The corn is getting tall!!



The baby chickens are now big enough to play in the run by day. Eventually we will have a rotating pasture system going for them, but for now we want them close to the house where we can keep an eye on them. We have already lost two (mysteriously vanished). Taz sometimes whines with excitement around the chickens, and a few times he has pawed at the fence, but otherwise he is behaving himself.



The wildflower seed mix we bought is such fun... every day a new flower comes up.



Some of the blueberries have ripened... they are pretty good! They could be sweeter, I think because they are so small. We made fresh chamomile/peppermint tea and it was DELICIOUS. Chamomile has so may uses... it calms the tummy, helps you sleep, and can be used as an anti-fungal (on your feet, on your cloth diapers, on your garden plants...).

A wet May turns into a hot June

Ash thinks he saw some swallowtail caterpillars on the fennel today... so exciting to see the increasing diversity!! We have created a lot more habitat a lot more quickly than I thought we would. We have seen a lot of cottontail bunnies and a lot of black snakes. I'd like to see more birds. I know that a fresh water source is important for birds so I'm hoping to get a bird bath soon.

It has been unseasonably hot in June, following an unseasonably wet May. It has been in the upper 90's all last week and this week! It's still getting down to the 60's at night.

The chickens are growing very fast! They now have wing AND tail feathers, and are constantly trying to fly. We have an outdoor play area for them, which is basically a dog crate with the bottom taken out of it. We let the dog spend as much time as we can around the chickens to further train him to be gentle with them (he always has in the past, but you can see he is tempted!).







At least one of the the apple trees are producing again!



The corn is doing well and the beans have sprouted, so that's two of the three sisters. Hopefully the third sister, pumpkins, will go in tomorrow.



The sun chokes seem VERY happy where we've put them.



And a friend brought us some trees and plants... the small plants are mostly medicinals (marshmallow, thistle, umcka, fennel, gynostemma, hyssop, and I can't remember the others). We got an apricot tree and three cherry trees!



We love having visitors, so stop by any time!