Have you ever sat down and just looked through craigslist? Its amazing what you can find that people don't want to deal with anymore. Saturday i wanted to see what guinea keets were selling for and i get hit with this FREE ad. I clicked it as i love looking for free stuff, but this one was one that i never expected. Here right in front of me was a free ad for 34 broiler chickens already grown out and ready to butcher! I mean talk about the right place at the right time! Mr ingenuity and I loaded up cages and drove an hr to go pick them up. After getting their we also scored 2 Californian doe rabbits and 1 buck Californian, talk about great timing these will be added to the breeding stock so we can raise more meat rabbits. I know alot of people don't like to think about eating rabbit as they are cute and cuddly. Well that is partly true when they are small and like to be handled. When they get larger and decide to leave claw marks the size of Texas all over your arms, face, chest they aren't so cute and cuddly any more. Rabbit meat is the best meat out there for you and I bet if you looked closer at your grocery store you would find that they sell it.

The weather is starting to get cooler here and the fall garden is pretty much done. We did put in cauliflower, broccoli and brussel sprouts. I had heard about multiplying onions but until last month had never seen any. I found them at a local feed store for $1 a lb so we decided to give them a try. Also 30 garlics went into the ground. Now it is getting time for me to start thinking about what i want to put into the garden for spring. I will start seeds in the greenhouse in late January.

This is Hershey the goat and this was her Monday face. She and the other ladies are 100% Nubian's and We hope to have a good crop of doe again this year. Last year we had just 2 nannies and one had twin does and the other had a single doe, this year we will have 6 does kidding so i hope it all turns out well.

I think that most people have really good intentions when they start a blog.I know is sure did! I wanted to post things that i knew would help people in there quest for self reliance, right now fall in in the air and winter is approaching. We are doing alot of farm maintenance. Cutting, splitting and stacking wood for the winter. Making sure that we have hay on the farm. We still need to prep the rabbit barn for winter. We totally wrap it in cardboard then wrap it in plastic to help protect the cardboard from rain and or snow. We may do something different this year and cover it in some old OSB as it goes up alot faster than the cardboard and plastic. This year we will also have to enclose a chicken house! We have never had cooped chickens so this will be a first for us. What is on your prep for winter agenda?



Well Mr. Ingenuity struck again! He was called by a friend  that had a problem. He had a large tree cut down and way to large of logs to move on his own. Mr Ingenuity got right on trying to figure out how to move them easily and as fast as possible. He came up with something very fast! He took his bale mover that he had built and added parts of his cherry picker to it. With a steel plate with holes it in we could lag bolt the plate to the large logs and connect a cable to the cherry picker boom and tada we had a log mover! it worked very well and paid for all the modifications in one job! Here is a picture of his work.

We decided that it need a hydraulic lift on it as your arm gets really tired trying to pump it up far enough to get a 500 lb log onto a trailer! we also thing that we need to make it swivel at the top somehow, but that is a later project.

The weather is changing, the days are getting shorter and i have noticed that leaves are starting to sporadically fall from the trees. At least this year here in East Texas it is nice to still have leaves on the trees in September!

  The fall garden is growing along at a great pace and I noticed that the squash and cucumbers are starting to bloom! I sure hope that i can get a good crop of them in before the weather turns off too cold. It has been nice tho to feel some relief from the heat and have mid 50's when we get up in the morning.

  We decided that we wanted to install drip system on the plants this time around. We started first with the typical drip tubing and the drip emitters. We set them up on 1 gallon per hour but the tubing just wasn't large enough to put out the volume of water we needed.

 We changed directions and decided to go with low pressure PVC pipe and drill holes to install the new jet sprayers that put out 7-10 gallons per hour.

We installed a T half way down the line to install the inlet for the water house so that both ends would get the same pressure.

We put a cap on the end so we could drain it when it gets cold and time to put the garden away for the winter.

Here it is running over the top of the garden tubs that we use.

For the raised beds we pretty much did the same thing but we installed sprinklers with special inserts. We installed one that is a center water and it waters 4 feet wide and 30 feet in length(15 feet in each direction), we set the end up on an end spray that sprays 4 feet wide and up to 15 feet long. I wasn't sure how this was going to work but it works great so far!! It has sure helped on the watering time, just hook up the hose and go!

    Since we put the fall garden in we have been experimenting with different dripper heads for the drip system we installed. We have finally found one that we like, it is the Jet sprayer. It puts out between 7-10 gallons per hour and pretty much covers a whole mineral tub for watering. The small drip head that puts out 1 gallon per hour just wasn't putting out the coverage needed. Now our only problem is that 1/4 inch line that we have it set on. Our set up is 20 mineral tubs set up under 20+ feet of cattle panel that is acting like a trellis. We have it set up in 2 separate sections, each section watering 10 tubs at a time. Since installing the new watering heads the 1/4 inch line is just not large enough to allow enough water flow to run 10 of the jet sprayer head. So we have decided to experiment with some low pressure PVC pipe, since there wont be constant pressure on it like a water line we can get away using this and by the way this is cheaper!

  We found that you can drill a small hole into the PVC pipe and put the jet sprayer head directly into the hole. Instead of attaching this to the bottom of the trellis like we did the plastic drip tubing we will just set this right across the top of the tubs for great coverage. This will be a nice set up as when the fall garden is over we can put the drip system away out of the sun to make it last longer. We also want to do a set up for the strawberry raised beds, while perusing the sprinkler isle we found some pop up sprinklers that do rectangle patterns, they are a few dollars each and we would only need 4 but this would make watering so more efficient over hand watering or sprinklers that put water everywhere except where you want it!. With the water rate that the jet sprayers put on watering of 3 gallons per tub we would only have to water for approx 15 minutes! It takes me longer than that to hand water. I will post more on this when we get it up and going to let you know how well it works!


   For everyone that doesn't know what a mineral tub is here is a few pictures of my mineral tub garden!

Since the weekend weather was so nice we decided that we should take advantage of it and get the fall garden in the ground! We planted:
Cucumbers
Beets
Radishes
Spinach
Leaf lettuce
Rocket salad
Carrots
Squash

We then installed a drip system on it to help with the watering and to tell you the truth i don't know why we didn't do it earlier!! Now we are going to get a system to put on the raised beds to make for easier and more efficient watering!

I also found a few recipes for some household cleaners that will make your home smell great!

Grapefruit abrasive cleaner:

This will clean your sink right up! avoid using on fiberglass fixtures.

1 cup fine grade pumice
1/2 cup clay powder
2 tablespoons grapefruit essential oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1/2 cup boiling water( or enough to make a paste)

1. Mix all ingredients together and stir. Store in a labeled airtight container
2. To use: Apply gently with a damp cloth or sponge and scrub


Creamy nonabrasive cleaner

Perfect for acrylic and fiberglass surfaces

1/4 cup washing soda
Vegetable oil based liquid soap
1/2 teaspoon lemon essential oil

1. in a bowl, combine washing soda with just enough liquid soap to create a thick paste. add essential oil and mix well.
2.To use: scoop a small amount of cleaner onto a sponge. scrub surface and rinse.

Since we are still in gardening season i thought i would post some helpful tips for, around or in the garden.

Get an earlier tomato harvest and a bigger one, too! Just stretch aluminum foil on the ground between your plants and anchor it along the edges with stones or bricks. The reflected light can increase your yield, especially in cloudy weather, and speed up the ripening of your fruit by a full two weeks!

Grow stronger seedlings. Young vegetables that don't get enough light when you are starting them indoors tend to grow week, leggy, and spindly. To prevent that problem, just spread a long strip of aluminum foil on the shelf or table under your grow lights, and set your seed flats on the top of it. Then lift each end of the foil and tape it to the outside shade of the light fixture, using some tape. The foil walls will focus light on your baby plants and help retain heat, forcing them to grow bigger, stronger, and faster!

Make a hanging garden. Are you a little short on garden space??Here is how to gain more ground. Poke a few small drainage holes in the bottom of heavy duty plastic bags, then take them to a board. Fill each bag with soil, add a few seeds and water well. Before long you will have a lovely vertical garden.

Make compost. Brown paper bags are a first class source of carbon. To tap into their riches, just tear up the bags, or run them thru a shredder, and toss the pieces into your compost bin. If you don't have a compost bin, just bury the scraps in the ground. They will break down in no time, improving your soil in the process.

Make plant labels. Just cover empty seed packets with plastic wrap, and tape or tack them to whatever upright supports you can come by easily like chopsticks skewers, Popsicle sticks or paint stir sticks. Then put them in the ground at the appropriate spot in your garden.

Turn a lamp shade into a planter. Just turn the shade upside down and line it with a heavy duty trash back, Trim away any excess plastic, and staple the liner in place along the sides. Cut a few slits in the bottom for drainage, add soil and plant away.This also works with wicker baskets, wooden boxes or any container that is not waterproof.

Over the weekend we decided to try something new on the Rabbit barn. Since we haven't had rabbits for a few years keeping the barn cooler wasn't a big deal. Now that we have 15 rabbits in their it is again time to be keeping them cool. We have a mist system installed on the barn from the last time we had rabbits, we just needed to clean some misters. During the winter we put cardboard around the outside so it will stay warmer for the goats and chickens, but after we took all the cardboard off the rabbits just got too much sun! So after some thought on what we should do, we thought tarps, tin, plywood but this next idea was just what we needed! Landscape fabric!!! Breathable, air can move through it and water can get it wet! So we happen to have some so we attached it to the side of the barn under the mist system with screws with large washers. Now that fabric when wet acts like an air conditioner but it still lets air move through also! It worked so well on the side we redid the front with it also!

We also added some shade cloth to the new chicken run that we built a few weeks ago out of used snow fence. The cloth we put on top is called a planket size 10x20, it is for covering plants when the weather is getting cooler. I found this on clearance for $4 and it has grommets like a tarp so worked awesome for this project!

When things get tough around here sometimes we take stuff in to the local metal recycle center. Since we cant burn copper off i spend hours setting in my recliner stripping copper. The only thing i hate about that is all the insulation casings that have to be cleaned up! But it always makes it worth it when i take it in and they give me more money since my copper is clean. I see right now that short iron in my neck of the woods is down right now along with some other prices. Whats great it just some time sorting thru things and loading them up and taking them there you can make a decent tax free paycheck!  I took what i made and paid a bill then bought our animal feed for the week, it sure is nice when it seems like it is free since it doesn't have to come out of the weekly budget! This posting is just to remind people that there is money to be made out there if you have it laying around, don't throw it out cash it out! I even save my tin cans as for every 100 lbs of them pays out between $7-$9 just as well make money on our veggie cans! So here is a scan of what I took in and what i made off of them. I took in a load last week that paid out $200 so just in a week i got $363.42! Take a look around you never know what you have that will pay well!!

The insulated  #2 copper is old extension cords! They don't strip well so we just throw them all in a bucket and they go too!

We recently got a tractor and Mr ingenuity wanted to get a bale mover for it. Of course they are several hundred dollars at any farm store so he went digging through all of his junk piles and came up with parts to build one that would fit on a 3 point tractor, a flat bed truck and a regular pickup. Of course looking at his plans that he had drawn out i thought he had lost his mind. I sure couldn't see what all of those lines were gonna come together and make. I am glad that he knew what he was doing as if he was dependant on me to make some of the things he does we would be in debt as i would have to go purchase all these things!

What seems like weeks but was just a few days he got all of his parts welded together, parts painted, truck modified and this is what he came up with.

He has built it so that he can haul 2 different sizes of bales. He also included a ball mount to tow a trailer behind it if needed, or another bale mover..lol. Here is a side view

I have no idea how he comes up with these things, but I'm sure glad that he does! It sure helps around a farm to just look at something and come up with an idea to fix it, build a new one or improve somethings!

Its been awhile since i have posted. Just been keeping up with the garden and the animals. It is starting to get hot and the garden is showing it! The cucumbers here are pretty much done but have another planting coming up soon. I have made several batches of salsa so far, have enough tomatoes to make a few more. I dont know how many of you check out craigslist.com but i was pointed in the direction of a great deal the other day. Any of you with animals know that fence is always in need. I have all the perimeter fencing done and some cross fencing, but i still have some pockets that are not fenced and would love for the animals to be able to eat it instead of mowing it. Well here is what we got. 2000 feet of orange snow fencing. Now in states that it doesnt snow it is called safety fencing. I checked the price on this fencing and it runs $30 for  a 4'x100' roll. I got it for $5 used!

Now i have no excuse for the goats to not be eating down the back areas that i dont have fenced. It goes up fast and since it is temperary we didnt install alot of posts.

Here is a picture of my first batch of homemade chunky salsa. It has yellow pear toms, roma toms, banana peppers, jalapenos, cilantro, chives, onions, lime juice, salt. Everything except the onions we grew here on the farm. I bought the onions at a farm stand~

How is every ones gardens doing so far this year? I have planted a second run of cucumbers so far and need to be starting some fall items in the greenhouse. I want to start cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli at least. The garden harvests are in full swing now, we are getting alot of banana peppers and the tomatoes are finally changing colors!

This is the first year that we have watermelons! We have grown them before but they just never did well at all. We changed the location of them this year and i guess that is what we needed as there is watermelons setting on everywhere! I know son is excited as he LOVES watermelon and he has been checking the size of them almost everyday and so he wanted to take some pictures so everyone could see them.

I have been reading alot of magazines on what we can use herbs for besides cooking and have come across alot of good recipes for alot of different ailments. Here are a few that i have found!

Lavender and catnip dreamtime tea

For a deep, restful sleep, end your day with the healthy benefits of decaf green tea,combined with calming soporific herbs serves 1.

2 cups boiling water
1 decaf green tea bar
1/2 teaspoon fresh lavender buds
1/2 teaspoon catnip
honey

1. Pour water over tea bag, lavender and catnip, cover and steep 5 minutes. Remove tea bag

2. Pour mixture through a fine wire mess strainer into a cup discarding herbs. Serve with honey.


Here is a stress relief tea!

1 part Valerian
1 part chamomile
1 part passionflower
1 part skullcap
1/2 part lavender
1/2 part orange peel

1.Mix the herbs together in the amount you need. Use 1 teaspoon of the blend for each cup of water.

2. Pour boiling water over the herbs and steep for 10-15 minutes.

I know that for most of us it is prime garden season. Now i know that i am not alone in the bug problem so when i was looking for some organic ways to treat bugs i found some of the following recipes that help with some of these problems!

Ant repellent her and soap spray:

Ant herd aphids, mealybugs, and scale acting as hosts so they can harvest the other insects secretions. Control the ants with this spray and you will inhibit these other common pests.

1/2 cup fresh tansy leaves
1/2 cup fresh santolina leaves
1 quart boiling water
1 tablespoon Murphy oil soap
10 drops vetiver essential oils

1. add herbs to boiled water,cover and steel until infusion is cool.
2.Strain out herbs, Stir in soap and vetiver oil.
3.Before use shake mixture well then filter it into a sprayer. Spray ant trails, counters, soil surfaces or wherever ant are a problem.

Garlic and Chile insecticidal soap spray:

10 to 12 large cloves of garlic
4 to 6 hot Chile peppers, dried or fresh
Generous 2 cups of water
1 tablespoon liquid castile soap
10 drops cinnamon, vetiver or eucalyptus essential oil, optional

1. put garlic, chiles, and water into a blender and puree contents until foamy
2.let mixture stand at least 2 hrs or overnight. When mixture settles, you will have a coral colored liquid with sediment at the bottom.
3. Pour through a strainer lined with fine cheesecloth to remove particles that could block the spray valve.
4.Pour concentrate into a jar with a plastic lid, add soap, stir and label.
5. Store in a  cool, dark place until needed, up to a few months. For a 1 quart or 1 liter spray bottle use 2 tablespoons concentrate and fill the rest of the bottle with water.
6. Spray plants late in the day so the hot sun cant burn the plants. Cover the top and bottom of leaves. Reapply as often as needed but allow several days between applications.


I hope that these may help someone in their garden this season!!

Happy Gardening!

What a week it has been! This last week the other half has been on vacation, we have spent it cutting down dead trees from last years drought, stacking the wood from said trees and hauling off old junk!
We scrap any metal that we can find as it is great for the environment and I really like the extra cash flow! For everyone that doesn't know it is worth your time to recycle even your pop/soda cans! The first load we took in was 5 items and they weighed 1600 lbs! To get the prices per 100 that your local recycle center pays you will need to call and ask what it is paying. The above load was paid out in long iron price at $10.50 per 100 lbs. Now before you go make sure that you call and ask what they take if you have never taken stuff in before. I go to one that will not take any fence wire, but another one will take the fence wire. Today we took a load in and it weighed 850 lbs at $9.50 per 100lbs. This was all items that we have kept or picked up along side the road. I also recycle all of my vegetable cans, at the rate now they would pay out $9.50 per 100 lbs of them. I wash them out and take the labels off and smash them. Why not get paid back from an item that you are buying anyway? That old washer that you replaced can be taken in and you can get paid for recycling it, why not make some money off that old washer? We try to keep things stacked and ready for when we need some extra cash like at holiday time! Now copper wire is a good return on your time, you don't have to strip it but it does pay more if you do. Last time i took copper in #1 was $3.15 a lb! All items that you plug in has copper wire, before you discard cut the cords off and take any motors out. Now that you know or got reminded why don't you go out to see if you can find some hidden treasures to recycle!

When i was reading some blogs that i follow i came across a contest that http://www.suburbanprairiehomemaker.com/ was having. She was offering a $30 worth of merchandise from www.FashiontoFigure.com.

Fashion to Figure have the latest fashions for figures 14-26 at the best prices. Over 100 fashionable brands, with a variety of fits - all at the best prices. Fashion to Figure fashions reflect their dedication to the plus size figure and a commitment to removing the traditional limitations associated with full-fashion shopping. FTF is the experience you have been waiting for.

Now anyone that is plus size knows how hard it is to find what you want without sacrificing style and FTF has the style that i was looking for!

I was glad that i stopped by SPH.com as I won the $30 FTF merchandise . If you are in need of some great looking plus size items at a great price make sure you check out www.fashiontofigure.com

\

Do you use a clothesline?  If so what kind do you have? Does it help you or hold you back on harnessing natures free energy? I have a love hate relationship with clotheslines. Growing up we had the standard style clothesline, metal poles in the ground with 3-4 wire lines. Most of the clotheslines that i see still are the standard style clothesline. What i think it is is that people are to busy to take the time to hang clothes or just plain just don't want to be bothered. Now i will admit that there are times at our house that we didn't get the laundry done well enough ahead of time that i also throw clothes into the dryer. Here is some information that i have come up with on dryers.

Electric dryers use about 5 kilowatts of electricity per hour. If you pay .10¢ per kWh you are gonna pay approx .50¢ per load, this is based on running at 60 minutes. the cost per year is about $260 based on 10 loads per week!!  I know in some areas of the world that you cant hang laundry 365 a year so get a dry rack or hang inside! There are many kinds of dry racks out there, you can even get them to attach to your ceiling in your shower where it is hid away!


I use a clothes line but not your typical clothesline. I have switched from the standard poles to a pulley system! Oh how i love my pulley system line that i will never go back to standard poles~ Of course if are disabled or have bad knees or anything like that dragging wet laundry up or down stairs isn't my idea of fun at all! I of course fit into this category. So out of trying to save money on the monster electric bill during the summer AND to keep heat out of the house we decided something needed to be done. We decided to put the pulleys in! We spent about $30 getting all of the supplies and it takes about 15 minutes to set up. Mine is attached at the back door of the house and runs 75 feet out into a tree and it up about 25 feet!


                                               This is the pulley attached to the house.

                                               This is the pulley attached to the tree.

                These i use for line spacers. These keep the clothes from hanging just on one line.

     Here it is on use. See how the spacers keep the lines from sagging.

I also use dry racks set up on the covered porch for small items. I hope that this helps anyone that is wanting to save some money and go alittle greener. Even if you could save half of the above numbers it would be $130 a year!             

Today was garden picking day! It was a good day today. There is alot of green beans setting on and tomatoes everywhere! We are for sure looking forward to harvesting tomatoes!! I prepared some of our Yukon gold potatoes last week and they were awesome!! Today's haul in the garden consisted of,

17 cucumbers
11 squash
2 zucchini
2 fingerling egg plant!


I am super excited about this harvest as this time last year everything was burnt up with this unpredictable East Texas weather!~

This is a bean bloom.

                                                            This is a cucumber bloom!

This is a potato bloom!

We have offically butchered the broilers.They were 8.5 weeks old. We have never raised them before but wanted to to see how they raised out. When we purchased the birds we got 10, we lost one about 2 weeks in so we had to finish the trial run with 9. We fed them Chick starter that was 24% protein through this whole run. We weighed them live then weighed them processed to come up with our numbers. Here is how things went for us.

Price of birds $20.00
Price of feed $42.75 (3 bags of chick starter at $14.25 a bag)
Price per bird $6.97 (after adding bird price and feed price together, then divide by number of birds)
Price per lb $2.09 (take total cost of of feed and birds and divide by the processed weight)


We started with 40.13 pounds live weight and ended with 30.03 pounds processed weight. we lost 10.1 pounds. that is approx 25% loss, we are well within our loss ratio! Here is some information about the Cornish cross.

Cornish Cross

Cornish Cross (Cornish X) chickens are the standard meat chicken for the American market. Sometimes call broilers or Cornish/Rocks.

Although it is NOT a breed of chicken, it is a cross or hybrid of some very secret breed lines for the sole purpose of gaining weight as rapidly as possible.

The first attempts at "Hybrid" meat birds was in the 1930's and was the dominate commercial bird by the 1960's.

Modern broilers are typically a third generation offspring (an F2 hybrid). The broiler's four grandparents come from four different strains, two of which produce the male parent line and two of which provide the female parent line, which are in turn mated to provide the broilers. The double cross protects the developer's unique genetics as strains cannot be reproduced from the broiler offspring.

In 2003, approximately 42 billion broilers were produced, 80% of which were produced by four companies: Aviagen, Cobb-Vantress, Hubbard Farms, and Hybro making them arguably, the most popular chicken to raise.

Chicken Breed Info: Breed Purpose: Meat Bird Comb: Pea Broodiness: Seldom Climate Tolerance: All Climates	General Egg Info: Egg Productivity: Low Egg Size: Medium Egg Color: Brown
Breed Temperament: Calm,Bears confinement well	Breed Colors / Varieties: White

Breed Details:
A Cornish X will weigh about 3 times that of a Buff Orphington (dual purpose breed) at 5 weeks! From hatch to slaughter weight in 6 to 8 weeks, some hatcheries claim 9 1/2 pounds in 10.5 weeks! Processing is much easier with Cornish X's than a dual-purpose bird because they have very little feathering at slaughter age. Probably the only other reason why this bird is used so much by the processing/packing industry. Cornish X's are not self-sufficient. The best results after brooding seem to come from those who raise in a chicken tractor, moved daily (sometimes more), and a ration of high protein feed. Rationing the feed 12 on, 12 off, seems to encourage the Cornish X to forage and get some exercise. If not, they tend to stay right by the feeder making a very concentrated mess. Some problems that may occur if pushed (or even just because of their genetics) are heart attacks, broken legs, and FLIP.

Today was a good day in the garden~ We have had some good rain the last few days and cooler weather so that is for sure helping everything out! I seen banana peppers everywhere, so by next week should have a great harvest on those! We finally have tomatoes setting on!! Last year it was so hot that we never got any tomatoes. I also seen spaghetti squash.  The beans are also blooming.

We harvested our first crop of potatoes on Sunday. We planted between 8-10lb and it yielded 21 lbs of great looking potatoes! We then worked up the bin and planted peanuts. We have never planted peanuts but figured we would give them a try.

                                                          Eggs for sale! Eggs for sale!

Do you ever feel like you are just swimming in eggs? We are getting 2 dozen a day and we cant eat them fast enough so we decided to try to sell them again. We started with a paper sign that My dd and I came up with to put at the gas station and food place down the street. We laminated it to keep it looking nice so they wouldn't throw it away if it started looking bad! Here is what we come up with!

My other half came up with another Idea for a self serve eggs for sale station at the end of our driveway. So we started out by building a small shelf area to hold a cooler and a money collection bin. We then started building his new idea for a sign. This is what we started out with.

This is the flat sheet metal that he proceeded to cut everything out of. After marking and cutting he had these that him and ds sanded.

After they sanded them they hung them up and proceeded to paint them with a paint sprayer and we got this.

We had to let them dry for 2 days before we could do anything with them. So while they were hanging to dry he made this and painted it.

That hen is setting on top of a bracket that will be used to hold the whole sign. After the plates dried the kids and I put the sticky letters on, assembled the sign and came up with this~!

We will attach this to the gate post at the end of the driveway by the bench that will hold the cooler with the eggs for sale in it. We also made more signs to hang on that sign for other items that we may have for sale like, Firewood, vegetables from the garden, kindling for starting fires. Thought about a few other things like making fire starters out of paper and wood chips, pinecone fire starters are also an idea. Might give the kids some pinecones and birdseed to have them make some bird feeders to see if they would sell.

I have sure been enjoying how the garden has been growing this year! Last year at this time it was so hot it has pretty much cooked everything. We had to replant the strawberry beds this year as we lost them all last year. We also put a fence up around them this year and WOW I cant believe the difference! No more squirrels getting to them has increased the yeild! So far this last week we have harvested about 8 cups!

The banana peppers are about ready to harvest for the first run! I have 40 banana pepper plants out so I hope i get a great harvest this year!

The tomatoes are blooming like crazy! I hope we get a good crop before it gets to hot! I have already harvested squash and zuchinni! I also have egg plants setting on! I am very excited about this years garden! I also have herbs in hanging baskets on the back porch!
2 of these tubs are egg plant and one is jalapeno peppers.

 This is a second planting of potatoes!

 These are banana peppers.

These are green beans, yard long beans and cucumbers.

 This is a picture of the squash and tomato plants.

 This is 1 section of our raised beds. The first section has cabbage and broccoli, the second section is all banana peppers and the last 2 sections are all strawberries!

This is my back porch and al my hanging baskets of herbs. Some of the metal rod also doubles as a clothes line!~