Monday, July 2, 2012

More Sheep, Chickens and a Dog

 These are the boys. Abraham in the front, Alfie in the middle and Axel standing, guarding the chickens. They are so big. They were all born in March. Alfie and Axel are more of a hair sheep and Abraham is a Finn. He's so handsome. And the friendliest one of the whole bunch of lambs. I may keep him to use for breeding Lucinda and the ewe lambs in the fall.
Axel and Abraham.
 The chicken yard. It's pretty big.  They have plenty of room to roam. The bottom picture is the back so it is an L-shaped yard. They have eaten every blade of grass in there though. When I mow I will put the bagger on and throw that grass in for them. They love it.
 The 2 new Americana chicks. They still won't go out/ Here they are behind the cage, safe from the mean ole big chickens. It's the darker little one that is being bullied. Hopefully that will stop soon.
 And here is Stella Bella Luna. She comes in with me to see her sheep. I will keep her with me when I come into the ram yard. They are young and nice right now, but they will not stay that way. And there are 3 of them and only one of me. So she will help keep them back away from me when the time comes. She loves her sheep. And they tolerate her. I need to learn some sheep herding commands for her. She knows "back"  and "out" and "that'll be all". I learned that from Jenna at www.coldantler. She's a good dog.

South Garden

 This is a shot of the South garden, again looking at Pigeon Mt in the background. Such a beautiful view. The sheep pasture is beyond the garden to the right.
 And this garden gets watered. I soaked it good last night and also fertilized with manure tea. So hopefully it will revive. I am picking some squash but not many yet.
 These are some purple peppers. They are so pretty.
 And some yellow peppers. Yes, they are supposed to be yellow!
 And a beautiful patch of my favorite flowers, zinnias. Love them! You just can't have too many of these around.
 These are Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. The best ever cherry tomato. SO GOOD!
 Poor tomato plants. They are do needing a good rain. But full of tomatoes. And they are amazing and juicy!
 Some of my grapes. And talk about good! Yum! And seedless too.
And of course have to get my sheep in here somehow. Lucinda is up at the house in the shade so she didn't get in this picture.

North Garden

 This is my North garden. It's quite yellow, in meed of a good soaking. No rain in weeks. Although we did have a little strange pop up storm last night and the ground was a little wet this morning.

So these are the beans. Kentucky Wonder and McCasslen pole beans and Blue Lake and Italian Roma bush beans.  They are all starting to come on really good right now. The Roma bean plants are so pretty and full of flowers.
 You can see how the bottoms are yellow in this picture. But they are full of big pretty beans.

 This is looking at the chicken house.
 This is looking at Pigeon Mt. to the East of us. We are in a beautiful valley with Lookout Mt. to the West behind us.
 Pretty bean vines reaching for the sky. You can see some holes where the Japanese beetles are having dinner. Then they are dinner for the chickens later. The chickens love those nasty creatures! I take a bucket and go down through the rows and shake the beetles into the bucket. The chickens are standing at the fence waiting for them to fall from the sky for them to eat up every evening.
These are the field peas. You can just see the pea pods and the pretty purple flowers. These plants love the heat and they look great. And are FULL of nice young pea pods. Can't wait to pick some.

So this is the North garden. In full production right now. I am picking cucumbers daily. There is a sweet potato patch to the right but it's very weedy.