Happy Little Surprises

Yesterday I mentioned that I had not been able to snap a photo of our come-and-go barn cat, Cheerio because he is very shy.  A couple hours after I posted that story, Anna texted me to tell me that she had, in fact, snapped a photo of Cheerio while we were at the beach.  He was lounging on the pad on the top of the barn refrigerator.

She stood and chatted with him for about two minutes, from four feet away.  Maybe there's hope for him yet!  He looks like he could use a little loving, doesn't he??

Yesterday was the big introduction day - introducing the new adolescent hens to the rest of the flock.  As we do every morning, we opened the door to their house and they came running out. 

 This time, instead of viewing their yard-mates through a net - they came face to face with them.  It was rather anti-climactic... neither side being interested with the other.

Later, when I walked toward their house, the teenagers all turned tail and ran away.  If only I were a chicken!

After morning chores, we walked up to look at our free-stone peach trees.  For the first time since we planted these trees years ago we were able to harvest peaches.

More fresh peaches were a happy surprise - surpassed only by the discovery of more ripe blueberries.

To celebrate this happy discovery, I baked fresh blueberry-peach scones for breakfast.  If you are ever in need of a great scone recipe... This one is excellent!

We also started to cut and clean the garlic that we dried from this year's harvest.

Many of these bulbs are as big as my fist, and this is only a third of our harvest.

Over the summer I have harvested and dried a lot of calendula flowers.  Yesterday I used some of them to make an oil infusion.  After a little time in hot water on the stove, I placed the jar of oil and dried flowers into a crockpot of warm water for the night.  There are two ways to infuse herbs in oil - at room temperature in the dark for many weeks, or more quickly with a warm infusion.  Because I am hoping to soon make more orange calendula soap and calendula salve, I need the infused oil to be finished sooner than later.

As I write this, we are receiving heavy hurricane-remnant rains.  Our rain gauge reads 2 inches for this evening.  More rain is in the forecast - so life will slow down a little around the farm for the next few days.  Luckily, the temperatures have fallen to a much more comfortable range - so that's wonderful!

Our swollen pond now boasts 17 ducks... 17 and rising - just like the water!