Three years already!

Joe and I celebrated our third anniversary with a day of running errands. In honor of the special occasion, we spiced up our adventure with various yard sales, a visit to a pizza buffet and a new wheelbarrow. The new wheelbarrow part is very exciting as we have been squeezing every last drop of life out of a wobbly, duct-taped excuse of a wheelbarrow for a while now (I guess you can't ask for much more out of a dumpster find :).

We left the dogs at home and put Lily on her tie-out as the chickens were loose. She seems to have no culinary interests in the chickens any more, but we still weren't confident enough to put her to the test while we were gone, especially since the new "teenage" chicks are free-ranging as well. When we got home from our errand-running, however, Lily came running to greet us with a 2-foot section of cable hanging from her collar (she didn't chew it, the cable just had a weak spot). She had no blood or other signs of fowl-play on her, and a quick chicken head count showed none missing! In fact, we may have successfully converted her to vegetarianism as we found her munching away at the lettuce in the garden a short while later. (The half a groundhog she brought home the other day may negate that theory though.)

Speaking of chickens and predators, the bear has not made a reappearance, that I know of anyway. Joe is back on the premises exuding man-presence (apparently an effective bear deterrent) and Lily and Wilson are doing an excellent job of barking a lot. Our little tiny chicks have grown into small chickens. The big red hens are pretty nasty to them, and they split into two factions when free ranging, but they are all sharing the coop nicely at night. Joe has been forming a special bond with one of the chicks in particular (she was getting picked on a lot by the big hens) and has trained her to eat out of his hand and sit on his shoulder.




It really tickles to have little beaks pecking at your hand!


This was the greenhouse last week. Now that we are past the last expected frost date, most of these are in the garden. We were able to give away 57 tomatoes this year, and we planted 24 ourselves!! :)