the peppers this year, which did far better than ever before. Otherwise...Next year will be better....

:: The bees seem to be doing well and Jim is itching to get back in the hives to check on them. Last inspection instead of frames and frames of honey he discovered most of the honey eaten and prodigious quantities of new bees. So we're anxious to see if we will indeed get the Fall honey harvest we were hoping for.

:: On the egg front we're barely keeping up with demand, which is great, in that more people are getting interested in buying our eggs and we have the opportunity to share the goodness further. But we're scrambling to keep up. The new layers we got over the summer should be starting to lay soon (just as the one-year-olds start slowing down for the winter). To keep up, we're looking at adding some more girls to our flock.

:: The meat birds are down to 22 in number, and those that are left seem to be doing well and are indeed meaty. They are hefty girls who, it seems, weigh just as much as the full-grown layers. Over the weekend we staked out a fence by the woods and moved the tractor inside there so that we can open it up during the day and let them wander as far as they choose (which, we're finding, is not very far).

:: Jim has done quite a lot of work in the orchard and only has two more trees to drop. Lots to cut up and move, but he's made some great progress and we're still hoping to get to a point by winter that it will be in a good place for planting next year.

:: We haven't been able to do as much preserving this year as I would have liked. Due to a few things it just hasn't worked out. But we did get a good batch of peaches canned, I'm working on freezing most of our great crop of peppers, we had quite a good time picking lots and lots of blueberries and some raspberries as well. This past weekend picked quite a few apples, too, which are now waiting to be made into sauce and butter and dried apples, not to mention a few pies and crisps.

And that's a small bit of what we've been up to. There is never a dull moment! And as always, though we may not be as good at keeping in touch as we would like, we always enjoy hearing what you're up to as well!