My girls were holding out on me again!

I didn't get a picture of it this time, but I found another stash of eggs again!  I only found two in the nest boxes so I went looking.  Sure enough, I found another pile, behind the tomato cages and the wheelbarrow.  I pretend I'm irritated that they've hidden them, but it's really pretty cool to find a them. 

Very busy weekend...

This weekend was awesome!... Full of work accomplished but I still managed to squeeze in a few visits with friends.  I've heard or read somewhere that my name means "industrious bee".  My mother couldn't have known I would live up to it, but I feel I have.  Much to my husband's chagrin, I squeeze everything I possibly can into every day; and this weekend was no exception.

Busted!

Look at the pile of eggs I found behind a couple of rubbermaid containers that some of the stubborn Lakenvelder chickens insist on roosting on.  I had one of our chickens hide eggs before.  She had convinced us that we lost her and by the time we found her, she had acumulated a pile of 26 eggs.  Luckily this time, I found them before they went bad.

We also harvested honey this weekend.  We removed the boxes weeks ago, but we rented the extractor and "jarred" our honey today.  It's absolutely beautiful.  I feel a little guilty though, stealing the fruits of their labor and consuming it so quickly! 

I also had a small flower job this weekend, 8 centerpieces for mom's board meeting.  Then I moved the rock pile from the back yard, had bark dust delivered, rototilled above the retaining wall, moved some compost up there from the compost pile, rototilled again, We got a ton & 1/2 of hay yesterday and put that away.  I changed out the bees Apigaurd, moved the straw bales out from in front of their hives.  I think I'd rather find another way to block the wind.  There were mouse tunnels through the bales and I don't really want to encourage mice that close to the hives..  They'll be a nice addition to the compost pile though. Went to Amy's for an Envy party, didn't find any jeans that fit, but bought a little clutch.  Then stopped by and visited with Mike and the boys.  I got to feed them and spent a little time crawling around with them.  They're so cute!   Jas' and I drove the flowers for the board dinner down to Salem tonight, got to seem my mom for a nice little short visit.  :)  And now I lay here with very heavy eyelids, not wanting to get up early in the morning. :)

Catching Up

Tonight I had a nice surprise, 4 eggs from the young chickens! :)  The chickens were hiding them in a new spot. The last few nights, I've been mowing until dark.  I wanted to post pictures of the sunset, but didn't have time to stop and grab the camera.  We moved the cows to the other pasture tonight.  Took a bit to convince them to go, but it was pretty uneventful.  I swear, nothing gets my knees shaking faster though, than having one of them startle! 

Another night of shopping

Shopping for furniture definitely does not afford me the personal satisfaction that a  night filled with weeding, collecting eggs, and cleaning up a brush pile does.   Believe it or not, these things truly give me a sense of satisfaction, a job well done, a good honest night's work. 

The good news is that I think we've narrowed our search and my treks to the West Side of town should be coming to an end.  Jason made the comment tonight... It would be cheaper to just cancel the Harvest Party. Because we decided we definitely need new furniture before inviting people over)  I said, ok fine.  He laughed, which means he understands that he pushed my buttons and he'll let the topic drop. 

I know he'll have a blast, he just doesn't enjoy the anticipation and preparation as much as I do.  He will enjoy the jobs he's finished though...

Goodnight for now. Hopefully I'll have something far more interesting tomorrow night. 

TGIF!

When was the last time you got this call,? "I need you to get home as soon as you can, one of the cows has wire wrapped around it's neck!"  Poor Jas' he was so stressed.  He successfully got the wire off of the heifer's neck though with no injuries, thank goodness!  I'm really pretty impressed with this feat. Just the other day, I could barely get them to eat out of my hand.  That's how uncomfortable they are around us, but he got close enough to cut the wire and make sure she was ok. 

Tonight was the perfect type of night.  Nice and warm outside, lots of crickets chirping and a clear sky.  I love it!  Yesterday we harvested 7 frames of honey.  I haven't extracted them yet, but they're sitting on my dining room table just waiting to be "spun".  There is nothing better than the smell of honey and bees wax.  Anytime I walk past the dining room I get a whiff of it and it smells heavenly!

Tomorrow is a day of pampering, oh and furniture shopping... I'm finally using the gift certificate my friend Kelly got me for Christmas for a facial.  Yay!  Thanks Kell!

Karma???

I find myself wondering about Karma tonight...  Jason and I went to collect honey from the bees tonight and we dropped our brand new camera in the grass by the hive.  I'm sick to my stomach thinking it's permanently damaged.  I'm thinking of Karma because here we are "stealing" honey from our hard working bees and trying to take pictures of it and we drop the camera.  Hmmm....
Oh well, I think my wonderful husband has definitely taken giant steps to redeem his Karma.  We accidentally brought a bee in on the frames, that buzzed angrily around the dining room lights for a couple of hours.  I gave Jason a pitiful look and said, I feel bad for that bee.  He actually took two glasses, trapped it and walked it "home" to the hive.  I love him more every day. 

Today I decided to change my blog name as I was standing there trying to coax our heifer/steer into another pasture.  I thought, I feel dazed and confused most days on the farm and decided, "that's it, that's the name of my blog, FARM dAzE!"  So, yeah, that was one of our adventures tonight... convincing the cows that the next field over was much more attractive and they should go there, quickly.  OH CRAP!  I just remembered I forgot to turn off the water to their water tank...  Be right back. 

Um, yeah, who says you can't water your pastures by overflowing the water tank?  Sheesh, see what I mean?  Dazed and confused...

Anyway, the cows are successfully moved to the next pasture over and that's about all I accomplished tonight.  I did manage to get a workout in... But other than the bat that flew in and out of the garage while I was working out, that wasn't very exciting. 

One of the best parts of the day was hearing Jason singing, "It's time to go to bed, it's time to go to bed" to the goats as he was bringing them to the barn.  It was very cute.  :)  I love my farm boy. 

Gotta love three day weekends...

Today got a little slower start, 9:30!!!!

I cleaned out our garden shed today, it looks great! It'll be even better when it's done being built. I also spent some time sitting and just listening to the bees, at Jason's advice. It was great. The sun was out and they buzzed around trying to get the last bit of pollen for the year...

I had the best surprise today too, our first egg from the baby chickens! :)

Also, cleaned up the backyard, cleaned out the fireplace, made a new Mediterranean salad recipe from Sunset magazine, also made a new chicken corn chowder recipe for dinner that I had almost thrown away the night before while reorganizing my cook books. Oh and... made a blackberry cobbler. Speaking of, gotta go, that should be cool enought to eat now. :)

Do you ever start out the day thinking, I'll get this, that and the other thing done today and before you know it, it's 5:00 pm and time to start thinking about wrapping up the day? My list of things to do usually includes things like, weeding, canning, finishing the retaining wall, mow the fields, reseed all of the pastures, move the barn. You know, the usual stuff. Unfortunately, I'm not Samantha and a wiggle of my nose gets me a good laugh, but that's about it!

So, today began like all of the others, hoping to get a ton of things done...

Off to the Milwaukie Farmer's Market to get Akane apples. My friend Elena informs me that those are the best for apple sauce. I talked my wonderful husband into joining me for my outing. Pouring down rain when we first got there, but the sun was out and it warmed up nicely within 15 minutes. As always, I end up with way more than I intended to buy at the market... Fresh baby carrots, 1/2 flat of blackberries, a Key Lime cheesecake from Zoe Anne's cheesecakes, bacon from SweetBriar farms and, oh yeah, the apples!

So, when we got home around 1:00 (after a side trip to Home Depot and Freddy's) My attention was split between canning applesauce and darting outside between showers to clean out the garden shed so I can help Jason w/ his project too (putting the finishing touches on the storage closet on the North side of the house). Yesterday a smashed my pinky finger between two large boulders so it's still pretty puffy, but I started bending it right away after it happened, so it's blue, but still working. Anyway, I digress...

I finally got started canning my 24 lbs. of Akane apple around 3:00. God bless the person who created the Apple Corer/Peeler/Slicer! :) I shared the peels and cores with the goats, chickens and cows. The cows didn't quite know what to think. They sniffed and licked a little. I didn't have time to wait and see if they ever ate them. They were pretty doubtful about the sweet stuff though. The goats and chickens loved the scraps.

I ended up with 20 1/2 pint jars and 10 pint jars of applesauce. I tried a new recipe and added a little bit of Allspice and vanilla. Jason thinks it's great! Thank goodness, since I mostly do it for him.

I also canned about 8 1/2 pint jars of seedless blackberry jam. It turned out really good too. I let the jars cool too much though, because I was doing multiple batches of applesauce. So, when I put the jam in, one of the jars burst and the bottom came off. What a mess, but I processed the batch anyway, jam in the water and all.

So, despite frequent distractions, I got my original goal accomplished. It's always cool to see the outcome of a hard day's work. Hope your day was productive too!