End of August Farm Happenings

Posted on August 31, 2026 by Donna

This is the bag I have been using to carry the calf’s milk bottle and my coffee each morning.  In the evenings it just has the milk bottle.  It helps me carry them upright while I have to carry other things to the barn.  But I won’t be using it much longer. We have weaned Jameson off of the evening feeds and are only doing the morning feeds until our current bag of cow milk replacer runs out.

Still distributing apple bits.  The sheep do like them.

Yesterday, after I feed the calf his bottle, he tried to nurse off of Louella.  She kicked him pretty well. I thought it was so funny.  He should know that she doesn’t have any milk.  This is the photo from after it happened.

I thought these were pretty flowers in the alleyway behind our barn.  I don’t believe I had noticed them before.  It is a common mallow per my PictureThis app.  It’s funny how you can walk by a plant for a long time and not notice it.

Our rooster, DWB, is looking regal in front of the barn.  He is by far our oldest rooster.  He is the lowest in the pecking order but seems to be holding his own.

The pretty white moths are back in the back yard.  They are so magical, almost like little white fairies.  I also happy they are here again this year.

Today the peacock was looking pretty in the barn lighting.  I am so happy we have another peacock after our previous one was killed.  Unfortunately, like our previous one, he doesn’t like to be locked up at night so I am concerned.

Today I finally got to trimming the goats’ hooves.  This is Mr. D looking handsome with the sunshine behind him.

I was admiring his fiber.  It is so soft and pretty.

I made Pork Schnitzel for dinner last night.  I cut the bones and superfluous fat and meat off two pork chops and pounded them with the rolling pin to flatten them.  Then coated them in flour, eggs and panko.  They fried in peanut oil and came out amazing.  A really good use for pork chops in our opinion.  So today we had leftover schnitzel so planned on making sandwiches with this.  Tom really surprised me by coming home with arugula saying he wanted to put it on his sandwich.  He has always called green leafy vegetables “rabbit food” and refused to eat it. I am blown away.  But it really did elevated the sandwiches.  Good job, Tom!

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Autumn in August

Posted on August 28, 2026 by Donna

It is feeling like fall around here.  It was starting to feel like that at the end of July with cool misty mornings and lots of spiders and their webs.  But now even more so.  I was picking blackberries and really admiring these flowers.  I haven’t appreciated them before.

I am thinking that the garden is looking good.  It’s not producing as much as I would like, but it is pretty in a way.

The clothes line tomatoes are starting to produce too.

The birds are enjoying plum pieces.

There is a pretty rose in front of our house.

The cow herd is looking good too.  The trees’ leaves are starting to change.

And leaves are starting to fall.

The turkeys like the apple bits too.

The goats even look good on the grass.

Our goose couple like their morning bathes.

Our old wether Bambam moved into the back half of the barn.  We will see if he likes it.  The other sheep that were with him on the pasture aren’t very nice to him.  Now he is with our disabled ewe Vanessa and our two goats.  We shall see if this combination works out better for him.

I thought the back of our house looked good in the sunshine with some flowers blooming on the porch rail.

After finally recovering from my bee stings, I found this site that describes Yellow Jackets.  I learned that what I have been calling Yellow Jackets in our greenhouse and other structures are actually paper wasps.

I know about bald faced hornets as I have been stung by them a couple of times.  But didn’t realize this is what their nests look like.

And I didn’t realize that Yellow Jackets are ground nesting.  The nests are actually leftover from the previous year but only become obvious to us when the bees become more active in the heat of the late summer.  So it was definitely Yellow Jackets that stung the heck out of me recently.

Our fig tree is actually starting to grow.  Every year I think it is going to die, but it doesn’t.  So now I have some hope.  And I have a fig newton recipe ready for the day when we finally get figs.

And this morning there were two coyotes running together on our back fence line.  This is new for us on our camera to see two at once.

 

Finally, I finished this book as an audiobook on Everand.  It was fascinating to me.  It is the story of a man who decided in 2012 to start sleeping in old slave residences.  He started out in his home state of South Carolina but ended up in other states too, including northern ones.  He learned a lot about the history of these places and the ancestors who stayed there.  And he was able to teach about these topics too. He is trying to encourage the preservation of these historic sites.  He interacts with descendants of slaveowners too, some of which still own the properties, encouraging them to preserve them, provide education about the influence of the slaves on the history of these properties, and help with identifying the previous occupants of the dwellings.  I know I have ancestors that were slaveowners and even was able to see the outside of the kitchen outbuilding where one slave lived.  I also came across records related to slaves that my ancestors had including a sale of a young “mulatto” child that was born on one of the properties.  I have been reluctant to pursue this history because I am scared it will lead me to conclude that my ancestor raped the child’s slave mother and sold the child, separating him from his mother at a young age.  But now I have the courage to read these records and confront the truth.  I may have African-American cousins that are the descendants of this evil.  It is hard to stomach this as well as the white privilege that I may have due to the kidnapping and enslavement of innocent people producing wealth for my ancestors.  But confront it I will try to do.

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Beef is What’s for Dinner

Posted on August 23, 2026 by Donna

Tom picked up our beef on Thursday when I was at work.  Half went into one of our upright freezers, and half which was for sale went into our chest freezer.  On Friday Mom and Al and friend Denise picked up their meat.  On Saturday our chiropractor/friend picked up his.  This is ours.  Like having a loft full of hay, having a freezer full of meat is a good feeling.

So last night we had New York steaks with our green beans and baked potatoes (from the store).  It was all really amazingly good.

In other news, I finally got the opportunity to drive the Mount Vernon Westside bridge on Monday.  It is being repaired, repainted and is limited to one direction.  Currently it is westbound.  This is a huge disruption to so many people and divides the town in half.   But it was dramatic to drive on it and hear the progress being made.  This is the bridge we protested on last year.  I will look forward to it being restored.

I thought this turkey looked cute among these flowers.  It turns out they are Stinking Chamomile per my plant app.

I have been feeding the birds Neon pumpkins,

blackberry leftovers,

and peach leftovers.  They have been enjoying it all.  It turns out that my disabled sheep Vanessa loves peach leftovers too.

This is Roscoe hanging out by the tractor.  He has been hanging in the area and periodically bringing a dead baby rabbit to the back porch.  He is quite the hunter, leftover when he had to hunt to survive.  But now he doesn’t eat them.  It is sad, but it probably is helping keep our rabbit population under some control.

Louella keeps getting closer.  This is while I was bottle feeding Jameson.

On Friday, Tom finally got to go to the Tenino Vintage & Antique Motorcycle Swap Meet & Show. He has been wanting to go for years so finally made it.  He said there was good showing, and he was able to purchase some important parts for his vintage motorcycle restorations.

That meant I got to do the chores myself.  I am appreciating our goose and gander.  Our goose is blind, but the gander is half blind.  He really looks out for her though.  It is nice to see.

I decided while doing chores to rinse off the barn windows as it was a warm day and this would allow more light to come in during the winter months.  It turned out to be a stupid idea as I got too close to a hornet nest in a hole in the ground, and they came after me.  At least two got under my shirt and stung me badly as I was running away.  So I now have stings on either side of my chest where bra straps go, adding to the fun of it.  I have been icing and Benadryling but still suffering.  I have large local reactions to bee stings like my mother so more challenging than the average bee sting.

I did manage to pull up a bunch of morning glory from our front yard that evening.  I hate morning glory.  It is worse than blackberries and ivy.  Here’s the pile I managed to pull up.  Nasty plant.

Yesterday I did the chores alone again.  I appreciated the new peacock finally developing his colors.  He is looking pretty.

Tom went on the Tiddler Ride with the Washington Vintage Motorcyclists.  It was a little rainy, but they had a good time.

I took the opportunity of Tom being gone and the cats and dogs being outside on Saturday to rent a carpet cleaner for our rugs.  It did a great job, and the house feels a lot cleaner now.

Today I noticed Priscilla had a blue face.  She apparently had fun with the cobalt block.

Wally was looking somewhat feminine on the back porch.

Denise had given me a couple of cabbages.  I have some, but they are pretty slug eaten at this point.  So this was nice.

So for lunches I made a variation of Peach Pecan Coleslaw.  I cheated and used store bought coleslaw dressing.  I added some cherries that were lingering in the fridge.  But the chives and peaches are ours.

I continue to make 4 – 5 lunches at a time using mason jars.  With perishable items I use a vacuum sealer that my mom got for me that really seems to help.

Today after chores and lunch, we picked plums.  Our trees produced almost nothing this year as well as Tom’s sister’s tree.  So we resorted to public plum trees that no one picks.  There were a lot of plums already on the ground, but we were able to fill a large tote of them.

Then we walked to the south fork of the Nooksack.  There were lots of little fishes jumping.  Ryeleigh got more than her toenails wet.

The view was impressive.

That is what has been happening here on and around Schoonveor Farm.  I hope you had a good week as well.

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