So yesterday we resumed our farming again after our vacation.  I noticed that the “chicks’ were really hungry and were out of food.  I was suspecting that the farmsitter was not feeding them enough, but this morning it was the same.  They are just eating a lot!  I took this photo in an attempt to count how many birds we still have.  It seems like less, but I have such a hard time counting them.  I counted 26 here but when I fed them some bread bits I counted 33.  So we are probably close to the 36 that we are supposed to have.

After animal chores we picked berries.  A lot ripened while we were gone.  Tom picked the blueberries, and I picked the raspberries.  My right thumb has been really painful.  Any touch on the tip of it causes a tingling pain that is unbearable.  So I got to pick the raspberries with my left hand since I do not know how to pick berries without the use of a thumb.

I went to my doctor in the afternoon to have my sutures removed.  As I had suspected, one of the sutures was through a nerve.  He had to inject me twice with lidocaine to remove that stitch, and it still hurt quite badly.  My doctor feels that this nerve pain will resolve this weekend.

I noticed large cauliflowers in our garden, so for dinner last night I thought I would try to make a cauliflower pizza crust.

The first step is to use a food processor to make “rice” and then bake it in the oven for 15 mintues.

The rice then cools, and you need to squeeze the moisture out.  Then you add spices, an egg and some grated parmesan.  Here is my crust after baking 25 minutes.

Unfortunately I was supposed to flip the crust at this point and that was a failure.  Next time I am going to add more egg and cheese, baked it on a pizza stone and not flip it.  Although it wasn’t pretty, it actually tasted good so seems like a good use for all the cauliflower we have this year.

After dinner I froze the raspberries, blueberries and peas that Tom shucked (I haven’t figured out how to shuck peas without a right thumb).

Today my thumb is no better.  Bur we did take on a project I have been intersted in which is weighing one of our hay bags to figure out how much we already have.

I bought a hanging scale for this purpose.  Here is Tom hooking it up to the tractor bucket with chains.

And here is the weight.  It was less than I had hoped.  So we are estimating that we have 1500 pounds in the bags plus there is more loose hay, so all told less than one ton.  That was a lot of work for < 1 ton of hay!

The chickens did like the leftover cauliflower, so that it good.  They are not very fond of pea shells though.

After animal chores, I went back to berry picking while Tom is doing an extensive amount of yard work (mowing and weed whacking).  Despite the drought, the lawn and weeds are still growing.  I have my right thumb well bandaged and cover with an XL glove to keep from hurting it.  So again left handed berry picking which definitely cuts into my efficiency.  Here are some pink currants I am going to dry,

And even more blueberries.  There are still a lot more that need picking.  These will be frozen this evening.

Finally, the zucchini are starting to be ready.  I am making dried zucchini chips with them.

So I can farm somewhat without using my right thumb, but it is a challenge  But I am looking forward to being able to use it again.