Diced tomatoes

I have been so excited to try some canning that when we got a nice little pile of tomatoes I jumped right on the chance. Now we didn't have very many so I only got two pint jars worth but I thought a little batch was a good place to start.

Since we are new to this I rely heavily on my Ball Blue Book. I was a nurvous wreck during the process, afraid I was going to mess something up, but it worked! 

I can't wait for the rest of my tomatoes to ripen so we do it again.

Now I have some cucumbers I need to figure out what to do with. Should I make lime pickles or sweet pickle relish?

Guinea Keets

These are our 4 guinea keets. Clearly we didn't have enough birds yet, lol. Guineas are supposed to be really good about cutting down on pests such as ticks, mice and small snakes. They are a loud bird but they haven't gotten to that point yet.

This is an adult guinea.

The ticks this year have been out of control. I can't wait for them to get big!

A Coops Progression

We have been working hard in the evenings and on the weekend to get the coop ready. Well first things first we got the tractor and pushed it back into position.

Tada

Ok we boarded up the bottom of the shed so predators couldn't get under it and into where we are building a run.

Then it was time for the fence posts and to roll out the fence. Our run is 16' X 50'

We have three of the 4 sides of the run done at this point, and then we have to figure out the top. We haven't decided what material we are going to use for it yet

We have been letting all of the chickens run together when we are working on the coop. They seem to be getting along relatively well. We are dealing with some of the pecking order stuff, which is to be expected, however we are not putting them together at night yet.

Reba here is still broody and she is quite the grouch. I really hope she and Marie get their feathers back soon. that is why we separated them from the roosters to begin with. They really don't look much better at all.

As the Garden Grows

Our garden has really started to produce we have strawberries

Tomatoes

Dill

Corn

Cucumbers

Peppers

A lot of our plants are starting to bloom so hopefully we will have more produce soon. I cant wait to do something with it this year :) The rain has been good to us!