When the economy hurts the local grower. . .

i love my wife. She is such a gracious and loving partner!! As we
learn to cope with the passing of our friends (they are moving not
dead) we have been talking about what the ol' homestead might look
like in the coming year.
The new chicken coop is all but done. The birds have moved in and are
looking a bit happier, minus the fact that they have to be 'cooped up'
(forgive the farm-pun) for a couple days so they know where to come
home to at night.
The turkey flock is officially established. The 'Big Five', as we
refer to them, have a date with destiny in middle November. They are
the big five because they were and emergency purchase after the great
raccoon raid of '08 liquidated our our flock in the course of just one
night. These 5 are giant white turkeys, a breed that has over the
years been raised so that they maximize growth and breast meat at the
cost of all things natural and beautiful. The largest of the birds
will have a dressed weight of about 40lbs, but is completely
incapable, because of it's massive size, of breeding naturally.
Likewise if grown (the way they are supposed to) they will eventually
grow to large for their legs to support their body weight. The good
news is that they are not genetically enhanced (how that is possible i
will never know) and we will have them butchered long before they
loose the ability to walk.
In the meantime our replacement flock arrived and are doing well. They
are heritage breed Narragansett and Standard Bronze birds, capable of
walking, breeding, and even flying!

So why does my wife love me?? Well, in spite of the dismal failure
that was the garden this year; overgrown with weeds, and completely
neglected after i allowed myself to become way too busy this year, she
has consented to tripling the size of the garden next year (we are
gonna need some more compost). There must be something in the water. .
.wait. . .i don't think that was water.
This summer reminded us that we have allowed ourselves to stretch
ourselves so thin that we have forgotten a lot of the things that are
so very important to us. One of which is providing a portion of our
food (and food for all of the wanderers that make their way by the
homestead).

So that's the news. . . for the moment. i apologize for the lack of
photos recently. i will try to get out this weekend. Honestly i am
getting in the habit of not having access to a computer at the house,
so all of my posts will be from my secret remote location. A land
where i wont be able to download photos. . . for a while at least.