Fun on the farm!

Boy, has it been a whirl-wind summer! Seems like Frank and I are always coming or going! We just ended a lovely visit with Frank's brother Jim and his bride Mary. We got to spend some quality time with them (I had never met Mary before), part of which was during a short trip to Victoria, which was beautiful and enchanting as always. Back here on the farm, we introduced those city folks to the joys of rural living. This included giving the watermelon rinds to the horses and donkeys. They love to see us coming with that green plate full of sweet treats for them!


A big milestone on the farm today was that the little white chicks ventured outside for the first time at the ripe age of 5 weeks old. I had been letting them out to roam the barn the last few days, but frankly, I was getting tired of them leaving little chick poopies all over the place, so I'm ready for them to move out of the barn. Here they are being fascinated by food that actually moves (a bug!). They figured out quite quickly that moving food is tasty!


I could not have asked for a better momma hen. She has been so good at teaching them all they need to know and they are surprisingly obedient when she calls or warns them. Here she became alert to something in the yard and one of the chicks made sure to look too.


The chicks kind of crept out of the barn in little groups today, so I wanted to show you that there are indeed still 5 chicks. I THINK there are two roosters and three pullets, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that outcome. One of the little roosters sounded like he was choking this morning so I looked at him to see if he was OK, and he was actually trying to crow! What a funny little guy! So far our resident rooster, Colonel Sanders, has made contact with the chicks and he has not shown any signs of aggression at all. Let's hope it stays that way for a while and until I decide what to do with these two unnecessary boys.


Two of my neighbor kids came over today (the girl is also my excellent farm sitter) to just hang out, so we got to work shredding some of the excess zucchini from my garden. My friend Ange told me that if I froze them in three cup bags, that once they thawed and the water is poured out, that would leave me with the two cups of shredded zucchini that most recipes call for. So that's what we did. We got 6 packages to freeze and with the two cups left over we quick whipped up a chocolate zucchini cake that we took to a cookout at their house the same evening. They had fun getting their friends and neighbors to try the chocolate cake they made but didn't tell them it had zucchini in it. It's a good cake and I managed to save one piece for Frank when he gets home from Boise this evening.


I'm having so much fun with my new truck! It actually sent me an email the other day telling me I had only 32 pounds of pressure in one tire when it should be 35. Too funny! It also has a voice activated phone in there: I just say DIAL and then the number and it takes care of it! Talk about hand's free. So now I can still say I don't have a cell phone, but I do have a cell truck!

We have one more get-away (to San Diego) this summer before we hunker down and get to work at our respective jobs. The same on-line high school that Frank works for hired me to teach two classes of English. (This should eliminate the need for me to substitute teach for anyone except my favorites.) Gotta love a job you can do in your jammies! Needless to say, there won't be any pictures of that!