We had a lovely September – savoring the last weeks of summer and starting to make preparations for winter.

On September 1, we processed a second batch of meat birds.

It was a fairly warm day and we had a shaded set up. We realized we much prefer chicken processing with friends – we had friends that processed with us back in May and that made the work almost enjoyable.

Laura tagged along for a little bit of the processing until it was nap time.

Copper enjoying a lovely late summer day.

Our four kiddos ready for church wearing something other than play/farm clothes!

Weston lost his first tooth September 2! He was so excited and proud to have finally lost a tooth.

Our boys are playing football on the same team this year. It’s fun watching them play together and they’re just too cute in their uniforms. They kicked off their season on September 8th with a jamboree.

The sheep have been proving a bit difficult lately with getting out of their electro netting. It always happens when John David is gone and more often than not happens when we’re needing to leave to go to church or an appointment. Hopefully we can get them to stay where they belong. And, each time they get out, I’m so thankful for Weston, he knows exactly what to go to get them where they need to go.

We purchased a log splitter this month to help manage our firewood supply. Splitting, cutting and stacking wood is a pretty enjoyable task. We’re all looking forward to cozy fall and winter evenings around the wood stove.

Ready for morning chores with little Miss Laura. She loves going outside visiting the animals and checking for eggs. I enjoy having her tag along with me.

We are currently rotating our layers on pastured behind the sheep. They are roosting and laying in a mobile chicken tractor and we have them fenced in with poultry netting.

Our lower garden as it looked on September 18. So many lovely flowers still blooming! I really enjoy this space.

I planted morning and evening glories all around our pool and the lattice around our screened in porch and they are just so lovely. Some are white and some are purple and this one was a blend of white and purple!

Celebrating the first day of fall with a dip in the swimming pool. It’s been quite warm so we’re enjoying the pool as much as we can.

I ordered 20 pounds of pears and 80 pounds of apples from Azure Standard this month so our kitchen turned into a pear and apple sauce processing facility. These kiddos are big helpers with slicing and dicing.

The fruits of our labors – applesauce and pearsauce. We’ll enjoy these sauces during the winter on sourdough pancakes or eaten alone.

John David spent a chunk of this month working on extending the roof off of our storage shed to make room for wood. It looks great and it’s been fun to split and stack wood and watch it fill up.

We separated 4 of the 5 piggies from their mama now that they’re old enough to be weaned. She’s not been the friendliest towards us since they were born and they’ve been very skittish. We’re hoping now that they’re away from us they’ll become much friendlier and realize that we’re friends.

They were too cute snuggled up together on a chilly morning.

We’re looking forward to cooler weather, starting the wood stove and enjoying the lovely month of October now that September has drawn to a close.

—Rachel

We enjoyed the month of August – it was full of enjoying warm summer days, preserving what food we could from the garden and back to school.

In early August, I purchased 40 pounds of organic peaches and we canned half peaches, peach jam and peach butter. It will be nice to enjoy the taste of peaches in the middle of winter.

We also purchased 10 more California White chicks to brood. We had 2 from our late winter brooding and they have proven to be consistent layers so we decided to get a few more. This will be the last batch of chicks until next spring!

We started our school year on August 6. Paxton started 3rd grade.

Weston began 1st grade.

Cecilia is in Pre-K this year.

And sweet little Laura is just here listening to all kinds of good books and taking it all in!

Not the happiest start to our school year but she’s cute even when she’s crying!

Cecilia loves helping in the kitchen.

Our elderberry harvest. We planted 4 elderberry plants and then had 2 wild elderberry plants come up in the pasture. Unfortunately the birds love the elderberry so there wasn’t much to harvest this year.

On August 10, John David and I went to Kentucky as Volunteers at the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund’s Profitable Farm Worskshop.

We enjoyed working the registration desk as well as taking photos throughout the event.

The highlight was being able to attend the workshops – especially hearing Joel Salatin speak.

The sweetest little kitchen helper. Laura sits on the counter quite a bit as I prepare meals.

This is a meal we hope to be able to enjoy more of in the future – everything pictured on this plate was grown here on the homestead! Chicken breast, okra, green beans and potatoes. It was such a delicious meal.

The flowers are still blooming quite prolifically and we’re keeping cut flowers in the house at all times. Our Zinnias, Marigold and Mexican Sunflower are some of my favorites.

Love living this life with him.

More basil and lavender.

On August 29, we took a little day trip to a local state park to hike, picnic, swim and just enjoy the summer and time together.

Laura really enjoyed her hike!

While we were picnicking, Weston explored the area around the picnic shelter and found a large snail that he was quite excited about. This boy loves nature.

We enjoyed a dip in the mountain lake. Since it was the middle of the week, there were only a handful of people there other than us.

I’m a little sad to see August go, but have so many fun memories from this month.

–Rachel