Farm Girl

Can I just once again say how much I love farm life? Am I being too redundant? Because I do...love the farming thing, that is.

Today was grocery shopping day. Yes, I am a routine kind of gal. Fridays are grocery day. What can I say? My family likes to eat. While we're at the grocery store, I like to walk by all the produce and point out the obvious to my girls. Like how we don't have to buy green beans, tomatoes, corn or cukes. And then I like to snicker at how much the store charges for their veggies compared to how much mine cost. Is that a bad thing? Maybe I'm just still in shock that I actually succeeded in gardening this year. Call me simple, but it completely baffles me how planting one little seed produces so much yield. And all I did was put it in the ground. There's just nothing better than grabbing out of your garden for dinner. Which is what we've done most of the summer.

I took my rototiller for a test run today. I've had the itch ever since the day we brought him home. (Yes, all equipment bigger than my bread machine happens to be male.) I'm pretty sure I heard him crying in the barn the other night. It's so hard to be so strong and handsome, yet stored in the dark and never used. So, when I opened the barn doors this morning I informed him that I had just a small job for him to do today. He quickly obliged. I dug a teensy garden area....whoops, sorry Mr. Tiller, I'll rephrase that...He dug a teensy garden area alongside my house. I am currently in the process of transplanting some flowers from my veggie garden. (I'm pretty sure it's not the best time of year to do such a thing, but I really can't help myself.) I need more room in my veggie garden to rip and tear once all my produce has gone by. I fully intend to enlarge my yield next year. And possibly purchase a pressure canner. Which means enlarging my garden. I'm quite excited to get started on that project. Can we just bypass winter this year? All in favor?

This afternoon I actually let my chickens have a taste of "free range". They savored the flavor. And ate almost everything in sight. I called the girls to come outside and have a look see. They reacted just how I thought. Like I had let a puppy off it's leash. Once they were over the initial panic that they would never see their chickens again, they enjoyed running around with them. They really are quite comical to watch. Jilly was a bit apprehensive, though...the chickens were in love with her red flip flops. And desired to eat them. Which was a bit too close to her toes, she decided. I sat back on the lawn swing and watched the kids play with the chickens and the bunnies and pick from our garden. It's a good life....a good life indeed.