It can't be almost over!!!

    It's August 18th, and most of the fun summer stuff has come and gone.  My birthday, my 10th Anniversary, my first camping trip, and we just have one more camping trip left.  Here are some updates...

GARDEN

Not much to report, except that the garden took a back seat this year to the chickens.  We got a good bit of peas, and I expect some carrots, but not enough to store for us, never mind sell at market...  I have a pretty good idea why the garden didn't do much.  I tilled up some virgin prairie soil, but I never added much for manure or organic material.  This fall I will be piling up some manure from my neighbor on the rows, and then mulching over that with some old hay that I bought earlier for some reason.  There were some areas that were noticably more productive, and all of these areas had manure on them last year.  I guess I could have added some amendments, but I only had so much time!  Gardening is difficult in this area, even with very fertile soil.
I will be rebuilding my greenhouse, and also making another one, I've just been scouting out a good spot to put them both.  I need to continue building my wind fence, winter is coming, and I don't need a repeat of last years snow drifting and wind beating on the house!

CHICKENS

The chickens have thus far been my most successful project of all time!  Since I last posted, we lost two more birds to a couple of storms, which blew the door shut on the coop.  No other casualties, and we have lost 24 birds to date.  The chickens are over six weeks old at this point, about halfway to maturity.  They are foraging extensively, sometimes going up to 120 feet from the shed that they still sleep in overnight.  I don't see any real reason that they couldn't stay in the shed for the rest of their lives, since we let them out every day anyhow.  It's tremendously amusing to watch the mass exodus of chickens in the morning when we open the door.  They do have continuous access to a smallish patch of grassy pasture, but they much prefer to range wherever they want!  They are eating a large amount of feed, but I am pretty certain that they eat a great deal of live plants as well.  They are constantly picking at anything and everything, wandering through the tall grass and weeds.

FUTURE PLANS

I've already starting making plans for livestock next year.  I will be keeping several hens over the winter, hopefully in a larger barn that I plan to build, and I've been scouting a location for that as well.  We also need to fix our house up so we can sell it, and decide what we're doing for a new home.  I have a plan that I proposed to my wife, building a smaller 1.5 story home with a cement pad floor that we could at some point add to and then convert into a garage.  It could be quite quick to build, and wouldn't cost very much.  The house would have a small main floor, and a loft which could have another bedroom.  I'm negotiating this idea with the co-emperor, my lovely wife.
As for the barn that I mentioned, I can build it in three days with cement posts and a dirt floor, just like my smaller shed.  This one will be somewhat taller, and a lot wider/longer, but use much the same engineering.  Three rows of posts, cemented into the ground, connected at the top, middle and bottom with some dimensional lumber.  A simple set of rafters, made from 2x6 boards, topped with plywood or OSB.  The framing would be cheap, but I would like to put some siding on it, and a tin roof would make it look nice.  I would add stalls for some bottle calves that I'm planning to add next year, and there would be room for many more chickens.  I would like to have up to 1500 birds next year, and maybe an additional 200 turkeys.  I can have up to 2000 chickens and 300 turkeys without having to get "licensed" by our communist overlords.  Add some cattle, berries, fruit trees and whatnot, and you've got the potential for some decent profit, enough to replace my current income!

FAMILY

My son is walking now!  He just started on August 17th, and I was the first one to see it : )  I always knew that he could walk, but the mental barrier was there, and he kept getting back down to crawl.  Now that he's up and walking, he's going to be practicing all the time!
My daughter is waiting for me to come play some Lego with her, so I'll end with that.  As you can probably tell, I have so many things I still want to do this year!