Well, it has been a whirlwind of activity this summer! As we begin fall, we thought we would give you all an update! Well, this post should hopefully help you understand why we have been so quiet lately! The Goodyear house was completed in June and they were able to move in. There was definitely still some work to be done (staining stairs, runner for the stairs, decorating), and there is still more to be done (painting, more decorating, finishing the basement), but we are all incredibly grateful to have access to a kitchen and plumbing! We don’t have a lot of pictures of the house completed, but we’ll post what we have!

Alrighty, on to the animals! Let’s start with the rabbits again! We finished the bunny hutch…and wow was that an ordeal! But we got it done, and its currently keeping 2 does, 1 buck, and 8 baby bunnies safe and happy! We also have a third doe and 2 more bucks in a triple cage behind the hutch, as well as two more slightly older baby bunnies in yet another cage. We are running out of room for the bunnies that are multiplying….like bunnies! They are so stinking cute and adorable, and the kids may talk me into keeping one of them if I am not careful!

Piggies next! Well, they have certainly been productive and entertaining and given us a run for our money! e don’t have a picture of it, but when we first got the little hoggy rascals we forgot to think about the fact that we needed to get food an water down to them…across 5 acres. Sssoo we turned the kids play wagon into a pig wagon! Let us tell, dragging a wagon filled with a five gallon water jug, a compost bucket, and occasionally a kid is enough to give a person a serious workout! About halfway through the summer we were able to find a great John Deere drive tractor for cheap enough, and around the same time we got our old faithful John Deere tractor that was almost exactly the same as the one we had bought, and we were able to add the wagon that we already had to it, and make that set up our pig and animal vehicle, making animal chores so much easier!

We also set up a metal can just outside their pen and got an automatic feeder that holds 50 lbs of feed in it….which they go though in a day now! It’s crazy! We have been buying 150 lbs of feed every 6 days, and it’s crazy, but it’s made us some porky pigs. We knew we had apple trees on the property, but this year we found that we have close to 7 along the tree line and in the woods near the pigs, so we thought, oh hey, free food! They adored the apples! So much so that they escaped their pen!

Ok, so we have to admit that part of that was our fault, as our electric fence went out and we hadn’t replaced the battery yet, and it took them a while to figure out that the fence was down….they did realize it and I found them out on the property. When we tried to get them back in and they wouldn’t leave the apple tree area, thus leading us to rearrange the electric fence so their pen now includes the apple tree.

So now they are clearing the woods between the path and the pond, so, not such a terrible problem, once we figured out the solution. Speaking of clearing, they have worked hard this summer at clearing a good bit of our pond. We have a few pictures, but I have some videos from our camera that is down there, and we will post them soon (with any luck!).

And finally the fowl-life on the property has been getting some attention. So when last we left, we had been about to move some new chickens into the big pen with the rest of the chickens and we were figuring out silkies! Well, through a series of predator attacks we have only one green egger left, but she is a beautiful girl….who lays brown eggs, womp womp. The silkies are doing great, we think we have 2 roosters and two hens, none of them are laying eggs, and we have heard mysterious crows that are not the bantam roo. They are actually the easiest of the most recent additions to our little homestead. We also hatched some eggs at the kids homeschool co-op and we took three of them home. We are down to 2, and one of them is a beautiful roo!

Once we finally had some level animal keeping it was time for the local livestock swap, and we added 4 quail and 8 guineas to our little family this past Sunday! The quail are so cute and tiny, and we can’t wait to have fun with them. Their new cage is imminent and we have play tubes for them to hide in.

With all the new additions to our flock and the old coop needing some renovations we decided it was time for a new coop. So, while Grammi (Kathi) and Leigh Ann were away for four days in September, Matt, PopPop (Frank) and the kids decided to surprise the ladies with a new coop! It is awesome, and we are excited for the extra room and security for the winter. The next step is winterizing the coop and run, so more hay and more tarps will be reapplied soon.

Throughout the summer we found that chickens will literally lay their eggs anywhere if given the opportunity, they will run OUT of their coop to hide under the raised garden bed in the middle of a rainstorm, and they will try to fit two of them into one nesting box if they think the others are taking too long! We also learned that broody hens are more trouble than they’re worth! Twice we got almost to hatch day and something happened, so no more broody hens this year! We shall see about the quail and maybe the regular hens next year.