Had a bit better harvest as the squash had grown enough and the tomatoes had a nice glut ready.

Out in the yard working on cleanup I found that the wood pile had become rather unruly and needed to be straightened. I spent some time trying to devise the eventual cover I want to build over the entire area.

I found that I have used too much of the scrap metal roofing so I don't have enough to cover the small shed's roof. I came up about 1/3 shy of hat I need. Metal roofing is atrocious now so I will just keep my eyes open on CL for cheap or free scrap sheet metals.

The old kid stand that @stryeyz built had fallen apart after years of use and got tossed to the lumber racks. The pieces still had tons of hinges on them that I spent time removing and putting them all to my hinge case.

The biggest project for the day was the culling of the lilac bushes. The farm is nearing 100 years old and these lilacs are at least half as old if not more. Super tall, no under growth, lots of dead wood, few flowers, all have lead me to need to remove a bunch.

It opens up the area above the tool shed and will help with the run off better and not trap it on top.

I was just using my folding hand saw but that gave me easy cutting of the branches and I took the bigger branches and piled them to the side while I piled the tops.

I took out a LOT of the lilacs. I didn't take them to the ground though so there is areas to put out new growth from. The snow over the years has done a number on the bushes and had broken and highly bent a lot of them. It looks so much better now.

Down the driveway I drug the piles of branches, which did a nice raking job of the gravel, and into the sheep pen where they dug through and munched on anything edible.

It was time for the teen chicks and the hen to come out of the brooder. She bolted and left the chicks standing in the yard as she ran for the fence line and a dirt bath. She must have had some mites after being in the brooder with no dirt. I watched her take a few dirt baths over the next hours. I herded the chicks towards the sheep pen and it took them a while to finally find their way in and peck around.

Oh benevolent clouds thanks for the 4 minutes of spit you dropped as you neglected the region....

The cauliflower is toast so I went through and pulled the plants. They went to the wheelbarrow to go to the animals.

I had let a bunch of the plants keep growing after topping them and holy shit did the plants go wild. They tried to explode growth from the roots and I pulled up a bunch of the plants to find MASSES growing. Really wild looking and they seem like they could be almost invasive with this kind of explosive growth.

The sheep were deliriously happy for the food.

The celery is starting to get big enough and put off some nice stalks. This one I munched on as I roamed the farm.

With the brooder shut I knew the chicks would be lost so out I went at dark to help them into the coop. I found them perched like this. One was on the cart and was caught first, then the one on the roof was as easy.

Then I had to move the cart over to stand on but I was able to grab all 3 at once and got them inside where they went and perched with the other birds right away. Hopefully they understand and just go in at nights now.

Not sure what happened for the truck to take almost 12 hours to get from Fife to Spokane but my part didn't go out for delivery until 6pm. It delivered though.

Today I will get the boys to school, harvest, put the sprocket on the scooter and see if it will work correct, keep working on cleanup, will check on the upper garden which should be about done with the pumpkins by now and probably ready to be torn down (likely permanently unless it is only potatoes next year), and hopefully try to not beat myself up.

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For more information about our farm:
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce

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