Planting Strawberries

Our computer broke 2 weeks ago and Apple fixed it and sent it back to us in perfect working condition...with the hard drive wiped clean. It was so frustrating but at least we have a working computer again.  So now I'm working on taking lots of pictures to make up for all the empty space on this machine.

The weather has been nuts. 40 degrees, Rainy, cloudy, then dry for 48 hours- long enough to nearly get some overdue outside work done, then an inch of rain last night.  Most of today has been full sun and over 82 degrees, now we're heading back down in the 50s with some storms headed our way. 

In the unexpected heat (Sorry Texas, I know 80's nothin' but it is hot for here!) we scorched our skin and busted our butts the past 2 days to get sod broken, one 100ft row tilled and prepped, holes dug, and 75 strawberry plants in the ground. We finished 50 plants at about 8:30 last night trying to beat the storm and the sunset.  We did beat the storm.    Then this afternoon we were surprised at how well the soil had drained throughout the day (cause you NEVER work soil when it's wet) and so we decided to plant the last 25 plants this afternoon. I really hope those are some delicious strawberries.

I ordered organic all-purpose, whole wheat, bread, and rye flours from King Arthur Flour today! That is like Christmas for me.   I'm trying to duplicate a couple of delicious breads Justin and I bought from a bakery in Boston. I'll let you know how it goes!

Until then, here's some pics from today's berry planting and our little family trying to beat the heat.

This is a baby Rhubarb plant.  Can't wait for pies!

She didn't like the water :(

more olga pup

Here's a few recent ones of the pup. She's getting bigger and more challenging every day! She recently destroyed her very first item which was off limits to her. One of my undergarments.  Awesome, Olga. You're not allowed in the laundry room any more!

She's cute and mischievous, very smart, and also pretty calm and chill most of the time. Except at 7:00 am, the moment we get out of bed. She wants to play instantly. She's learning "sit" and "down" and "leave it." She thoroughly understands "come" and very, VERY often chooses not to come, exerting her own will over mine, reminding me how silly it is that any living thing could "own" any other living thing.  Olga, it isn't a game for you to run away from me whenever I say "come," you adorable little turd!

On a sadder note,  she penned a chicken in the barn this morning. She wasn't trying to hurt it on purpose, to her it was just a really cool moving toy!  The poor chicken was directly under Olga and had totally given up to face her dreadful fate and Olga was pulling out feathers.  SO sad! (Mom, you're gonna hate us for this) Justin yelled at her like he hasn't ever done, leaped over the gate and popped her a good one on the behind. A really good one. She cried and cried but those two have made up.  The chicken seems to be okay, too. we couldn't find any blood on her, at least. A really sad lesson, but hopefully she'll never do that again.


Note to Hueco (Katherine) and Zoe (Aaron and Elise):   we need to see some photos of Olga's siblings!

OLGA!

We have a puppy, for those of you who were not aware.  She's our new little farm dog, Olga, daughter of Chloe, the goat dog at WHRI, sister to Zoe, Hueco, and Boone Shine. 

She really loves the snow.  it's a good thing cause we have a lot of it!

  Oh! check it out, I'm SNOW SHOEING!

If there's anything Olga loves more than snow it's horse poop.  Awesome. 

Right now she sleeps in the house cause night time temps are still in the 20s pretty often.  She comes with us to the barn every morning to feed the chickens, horses and goats. She helps us muck the horse stall and break the ice on the waterers. Then she stays in the barn, hangin out with the chickens until around lunch time. Gradually she'll be spending nearly all her time there protecting everyone.

Yesterday we went to Honesdale to pick up the farm truck (!!!) from the shop,  and while we were there, since it's a 45 minute drive to get there, we went to the grocery store and bought Olga some beef livers and chicken gizzards and hearts, YUM!  I've got sweet potatoes, carrots, kale, some raw milk and beef stock and I'm gonna cook her up some tasty meals, package them in freezer bags, and just take one out every day to feed her.  We'll see how this goes and how high the pricetag is on this new dog food, but I hope we can stick with this!

Isn't she cute?