Down on the Farm on the Hill

My first job each morning is to take the dogs out.  Some days it is just for a stroll around the house, but every other morning we take a long walk up and down the hills and through the woods.  Yesterday morning, before I could get the dogs out the door, my dad arrived with his little dog, Daisy.  We will have THREE dogs here for the week!

After Daisy got settled, the dogs and I slipped out the back door.  They did their business while I fed Bert and Lizzie, the cats, gave them fresh water, and cleaned out Lizzie's litter box.  The dogs and I wandered around the side of the garage to check the chickens.  Kali and Stella sniffed around while I opened up the chicken coops and filled their water.

Back in the house, I fed and watered all three dogs, then got a workout in on the elliptical before rousing the girls.  Once we had our breakfast, the girls went outside to feed the chickens, check for eggs, and clean out nest boxes if needed.

J and I played with Lizzie kitty for a few minutes before heading down to the hedge row to gather some elderberries for the chickens, (who happily gobbled them up.)  Lizzie, meanwhile, made a crazy dash down the hill and disappeared into the sticker bushes in the hedge row.  We tried to coax her out for 20 minutes, then I made my way via a deer path behind the wall of sticker bushes to chase her out.  It may have worked better if the girls would have stayed out to catch her, but it wasn't long before I ran into J thrashing through the bushes from the other direction.  We were never able to flush her out.

The girls and I got bottles of water and headed to the garden.  Our poor potato and onion plants were killed in the heat and drought of July.  I tried digging the potatoes a couple of weeks ago, but the ground was too muddy after the week of soaking rains that followed the drought.  We dug almost 15 pounds of potatoes altogether.  Sadly, the yellow potatoes did not stand up to the lengthy burial as well as the reds.  Most of the potatoes are small, and most of them are the red variety, but given that we planted 2 pounds in the Spring, I guess we still came out ahead.

We pulled about 10 pounds of sweet onions as well.  There are still quite a few in the ground that still have green leaves, so hopefully those will keep until Fall.  Again, we planted 1 pound, so we gained quite a lot!

After breaking for lunch, L, the dogs and I, headed back down to the garden.  L and the dogs sat in the shade of the corn while I mowed the paths.  A little garden snake wiggled out of the grass beside the mower and surprised me.  I didn't see him again, so I hope he made his way to a safe spot for the time being.  Finally, L and I picked enough corn on the cob for dinner before heading in for showers.  While we were down there, J finally coaxed Lizzie out of the sticker bushes, and returned her to the veranda where she resides at the moment.

L and I took the dogs into the shower with us, since they were smelling more like dogs than I prefer.  All 4 of us emerged, clean, shiny and fresh smelling 30 minutes later.

For dinner that night:  hamburgers on the grill, fresh tomato slices from the garden sprinkled with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and fresh basil, and corn on the cob.  Delicious!

I go to bed every night completely exhausted.  Reflecting on one day on our "farm" lets me know that I have every right to feel that way!  It is a lot of work, but most days, it feels right.