This is very cool.

www.dearphotograph.com

Twinkle, twinkle...

I noticed that the fireflies have come for summer. I had to climb onto the gate in our backyard so I could see over the grass that comes up to my shoulders, but I saw our pasture is full! It was such a beautiful sight. Hundreds of little green lights sending flashing telegrams to one another.

If you want to witness this amazing yet simple display of summer, you are more than welcome anytime. Rob might even break out the guitar to add to the ambiance like he did tonight.

Reuse

I am going to let you in on a little secret. For Christmas I received a book called The Complete Tightwad Gazette. No I was not gifted the book because I am cheap (even though I am), but because I asked for it. I like to be thrifty. Anyways, this 4in thick manual of thriftiness is FULL of great ideas on how to save money, reuse common objects for other purposes, and to enjoy the things you do have. I have to admit I wouldn't do everything in the book, but there are a lot of things I have changed since reading parts of the book.

Here is a great tip:

You know when you buy a bag of fruit from the grocery store, they come in those mesh bags. They look like this:

Well, what do you do with the mesh bag when the fruit is all gone? You can save it to put other things in it OR you can use it to do a little scrubbing. YES! I have been using one of the mesh bags we had for doing dishes. It is such a wonderful tool. Really! It scrubs so well and it is gentle. So, don't throw that bag away... clean something instead.

Ladies and Gentleman

The yellow hen is Henny Penny (Buff Orpington). The black and white chicken behind her is Tatanka (Silver Hamburg), he is a rooster. He is pretty bossy, cocka-doodling when it is time to go to bed, when it is time to wake up, and if we let the hens out to run around. The other photo is Ribbons (Barred Rock) and Elenor (Black Astralorp). They love to be outside, and love to eat spaghetti squash.

Fruit and Berries

When we bought our place, we knew there were a bunch of different fruit trees. Possibly some other kinds of berries or fruit, but weren't quite sure. It was wonderful to see everything coming to life this spring... or not. We had quite a few fruit trees that didn't make it. They were in pretty bad shape (not being taken care of over the past few years), so Rob had to take them out. We did replace some trees. We now have a new combination apple, patten pear, peach, and cherry. Here are some pictures of the plants that are producing well so far. Grapes, black raspberries, strawberries, and apples. I can't wait to taste them all!

Edible Flowers

One of my friends was having a bake sale for her niece. I decided it had been a while since I made some sugar cookies. So since the bake sale was the first of June, I made some pretty flower cookies. Here is how they turned out. I had a bunch left over.... so we got to taste them. They were pretty good.

Homegrown Chicken

Here is our first taste of the chickens we raised. Rob took charge of the cooking. It was pretty tasty. We cooked them on Memorial Day so that we could share with some family.

Butchering Chickens

Rob and I raised 23 broilers this spring. We had some dog kennels already set up in the big shed, so we put them in there. It was crazy to see how fast they grew. A couple weeks ago we took them out to Marlin's farm to butcher with the help of Rob's mom, aunt, and two uncles. We only did about half of them the first time because a bunch weren't ready yet. That was ok. We would have been at it all day! We did the rest a couple weeks later. Here is a picture of the group making the game plan. I decided not to share any of the actual butchering pictures, I thought some people wouldn't care to see those.

Flowers in Bloom

Some iris, daisies, and little purple flowers that I am not sure of. Anyone know what they are?