A Crazy, But Certainly Not Lazy, Day

After a bit of a lazy day yesterday, we got back on track today and were very productive.  

With help from Farm Hand Emma, we harvested wine caps and weeded the mushroom patch, we harvested mint, hung it to dry and weeded the rhubarb/mint patch, and we picked all the apples and ripe zucchini, squash and beans.

Ian did a few updates to the chicken coop to rat-proof it for winter. It is now Poultry Fort Knox. Fingers crossed that we do not have any more rat problems.

I sold a trio of our Indian Runner Ducks.  These ladies have been lovely pets but given the number of laying hens that I plan to overwinter (plus a gigantic turkey), I need to downsize our total number of birds.  Besides, as much as I love ducks, they are messy animals.  We will only be keeping two ducks over the winter, our half blind duck Kate (Seamus calls her Quack Quack and absolutely loves this duck) and a friend for her.

We had a visit from Barber Jordan for backyard haircuts for Ian and the three boys.  This was Alistair's first cut and he was not a fan but he sure looks adorable with his new big boy under cut.  Everyone wore their masks like a pro.  It is a crazy world we live in when masked mobile barbers are the new thing.

Alistair got into a fight with the door stopper and the door stopper clearly won
(note the huge Bandaid on this forehead).

We also had a quick visit from Ms. Kerry, Jack and Clara who were craving a little donkey love.  They gave Charlie a thorough brushing and then moved their attention over to Ava.  Ava is shedding out the last of her undercoat and she very much appreciated their grooming.  I think we gained an extra dog worth of fur in the heaps and heaps of fluff that they brushed out of her.

Finally, Ian sauted up our this morning's mushroom harvest along with some of our onions.  This will be combined with venison and made into a pot pie for supper later this week.  We also canned five jars of sweet pickled beans, four jars of cowboy candy, four jars of pickled peppers, and two more jars of dilly beans.

Holy smokes it was a busy day and there is still so much left to do!  At least I feel like we got something accomplished today.  With all this done, I feel ready to tackle another busy week of harvesting and canning here on Gael Glen Farm.  

Thanks to everyone who lent a hand today.  Your efforts are appreciated!