A weekend of discoveries, growth, and firsts...

*I had to delete this post from yesterday 8/13/07, due to problems with the slideshow. This is the exact post, but I have listed links to the picture slideshows instead. my apologies to dial- up users.*

This has been a beautiful weekend. The weather was tolerable to stay outside all day and run barefoot through the freshly mown grass. Play hide and seek with the kids, and spend lots of time with the The Captain as a family. He spent the better part of the morning climbing the magic tree with the kids. Lil' man is not long enough to climb over to where the 2 swings are attached so daddy helped them all up. Poor frog wanted to climb too, but had to settle cradled in the lower arm of the magic tree. lots of new insect discoveries too. An inch worm (I think), a tomato horn worm, plus crickets and bees in the front sunflower garden.
The Muscovy babies are growing fast and the meat birds are not growing fast enough. they were to be sent off to "camp" next Monday, but i think we will hold enough till the end of the month. That should put them at 10 weeks which gives them 2 weeks from today for more growth. The Captain wants to keep 15 birds for their own date with camp in October. So no auction for them. We are still planning to keep 1 female out of the bunch- which will be easier to tell the difference at that age.
Slide show 1 link
Sugar pie pumpkins are up to 15 total. Some stems are still producing babies so there may be more. I had to pull 2 cherry tomato plants. I did not want to, but am now glad I did it. They were smothering an entire row of Roma's- hindering their growth considerably. Besides, I prefer the black cherry tomatoes and only planted these due to poor offerings in the garden nursery. Good thing my direct seeding in early June worked out. You can not tell they were started 4 weeks after I planted the store bought plants.
All Baby chicks are stand offish to us while the Muscovy babies have warmed up considerably. Why can't it be the other way around? We are keeping most of the baby chicks and eating the baby muscovies- once they are about 4 months old... Hmmm." I think I will cook up Speckles tonight with a brandy herb marinade and glazed carrots. Do you prefer rolls or bread sticks?"
Kinda makes me feel bad. But I continue to look at it from the perspective that the meat we raise has had a wonderful life in comparison to what is stocked on the store shelves.
Fernie is feeling much better. She has more strength- she actually pushed me out of the doorway, trying to get to the duck food. I thought it was Chia! So - YAY! I'm so glad she is pulling through. If Roseanna had not come up and helped her out,...Well i will continue to look at the positive
Slide show 2 link
Sweet dreams,
~Tammie