Sunday, June 12, 2011

Gardens, Guineas, and Tractors


What a crazy, busy week we've had!

Wait a minute. I've said that before. Let me rephrase that statement...

What another crazy, busy week we've had! Again!

The sun brought heat to the party, so the garden is up and running. Actually, it's currently trying to outrun the weeds that have seemed to have overtaken the potato patch, but it's green, so it counts. My Mister was concerned about his pasty-skinned family baking in the sun, so he erected an awning to protect us. I love that man!

Must be break time.

Kentucky Wonder Green Beans

First-time apples on the tree!
The dandelion wine finally finished fermenting and we were able to "rack" it.


I'm unclear as to how it got the name of "racking", but for my Mister, it brought back memories of high school when he had to siphon gas from the lawnmower to put in his gas tank.

Now we wait for the wine to settle again before we'll bottle, cork, and age it.

Recycled wine bottles

Well, it's official. Tilly-mook was NOT "with calf". However, while she was happily noshing on some wet cob, the AI man was altering the course of her life forever.

Tilly didn't seem to mind, but personally, I found the whole process rather disturbing.

In retrospect, I should've provided the viewing audience with blindfolds.

"Did he say, 'Next'?"

If you've never had the pleasure of listening to a guinea fowl make a ruckus, let me enlighten you. A guinea fowl who senses danger, makes a noise that can only be described as nails-on-a-chalkboard-while-chewing-Styrofoam-as-bamboo-rods-are-being-shoved-into-both-ears-with-the-dentist-pulling-every-tooth-from-the-mouth-without-anesthetic-while-giving-birth-to-an-800-pound-child-sideways.

And, the danger doesn't have to be real danger. Guinea fowl make a lot of assumptions. So, I was a little distressed (to say the least!) to find this...

Good grief~she's an overachiever!

Thankfully, a project that my Mister & I have been working on is finally finished.

Meet The Country Kitchen.

A traveling salad buffet for the chicks and roos!

Of course, the tractor isn't limited to just chickens.
Soon the turkey poults will be grazing on grass and grubs.


Please don't tell the guinea fowl!

Next up for the tractor is 25 meat chicks due to arrive in a week.

I guess we'd better get started on a second tractor!

This post is linked The Barnyard Hop.

4 comments:

Our journey said...

Love the tractor!! Awesome! :)

Anonymous said...

I had to laugh at your description of a guinea fowl's bleat. A neighbor owned guineas when I was a girl, and we could never quite identify the haunting screech as accurately as you have. Apparently, guinea fowl are also excellent protectors who zoom down on intruders from tree branches. A deadly combination of fearsome noise and audacious attack.

Lisa said...

So sorry about the sunburn... We all got hit with one here last weekend, too when the warm weather hit. Good job on the chicken tractors! Our poultry pen is parked this year as the hubby decided we had too many other projects to finish around our place. :( Blessings, ~Lisa

Monica said...

You made me laugh! Thank you! Hope your week slows down some.