As some of you know, we have a mini-horse named Fiona that we got several years ago for Liam to ride. It turns out, after a winter of riding lessons, that Liam does not appear to be a horse person. He has no desire to really do anything with Fiona, and she's just hanging out with goats, getting fat and lazy again. We had a long talk about her usefulness here, and decided that, since Malachi is absolutely enthralled with her, we should keep her, and try to work her at least once a week (twice in theory!) to keep her trained until Malachi is older.
The house addition is underway! The contractors actually got the foundation done speedily, finishing up last Friday, and we started work this Thursday. Caleb is going to take a couple of long weekends, and see how much he can get done. So far, Thursday and Friday have seen the floor joists and decking laid, the walls framed, and half the rafters set in place.
We have exciting (though daunting for us) news here at Solace Farm - our house addition is finally underway! There have been numerous delays, the norm for the construction business I know, but since we're only hiring the foundation dug and built (cinder-block) and then we're doing the rest ourselves, every month it got pushed back was extra-frustrating.
This past weekend was a momentous occasion on Solace Farm - at least for us humans. We finally got around to butchering the 50 meat chickens we've been raising for the last few months. It went really well, I was very pleased with it.
I periodically realize I have a number of little things that have happened around here to talk about, but not anything big enough for a whole post to itself. So, to catch up on those little developments, here's a week (or two)-in-review.
Every summer, I usually plant a few winter squash. I really like butternut, they just seem more prolific and hardier than many others. I get a lot of squash vine borers (grubs that drill into the stems and kill the plant) and squash bugs (beetles that eat the plants and damage fruit) and we don't use chemicals (and not many deal with these bugs anyway) so survivability is pretty important to me. This year, I planted a variety of butternut, I think it's Burgess or something.
July is when the garden really hits its stride, I've been cutting basil for a few weeks now and picked a few squash and okra, but the tomatoes in particular are coming in strong.
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The house addition is underway! The contractors actually got the foundation done speedily, finishing up last Friday, and we started work this Thursday. Caleb is going to take a couple of long weekends, and see how much he can get done. So far, Thursday and Friday have seen the floor joists and decking laid, the walls framed, and half the rafters set in place.