I had a plan for my day and it had not included fruit but what a welcome blessing. I sat everything else aside and started preparing the pears and canning them. We ended up with 12 pints and 1 quart. (I ran out of pint jars.) There was a bunch of scraps from this ordeal, the peels and cores and a few whole pears where the bees had done too much damage. Oh but the chickens had a field day with the yummy treats. =) Sunny decided she likes pears too so I gave her a couple, one she ate and one she kept to play with. Now when we go out to the barn she grabs her pear and wants to play keep away. Dixie was not as interested in the pears, I think it was too much work for her to have to chew, she is a funny dog.
We have an enclosed back porch with storm windows but it still gets pretty chilly out there. I am in the process of putting the shrink wrap stuff on all of the windows to hopefully create a warmer environment. We bought a five shelf stand and plan on buying one a month until I have four to connect together along the long wall. I have some of my plants on the shelves at window level and will make a curtain for the bottom shelves to store canned goods and material. I am hoping to make the porch a makeshift greenhouse so I can start all my seeds early. It will also be a good place to sprout wheat berries this winter for a green treat for those silly chickens.
We finally put a timer on the light in the chicken coop and it works fabulously. The light comes on at 5am and goes off around 7ish at night, this way they can continue to have the 14 hours of light to continue to lay. They seem good with it. Blue gets so tickled at them because when you go out to the coop the bird herd hurries towards you to get some treat, usually clover. Well the ground is hard and they sound like a basketball team running. I went out a couple of days ago to turn over some of the dirt in the run, they love this. It gives them fresh ground to scratch at, it helps keep the soil cleaner and oh the bugs and worms to be had with each shovel of dirt. The problem is that they try to stand on the shovel in order to be the first bird to get the treasure. I have to be very careful not to cut someone's toe or beak. They are nuts I tell ya.
Saturday morning I headed out to the coop to let the chickens out and on the way was surprised to see I was being stared down by a big white cow. Now I would love to have a cow, but I don't. So who was this visitor to Redbud? On further inspection I found there to be about a dozen cows behind my barn. Turns out that they belong to a neighbor I did not know and the cows had broken a fence that I was unaware of. I called a neighbor that I knew had cows and he figured out who these pretty animals belonged to for me. It was cool to meet new people and as I took pics of the visiting bovine, it seems they are camera shy, they headed back towards the hole in the fence and kept everything low key. The fence has been mended and all is good. Part of me thinks the cows left so gently because somehow they knew they were eating the chicken's clover and if unleashed those birds would go all Kung-Fu on them for that offense.
The leaves have been turning beautiful colors lately and we have been grabbing every opportunity to capture some of that beauty with the camera. I so missed having Fall and trees when we lived in CO. I just wake up everyday feeling blessed to be here.
I have continued to work on crochet and sewing projects. The school needed winter items for baskets to be auctioned off. So, not having a ton of money these days, I decided to crochet some items. I made a scarf for each basket and then the kids said that nobody was bringing stuff in so I made a stocking for one and for the other made a beenie in school colors along with a Harry Potter Scarf Bookmark in school colors. I was going to do some mittens as well but figured maybe they were tired of me sending in homemade stuff. I hope it was ok. I am working on a hanging clothes organizer for Daniel so he can pick out his clothes for the week and each day have it's own shelf. I had some green heavy fabric that will match his room nicely, I will post a picture when I am done with it. I am sure that Sarah will want one too, just so everything is Even-Steven, and I have some dark denim fabric with whith hearts on it that I could use for hers. I wish I knew a good place to buy fabric locally. Wal-Mart doesn't have a fabric department anymore and I have not ventured too far to look since we are down to one car.
The kids want to plant popcorn next year. Yea! I also want to plant more sunflowers since the harvest from this years plants was so good. We ended up with a gallon and a half of seeds that I processed after taking some out for next years planting and the ones that Taylor stole to give to the chickens. We also stapled a few heads to posts for the birds. I am thinking of doing a Sunflower house with the kids. So the walls would be Sunflowers and maybe Indian Corn planted alternately in the form of a large square. Inside we would plant herbs that have a relaxing scent when crushed and on the outside planting a companion flower along the walls. I think it would be fun for the kids to have a living play house.
