Fitzgerald's Family Farm is a mini farm located in beautiful Potter County, PA, known as "God's Country," dedicated to raising fruits, vegetables, and critters in an earth-friendly manner.
My neighbor let me know that a bear had got into his round bales and torn some of them up. Bears and bees go together like peas and carrots so I thought I better take some precautions.
We charged up the bee fence battery so it was nice and strong.
And then we mowed and weed wacked the bee yard to make sure nothing was grounding out the fence.
As an added deterent I hung a little bit of ham on the wires. It gives a nice strong shock when a bear (or other critter) touches it with their nose or tongue and hopefully encourages them to run the other way!
Due to the work before, during, and after the Eliot Ness Fest to set up "Jack's Place" (the Rotary Club's "Speakeasy" fundraiser) the garden got away from me a little bit.
Cucumbers went wild! I picked everything that was ready to be picked or overgrown. I gave away, canned, and we ate the produce that was not overgrown and terribly seedy, and the rest went to the chickens and the compost pile.
I picked what the Japanese beetles hadn't decimated. The chickens got a nice snack on the yucky ones.
Then washed and froze a quart of fresh berries.
And made blueberry bread with the rest. I like to use this mini loaf maker from Pampered Chef because it is dangerous to have full-sized loaves lying around with just two of us in the the house!
The bread was VERY good. I used a quick and easy one bowl recipe.
It's the busy season for me now, so I think I'll post daily projects as I'm able.
Yesterday's project was taking care of some of the piles of cucumbers produced by my garden.
I LOVE bread and butter pickles. I like to use the recipes from the Ball Home Preserving book because I know the recipes have been well tested and, if directions are followed, are safe to consume.
Yummy recipe.
Spice mix.
Cucumbers and onions draining.
The finished product!
I like to work in small batches so that I'm not slaving over the stove ALL day!
I apologize to my readers for the long delay in posts. Things have reached an insanely hectic level and blog posts tend to trickle to the bottom of the to do list.
As well as all the farm activities, I've been very, very busy with Coudersport, Pennsylvania's Eliot Ness Fest on July 19, 20, 21. You can find more information about the Eliot Ness Fest HERE.
I look forward to things getting back to a semi-normal pace after the Festival!
In my efforts to downsize and do better at the things that I do I decided to give my turkeys - the adults and babies - away to a young man whom I know to be very good with animals. The turkey pen had become a muddy mess and I thought hard about the time and effort it would take me to get it into a nice living environment and decided I didn't want to put in the time.
The turkeys were cool as could be and I'll miss listening to their gobbling and watching them strut. But it's time.
I have a dear family, horses, beekeeping, an enormous vegetable garden and yard, fruit trees, chickens, swimming pool, cats, dogs, maple syrup production, community involvement, and running a house to keep me very busy.
The husband and I have become empty nesters and would also like the opportunity to do a bit more traveling!
I've been working with Lochlin (Loch) with desensitization training and part of that is taking him for walks. We were going through a forest and suddenly his head went up and he snorted. I never realized how much this log looks like it has mean eyes.
We looked at it and walked gradually closer until he realized it was nothing scary - just a log. But it sure does look kind of like a scary monster eyeballing you.
My turkey hen has been laying eggs and I've been gathering them. I gathered six eggs before one of the other turkeys decided to bust the rest. Very frustrating. Out of the six, I was able to hatch two little ones. I didn't expect any because there had been a problem with the heat source to the incubator. It was a surprise when one of the eggs started cheeping. Here is a picture of turkey chick number two hatching. I apologize in advance that you have to turn your head sideways. The tricky part is raising these little (I hope) girls to adulthood. Turkey chicks can be very delicate.
We have now added our second Viszla to our family. Our adult (almost two-year-old) is named LadyBird and our second girl is named Anna Belle. She's as sweet and mischievous as can be. I've heard Viszlas called "Velcro dogs" because they always want to be with you and that is definitely true!
We've gone through horse shedding season. Bandit is a furball any time of year. But at the end of the season, one could stuff a mattress with the amount of hair that comes from him.
Maple season is over now and garden work and mowing has begun. Sometimes I feel like my nose is just barely above the water.
I was looking at my description on the right of the blog page and realized that it's a bit obsolete. My children have grown up and are both members of the U.S. Air Force - stationed in Washington state and Germany. I'm so very proud of them.
