June is such an exciting month – the garden really starts to take off and it’s just so exciting to watch plants rapidly grow and begin to fruit!
Laura has found our blueberry bushes and discovered that she loves blueberries – blue, pink or green! Yes, she was nibbling unripe berries and seemed to love them.
We planted several small blueberry bushes late last fall and allowed a few of the larger ones to fruit this summer (the majority of them we pinched blooms off of). In a few years, we should have abundant blueberry crops!
Weston was so excited to harvest some romaine lettuce. Love this little farmer boy!
John David found firewood from a family who cut down a few trees in their back yard. He got one load and then the kids and I went back with him for another load. We’re thankful for free firewood!
We took a quick trip to East Tennessee to visit John David’s parents and Virginia in early June to visit Polyface. We enjoyed seeing the operation firsthand and loved meeting Joel Salatin!
On June 10, on our trip home from Virginia, we purchased 5 ewes. They had been raised on pasture at Foggy Knob Farm, a similar sustainable operation. They were reducing their sheep and needed to sell a few ewes. We were very excited to be able to purchase these lovely ewes. They’re Katadin/Dorper/Tunis crosses and are very docile.
Weston actually purchased Sunny (the black headed one) with his own money, increasing his sheep flock to 3 ewes.
We’re excited to have more ruminants out on pasture – we have so much grass that needs to be consumed!
It’s so relaxing to watch the sheep graze. They’re such calm and graceful animals.
On the morning of June 16th, Weston came running into the house shouting “Callie had her baby!! There’s a baby lamb!” His ewe, Callie, had lambed sometime during the night and there was an adorable solid white ewe lamb in the pasture!
Weston and his brand new baby lamb. He is so proud and now has a total of 4 sheep.
Farm Girl Cecilia bringing scraps out to the chickens in her bathing suit and pink rubber boots – she’s so girly yet enjoys life on the homestead too!
On June 21, we picked up our new kitten, Smokey. He was 8 weeks old that day, born April 26th. We decided to get a kitten so Cecilia would have a pet of her own to take care of, so Copper could learn to get along with cats and to hopefully keep mice/rats away from the house. He’s sweet as can be!
Cecilia and Smokey.
John David started assembling a woodshed on the side of our storage shed. We’re trying to make it out of as many salvaged materials as we can scrounge so it may take a couple of months to build but it’s exciting watching him build it and knowing that we should have it full of wood by the time winter arrives.
Laura is now 13 months old and seems to grow and change every single day. Once babies pass 12 months, they quickly turn into miniature people and it’s so much fun. With 3 older siblings, she’s tough and determined. She wanted on the swing and held on just fine – it was adorable!
My mom and dad stopped by in late June on their way to visit family in Virginia and my dad brought the girls these stools that he had made and etched their names in. Our boys have similar stools with their names that they were given several years ago but the girls didn’t. These are so nice and special. Both girls have already enjoyed using them.
Weston is such a big helper to his daddy and me. He’s my right hand man when it comes to managing our poultry and he enjoys helping his daddy move the electro netting for the sheep.
Can you see where the sheep have grazed? It’s so neat to see how quickly they can eat down a portion of pasture. We’ve been giving them small fresh paddocks so they can ‘mob graze’ – I call them a ‘mini mob’. Surprisingly they enjoy browse a lot more than I thought they would. I had been talking about getting a goat or two to help keep posion ivy in check but the sheep eat poison ivy too!
June was a fun month and we’re looking forward to harvesting lots of vegetables – especially our tomatoes – in July!
—Rachel
