Apparently the memo went out as several of our hens started getting broody this 2016! Sadly, the first mama stopped after 19 days (out of 21) and nothing hatched out. But the next two hens went to completion, and God graciously granted they each hatch out a set of quite a few chicks!
Here’s group 1. Sadly, yesterday I decided best to give a coup de grâce to one little one barely alive, but all of the rest are doing well it appears!
And group 2, all present and accounted for!
Then, one evening, one hen showed up walking around the open area in front of our barn with four chicks in tow! Surprise! So, we gathered them up and put them in the mini chicken tractor:
And here’s a video of all three groups:
We are always very grateful to God for the perpetuation of the flock, and the egg and meat provisions He grants from them! Here are some from the other day ready to be made into some chicken tortilla soup:
The Lord has graciously granted our garden to continue through most of the Fall. But, our first freeze came recently, so we took some final pictures…
We kept the beans going through the Summer, even though we had to water with pond water, but they never really did much after the beans we got in the Spring. But, the okra just kept going and going!
The tomatoes have kept going too, although about the only thing actually fruiting are the cherry tomatoes:
And here’s more okra:
With the first freeze on the way, about the only thing we could cover were the tomatoes, which we did, with double blankets in some places:
And here they are after the freeze. The double blankets worked really well! The rest of the garden plants basically were killed in the freeze.
That was about the last of trying to maintain it, with freezes coming and going, and we have had several light freeze nights, which have pretty much finished off the tomatoes. And so, this is the final garden haul from this year from just a few days ago!
We are very thankful to God for the garden provisions He granted this 2015! Lots of okra, which Sue lacto-fermented for long-term storage! Again, we are very grateful!
That time of year rolled around to where any pecans that were growing were starting to break forth from the green shells in which they grow on the trees. One of our trees has some, but something appeared to get to them as the pecans were eaten out. But the other tree that had pecans was okay, and so it was time to gather them in!
Here are some of them on the tree:
And then the 2015 haul!
We are always very grateful to the Lord for the least grain of food He provides, as each one is a miracle of providence from Him!
One afternoon, I was looking east out toward our chicken pen area and saw a hen with some little birds around her. My first thought was that some small wild birds were just hanging around her, but then thought, “Wait a minute….I wonder….” And sure enough, it was a mama hen with three little chicks in tow!
It always amazes me how a hen makes it out in the woods for three weeks sitting on eggs with hazardous critters running around to end up hatching some out. God knows though. 🙂
And so, we rounded them up and put them in the piano room, and they’re all three still healthy today!
Here they are:
And their video:
We are grateful to the Lord for granting this bonus hatching, His watchful eye on them the three weeks in the wild, and His continued granting of their health and safety!
The Lord has continued to grant some more chick hatchings this year, our tenth and eleventh! Both have an interesting story…
For these ones, the mommy sat for two rounds (6 weeks) before some chicks hatched out. We had her in the mini-chicken tractor, but I wondered if it was maybe too hot in there during the summer, so we moved her into the summer kitchen, and thankfully (I was hoping for at least just one so she wouldn’t try to sit another round) she did hatch out some — five in total! And thankfully all five are still going today!
And here is their video:
For this eleventh group, she hatched out five in the piano room originally, but then one day there were only three left, no bodies. Hm…with this one I thought maybe there was a snake about as we’ve had problems with them in the barn this year with sitting mamas. So, I moved these ones into the mini-tractor, and when I went back into the piano room, sure enough, I found a snake in the corner. Arg.
But, God’s will was we have the three, and all three are also doing well today!
And this is their video:
As always, we are very grateful to God for His continued gracious granting of these farm and food provisions!
Another hen went broody this year, and so we put her in one of the little fence pens we have in the barn stall. At one point it looked like she had fewer eggs under her than I originally thought I had put under her, and then one day, the hay on the ground around her was scattered about, and so were some eggs. We had had a couple of young chickens die in a barn stall chicken pen before, where their heads were slicked back, and figured that a snake had tried to swallow them but found them too big. Well, I figured our barn snake was the culprit here, so I moved her into the summer kitchen with her eggs, and she hatched out three!
And here they all are, a bit grown up as you can see, still doing well, with thanks to God!
And their video:
As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these new provisions of chickens!
Back in June, we began to harvest the wheat the Lord had graciously granted us!
The Stongers graciously offered to help, so Mr. Stonger and the boys got out there and began gathering in the wheat. We started with sickles, but found we could just pull it up by hand:
Here I am tying the wheat into sheaves:
And here’s the first row done, with the sheaves put into stooks:
This is about a month later, mid July. Amidst all of the other projects around here, I was able to continue and do about another row before the weeds took over:
Then, it was time to get them out of the field and into the barn:
With us unable really to harvest anymore, the goats were able to enjoy the delectable delights of the overgrown field! 🙂
And here are most of the sheaves in the barn (I had already begun to process some by this time):
And speaking of processing, the next step with the wheat was to try to extract the berries. This is always the fun part. We’ve tried flailing in the past, but that just sort of ended up being a bunch of flailing more than anything else. So, this time, I thought I’d try a couple of different things.
I tried turning a bicycle upside down, pedaling it by hand, and trying to thresh the wheat in the spokes. This actually kind of worked, but not too well, and often the heads would break off. I also tried a harder rubber mallet, and that worked not too badly — good control, just a lot of pounding. Then, for some reason I thought to try a 9 inch, 2×4 block of wood, and up to this point, this has worked the best. You can control things so the wheat heads don’t bounce around, you can use the sides to cover more area, or use corner edges or even corners for more accuracy. It’s a little tedious, but it seems to work pretty well.
Here is a little demonstration video of that process:
We’re still in the threshing process, but hopefully at some point Lord willing it will be finished, and then it’ll be onto the separation process!
We are grateful to the Lord for granting the wheat, and for being able to continue the process of it, even for the physical strength to do so!
Heb. 11:8-10 - "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
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