Beautiful Fall

We have had such amazing colors on all the trees this fall. It has been absolutely breathtaking. I find as I get older, I notice more of the natural beauty around me. I took so much for granted when I was younger. All that was noticed was the 'things' and 'stuff' that I had or I wanted. Thank God that He changed my way of thinking!!

All the beauty around me.........

Lainey says "Pllllllllttttttt...." !!!!!!!!

Have a great week!!

Beth

Foggy morning and first frost

We have had a couple of very foggy mornings of late and we have also had our first frost of the season. After the frost, I cleaned up the garden and got the chicken coop goodies put on and also leaves from the front yard that we collected after raking. It was a very hard day Saturday, but well worth it. Now everything is tucked in for the winter. The coop is clean with new wood shavings in it so let the winter come, I'm ready!!! If you look really closely in the first picture, you can see our banties roosting on the gate into the pasture. They refuse to go into the coop, so on the gate they roost!!

We have a chicken in the kitchen!! Our banty hen was sitting on a nest of about 13 eggs and our dog Bonnie ran her off of it. Well, she wouldn't go back to her nest so we put the eggs in the incubator. Out of the 13 eggs, only 1 hatched out and it's not even a banty!! It's a Buff. Because it was by itself, we opted not to leave it in the brooder box in the garage, we brought it in and put it in the terrarium and it's having a ball in there. We have named it Kitch because it's the Kitchen Chicken!!

We went to the Farmer's Market yesterday after church and had a wonderful time. I just love that place. We have to travel over an hour to get there so we usually make a day out it (or at least a very long afternoon!!) Yesterday we got a 40lb box of sweet potatoes that I have already put in the cellar, 4 lbs of pure cream butter that I have already gotten divided into smaller wedges and put into the freezer, a really pretty hatbox that looks wonderful on my sofa table and a wooden sign that states "It's a Wonderful Life" that I put over the doorway from the living room into the dining room. Sam bought a huge amount of pecan praline fudge that he will divide with his cousin so we all came home happy and content. Caylon bought Lainey some lavender spray to go on her sheets at night. We all love the smell of lavender so I might be borrowing it at night to go on MY sheets!! We came home and I fixed a BIG pot of potato soup that was all gone by bedtime last night!! I had hoped to be able to eat it for supper one night when it's just Caylon and myself but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Oh well.

Well, time to sign off and go check on Lainey-Lu!! She is snoozing away in her crib.

Til next time,

Beth

Happy Fall Y'all

Happy Fall!!!

Thursday, already!!

I just can't believe it's Thursday. Time is flying.

Lainey is doing wonderfully. She is doing all the baby things: eating, sleeping and filling her diapers full!! She has started making small baby sounds, the gulps, gurles and oooohhhh sounds. Sooo cute. She is 10 days old and has already fixed herself in all of our hearts.

There is not much going on around the homestead, other than Miss Lainey. I took down all of my tomato cages and let the chickens go wild in the garden. They cleaned it up pretty good, now I just have to get the 'stumps' of the tomato plants dug up and get the chicken coop goodies spread over the garden. We are going to be working in the coop this weekend, getting it winterized. We need to repair the door where Larry, the goat, tore it up. The door gets new boards on it and a new latch. The gangplank from the coop to the ground needs to be reattached to the back wall of the coop. Ruby uses that for her bed at night and she's about got it tore off. We are also going to add a roost or two to the goat shed so our "toddlers" can roost in there at night. We are moving them from the mini-coop to the big coop and then putting our 4 chicks into the mini-coop from the brooder box. So much musical chairs around here!!

I have 2 pie pumpkins baking in the oven right now. I'll get the meat of those scooped out and frozen for pies this winter. I also need to get to work on some apples but those will have to wait for another day.....I have a baby to hold!!

Have a great weekend.

Beth

Baby Lainey is here!!

Lainey Beth Michelle was born on Monday Oct. 8. I was the labor coach and Caylon did such a wonderful job. After 15 mins. of pushing, Lainey made her debut. She weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz and is 20 inches long. She is a big girl!!! She came home from the hospital on Wednesday morning and she has been doing great. She nurses like a champ and is sleeping well at night, only waking 3 times during the night. Her mom is recovering well and is doing great.

Isn't she just adorable??

Beth

Saturday morning

This past week has been busy. I've been trying to get everything done before the BIG day. I've decluttered, cleaned, organized and straightened up until there's not much left in the house!! Sam is all out of sorts because I've moved "his stuff" and he can't find it.

Caylon is moseying right along. Her feet and ankles are swelling a little more now than they were and she's got "chunky toes". She tried to paint them last night but didn't get too far. I'll have to help her later on today.

I got my last bucket full of peppers from the garden. I'll spend today getting them in the freezer. Other than a few tomatoes left on the vine, there's not much else out there. I turned my chickens loose to clean up all the tomatoes that had dropped to the ground and the peppers that had begun to shrivel on the lower half of the plants. We turned the 9 "toddlers" out with the rest of the flock and they seem to be doing very well. They look so funny. I just sit and laugh at them. We have 4 chicks still in the brooder box that have another couple of weeks before they'll get turned out. Now I have 12 banty eggs in the incubator that have 2 more weeks to go. We had a banty hen, Pixie, that was setting on them but she got up and walked off, so we had to drag the incubator back out. I hope some of them hatch. We have our regular flock of layers with one rooster, 2 "teenagers", 9 "toddlers" and then 4 chicks. I know I could use the correct terminology , but it is so much easier to say teenagers or toddlers and then everybody in the family knows who I am talking about!!

I decorated some this week for fall. Our side porch always looks so neglected so I cleaned up all the cobwebs and dead leaves and spruced it up some. It sure looks better!!

Well, my on-line time is drawing to a close so I'll say Goodbye!!

Till next time!!

Beth

Long time gone

I hadn't realized that it had been over a month since I have last blogged. Man, does time fly!! I have spent my time away doing the normal summer things--mowing grass, tending to animals, canning veggies and trying to stay cool. The garden is winding down so all I am left with are the tomatoes and some peppers and the weather isn't as hot so I don't have to check on the animals as much or fill waterers every couple of hours. The nights are cooling down now, in the mid 50's and the days are staying in the 70-80's so the weather is tolerable. I just love the early days of autumn.

My daughter, Caylon, is expecting her first child in a couple of weeks so we've been trying to get ready for that. We've gotten the crib set up and the dresser full of nightgowns and sleepers. We're all excited and just can't wait for Lainey to make her debut!!

I'll leave you with a picture of the little mama. She's counting down the days until the 'birth' day.

Hot, hot, hot

Those are the words that I have heard repeated from everyone's mouth for the past couple of weeks. We are setting records around here for high temps that have been set in stone for 60-70 years. We have also set a record for the number of days over 100*. Blech. Those are not records to be proud of, in my opinion.

My tomatoes are hanging on by a thread. Everything else in the garden has pretty much dried up. I run the sprinkler on my tomatoes every couple of days, just to provide them with a little drink of water. I hope to be able to keep them for as long as possible.

The animals seem to be doing o.k. in the heat. When I check on them in the pre-dawn hours, William and Ruby are out in the pasture, running around and playing. The chickens are out and about, the roosters are crowing their heads off. They seem to enjoy their early morning play time. By mid-morning, they are in the goat shed, enjoying the fan that I have blowing on them.

Tonight is the first high school football game of the season. It just doesn't seem possible that it's that time of year again. Football games mean autumn and hopefully, autumn means cooler temps.

Picture of dawn across my pasture. The best part of the day.....just ask my animals!!!


Stay cool,
Beth

The Past Week

Whew. What a week. We have had temps into the 100's and very high humidity too. If I didn't get my outside work done by about 9:00, it just didn't get done this week. It has been miserable. The tomatoes are loving it though. They look like small trees in the dark and the green tomatoes are very abundant. The squash has fizzled and the cucumbers are dwindling down too. All that's left are the green peppers and tomatoes. That's fine with me, I'm dwindling too!!

Onto the animal news. We had a close call with Punk this week. He tried to escape his "holding cell" and got caught under the fencing. I don't know how long he was stuck under there, but at 102*, it didn't take long before he was in some major distress. When I found him there, he was totally limp but every now and then he would jerk, like he was seizuring. I got him out from under the fence, doused him with cold water all over his body and laid him in the shade. By dusk, he had roused up some and when Sam came in that night around 2:am, he was up, enjoying a "salad bar" meal in the garden. I told Sam to tell the guy he works with that he can't have Punk now. He will live out his days in the backyard, separated from the other chickens so he doesn't pluck their feathers out, enjoying life as a retired CEO of the barnyard. Willie and Waylon, my 2 other roosters, are figuring out the pecking order and have come to an agreement over the hierarchy and things are settling down in the chicken world now. Sir William and Ruby, the goat, have become friends and are now inseparable. Ruby was scared to death of William for the first few days but now, when you see one, you see the other. They have been spending much of their time in the goat shed where the fan has been blowing non-stop for the past week.

I have canned many jars of tomatoes this week and have frozen another gallon of peppers. I have also canned 6 pints of sauerkraut after letting it 'sour' for a month or so. It's very tangy and good. I can't wait to have it for supper on a cold winter's night.

I'll leave you with a picture of my sunflowers. Very tall and majestic, they guard the garden and provide shade for the banty chickens.

Till next time,
Beth

Sir William is Here!!!

Well, we have another member of the Moore Acres roster. Sir William, the miniature horse, joined us yesterday morning. We got him home around 11:15 and FINALLY got him in the pasture. It took a lot of pushing from the rear and pulling from the front to get him to move. He is one stubborn colt. He spent the rest of the afternoon running the fence line and pacing the gate, whinnying and crying for his mama. I couldn't get him to drink any water and that concerned me because it was about 95* yesterday and he just kept galloping around and around the pasture. He was wringing wet.

This morning he is MUCH better. He will actually come to the gate when he sees me walking toward the pasture and let me pet him. As I was filling up the water trough, he was waiting to get himself a drink so I feel better about things this morning. He has picked out a shady spot to spend the afternoon and is not crying for his mom anymore. I think he's going to work out just fine!!

This is Sir William and Bonnie becoming acquainted. Bonnie isn't quiet sure what to make of William. She knows with the goats to stay away from their heads because she will be butted. Well, yesterday she was walking BEHIND William and got kicked!! She is going to have to figure out the differences between a goat and a horse and which end is the dangerous one!!

Tomatoes and cucumbers

Yesterday was spent in the kitchen. After picking a bucket of tomatoes and a few cucumbers from the garden, I got busy.

I made garlic dill pickles out of the cucumbers and from 10 lbs of the tomatoes, I got 8 half pints of sauce. Gosh, that is some good sauce. I made it extra spicy, just the way we like it.

I hope you are getting some good tasting food out of your garden!!

Beth

Punk goes into solitary

We've had to contain our rooster. He has started plucking the feathers out of the backs of our hens, causing 2 of them to die from the heat. We weren't sure who the culprit was until I opened the coop door one night and caught him in the act. He will be going to a new home in a week or so with a man that works with Sam, so until then, we had to build a 'holding cell' of sorts. We ran fencing across the corner of our pasture, making a triangular shaped area. We divided that space in half, creating 2 'cells'. Punk was captured and put in the holding cell for the duration of his stay with us. He seems to be doing o.k. with his new living quarters. Our ladies will walk over to visit him on occasion, clucking from the freedom of the big pasture.

Today will be spent mowing grass and canning pickles and tomato sauce.

Beth

Back to Blogging

Welcome to Moore Acres. I've got a lot of learning to do about blogging so here I am. Things might be pretty bland around here for awhile, until I get settled.

Some things about us here at Moore Acres. I am a stay at home mom to a 17 yo daughter and an 18 yo son. My husband is a long distance truck driver and is gone the better part of the work week to Florida. We try to live as close to the 'simple' life as possible. Our animals include a flock of chickens, a Boer goat named Ruby, 4 rabbits that we will start breeding for meat, 6 dogs that rule the place and a cat named Toby that we're trying to convince to become a goat shed cat. We will be getting a miniature horse this coming weekend to help keep Ruby company.

Thanks for visiting.

Beth