The harvest gears up

 One day last week, I saw an animal in the field after supper. At first, I thought it was a fox, but Terry said it was too big. In fact, it was a coyote. Terry gave me a minute to take some pictures and then went out to shoo it away from the chickens. You can’t be too careful.

Coyote in the field

The meat chickens are nearly as big as we want them to be. It’s been hot the last few days. When I went out to get this picture, they were all sitting in front of the fan in the coop, panting. I ordered straight run chicks this year, which means that they aren’t sexed. Hilda always ordered all males because they grow faster, and she wanted the best value for her money. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: no one needs a seven-pound chicken. When I ordered the straight run, I suspected that there would be a lot of females, assuming most growers shared Hilda’s attitude. It’s hard to get a good count of moving chicks, but it seems that we are close to the predicted 50/50 split. The females are lighter in color and have less of a comb.

The hen is the lighter brown chicken with small comb on the left. The other three are roosters 

The pullets are still far from full grown. I hope they will be all right when we put them in with the hens. Six of the hens will be butchered with the meat chickens, and it’s best to introduce the pullets to the remaining hens at the same time that the old hens are removed. In this way, the new pecking order is established with all the players at the same time.

Four of the pullets. The two on the right are Americauna;
 there are actually two Dominiques behind them, dust bathing

A good thing about having chickens is that you never have to feel bad when you let cucumbers or zucchini get too big. This video is evidence that an overgrown cucumber is the Best Thing Ever!

I dug up another two potato plants. These potatoes were even better than the 4^th of July batch. It is looking like a good potato year.

Second harvest of two potato plants

The beans in the garden have started producing this week. And how! I am a chronic over-planter. I bit the bullet and removed all the beans except that 12’ tall pole bean from the high tunnel. This picture is the first harvest from the garden. It was about 4 pounds of beans, which together with what I froze from the high tunnel is enough to meet our needs for the year. A rational person would rip the rest of the beans out right now. Instead, I am plotting ways of foisting them on friends and acquaintances.

First picking of green beans

I ordered seeds of a pepper specifically bred for greenhouse production. It’s called “Sprinter”, and it is producing some lovely, huge peppers. This one weighs in at 12 oz. and is destined for beef and peppers tonight, one of my favorite meals dating back to childhood.

A perfect pepper weighing in at 12 oz.

My big news is that I took the money I saved when I never went anywhere during the pandemic and bought a Chevy Bolt. I’m keeping my Volt in case I want to do an extended road trip before there is enough charging infrastructure to make me comfortable driving without gas back-up. I will no longer need to use gas on my trips to Elgin! 

Driving on sunshine, baby!