Pick, process, preserve is the summer mantra from 5 Acres & A Dream and is a great description of our farm life now.  A couple of days ago I pulled all of the flax.  I laid it out while I figure out the next steps.

I picked a lot more green beans and processed them for freezing.

I also pulled radish that I had let go to seed in hope of preserving the seeds.  Now I need to figure out the next steps for this as well.

We also harvested our poor golden plum and peach crops.  No preserving needed there unfortunately.  I also picked blackberries and have them fermenting.  I continue to eat the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower, and squash.  The pigs and chickens are still enjoying  a pumpkin per day each.    The corn still looks sad.  I am not sure there will be any preserving there either.  But I am busy enough with what I have got for now.

After consulting with Tom, we decided to try again to move the young poultry with the hope of avoiding any more tragedies.  The white turkeys are out in the barn again,

The 15 surviving hatchery chickens are back out in the “pheasant pen” with the Narragansett turkey.  I rewarded them with bagel bits.

The 15 hay loft chicks and the young turkeys from Eliz are staying in the “weasel-proof pen”.  They actually can roost now as they are not competing with the older chickens.

Plus they got new shavings and bagel bits as well.

The pea chick is surviving in the rabbit hutch with its mother.  The other two eggs have not hatched and likely won’t.

The thing that I didn’t appreciate until this morning is that this chick is yellow.  All of our other peachicks have been brown.  So now I am wondering if this will be an albino.  A white peacock would sure be interesting!

In other news, we are enjoying leftover ham from dinner on Saturday.  I baked it with our home canned pears from last year.  It is yummy.

And Tom drove to Whidbey Island today and brought back these treasures.

I haven’t been blogging about it, but he is quite successfully restoring and selling vintage Honda mini bikes.  These will both be restored and likely sold for a decent profit.

These bikes came with some parts and this book.

So that is the news from Schoonover Farm.  Wish us luck with the picking, processing, preserving and poultry uncertainty.