Misadventures in Wanna-Be-Farming

This week has been...hilarious. There's really no other word for it. 

Darran built Ellie and Fiona a nice big pen out by the creek. With this being such a dry year it's the only place that's green and has enough groceries to sustain them. They have lush green to eat, plenty of space to run...it's a goatopia really. 

Ellie and Fiona's thoughts on it:

Alrighty then. Moving on...


Top on my list of things to start this spring was a strawberry patch. I love strawberry patches. My uncle had the biggest strawberry patch when I was growing up and since then one of the things I've wanted most in life is a big strawberry patch. What can I say? I'm easy to please.


I was so excited when I had pretty much killed everything else, but my strawberry patch was thriving!! 

Then, I saw this strange plant growing at one end. It wasn't a weed, but it wasn't a strawberry and it was in my strawberry patch! Darran said not to pick it, that it looked like a pumpkin, squash, or cucumber. My bet was pumpkin. You see, we had mixed some of the soil that had been composted by the chickens into the strawberry patch when we planted it. Last October we had fed the jack-o-lanterns (which had been grown with heirloom seeds) to the chickens. One of those crazy heirloom seeds had planted itself in my strawberry patch via the dirt from the chicken pen!

Yep, it's a pumpkin.

The dang thing is on steroids or something.

It's completely trying to snuff out my strawberries.

It's overgrown several strawberry plants.

But, I leave it be because with the luck we've had with the garden Darran thinks it may be one of the few things that produce.


So, we'll have tomatoes and pumpkins come fall I guess. Oh, and speaking of tomatoes:

They've finally started to put on tomatoes!

The gate to the tomatoes on the north side of the house has been open for weeks. We figured out that the goats and chickens don't much like tomato plants. In fact, they'll go in and eat the weeds around them. Nice. Anyway, Red chicken doesn't go in there. At. All. 

Darran weeding the tomatoes with Red's help.

She's a good helper.

Unless one of us is in there. Then she's right along with you the whole time. Scratching and pecking, rooting around, and just going to town like a kid at Christmas. Then, when we leave, she leaves too. Silly Red.


Oh yes, and speaking of Red chicken! Darran was putting a new door knob on the back door (much to Fiona's chagrin, she had just about figured out how to open the previous lever-type one. I wish I was kidding.) and Red chicken spent the whole time trying to sneak around him and get into the kitchen.


One last thing...We've had two more new additions this week. Yesterday the boys came bringing home frogs from my parents' house. Darran promptly built frogtopia:

Shall we take bets on whether Fiona teaches the frogs a thing or two?

Life is funny. We are grateful.