Garden Goodies!

Our summer garden has been yielding delicious fruits and vegetables!

 

First a report from the melon patch ...

This week we picked a 30 pound red watermelon!  

 

It was ripe and very delicious!

 

A few days later a 31 pound orange-flesh watermelon was harvested. It was tasty as well!

 

This honeydew weighed 21 pounds!

  

In other garden news...

 

This spring we planted about 120 feet of green beans. We have already canned many batches of green beans.

 

This giant zucchini weighed in at almost 6 pounds!

 

We canned sweet gherkin pickles.

 

Our peppers are beautiful this year! We grew jalapeno, pablano, and anahiem peppers. Pictured here are pablano peppers.

 

This weekend we are making homeade spaghetti sauce for canning. Loaded with home-grown tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, this sauce will be a welcome treat when winter comes!

 

Lamb Portraits

 Our little bandito, Frito!

 

 Fitzgerald, the beautifully variegated son of Cordelia!

Fern, our little puff ball!

 

 Foreman, the white teddy bear.

 

 Frosty Anne is growing a beautiful fleece.

 Ferdinand is one of Clarabelle's twin sons.

Farmer looks almost exactly like his mother, Celeste, when she was a baby. 

 Fa'Lisa, winner of our Cutest Lamb Contest!

 

Finale, our final lamb of the spring.

A Report From Montana Fair 2012

This year our family entered 41 items in Montana Fair. We enjoyed visiting the Fair and checking on our entries! We wandered around and enjoyed the different displays and exhibits that had been set up.  Here are photos we took of the event:

 

We entered 12 fleeces in the Wool Show and they all placed!

 

• Hand Spinning White 58s - 62s - 1st place (Diana)
• Hand Spinning White 58s and lower 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places (Deborah, Delores, and Elizabeth)
• Hand Spinning Colored 58s -62s - 1st place (Carolyn)
• Hand Spinning Colored 58s and lower 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places (Dixie, Jack and Charity)
•  Hand Spinning Black 58s -62s - 1st place (Ezra)
• Hand Spinning Black 58s and lower 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places (Darcy, Dee, and Bluebell)

 Darcy's fleece went on to win overall reserve grand champion at the wool show!

We entered our grass-legume hay in the crops department. It won a blue ribbon!

We toured the 4-H barn and inspected the animals that were being shown.

Sally and Emily entered 25 culinary items this year. They won 13 - 1st places, 8 - 2nd places, 1- 3rd place, and 3 honorable mentions!

Sally's blue ribbon cinnamon rolls (before baking).

Emily won the Heritage Award on one of her ginger cookie entries!  The recipe is a favorite from her Uncle Phil.

We enjoyed looking at all the beautiful quilts people had entered.

There were lots of hand-made items on display at the fair.

The horticulture department boasted freshly grown produce.

 We are grateful for all the hard work that went into setting up and running Montana Fair. The feedback we received from the judging will help us improve our future products!

A Sunny Day On The Farm

On warm days our lambs look for relief from the sun. See how they dealt with the weather this afternoon!

 Fiona sported a pair of sunglasses.

 Folgers tried on a Texas cowboy hat to shield his eyes from the sun.

His profile was quite handsome!

BueLingo Cattle

Our BueLingo steers are growing well and looking very sleek on their summer pastures!

We are currently taking orders for all-natural grass-fed beef.

2012 Summer Garden

 Our summer garden has been growing rapidly this year!

Enjoy some pictures of the goodies in our garden!

 Sweet corn, cantaloupe, winter squash, watermelon, and gourds.

 

  Basil, ground cherries, jalapeno peppers, tomatillos, beets, green beans, carrots, and tomatoes.

The flowers are blooming!

Murphy Gets A Haircut

 Murphy, our guard llama, recently had a haircut.

 Before shearing ...

After shearing!

Summer Adventures in the Grand Tetons!

Our family was blessed to be able to go on a recent camping trip in Grand Teton National Park. 

 

We camped near the shores of Jackson Lake. This is the beautiful sunset we saw from our campground.

Canoeing on String Lake

The view from Signal Mountain.

Visiting Hidden Falls

Canoeing on the Snake River.

We are grateful to special friends who watched the farm so we could go on a short vacation. They did an excellent job caring for the animals, the garden, and our property. Thank you for your service to our family!

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. - Psalm 19:1

New Listing on Etsy!

Darla's fleece is now for sale on Etsy!

 Her locks are soft and lustrous with distinct crimp.

Darla's fleece weighs 4 pounds but will be divided into 1 pound lots.

Price per pound: $20 (shipping extra) .  The top picture is the washed sample;  the bottom picture is the unwashed wool sample.

Click here to view the Etsy listing.

A Bumper Hay Crop!

Our farm was blessed with a bountiful hay crop this year!

Even though our area has received little rain, we have had plenty of irrigation water for our fields. The grass was tall and lush.

We had a total of 573 small square bales ...

... and 94 large round bales.

We had excellent hay baling weather... hot and dry!

Ben and his friend Steve used our bale wagon to pick up the small square bales.

 

The bale wagon saved us the back-breaking work of picking all the hay up by hand.

Ben worked hard to get the bales off the field and stack them in our hay yard. 

 Stacking the hay.

Our hay crop was so large we will be able to sell our surplus to area farmers who are in need of extra hay.

You're Chicken!

Grace Valley Farm is now home to fifteen chickens!

 Our chicks stayed indoors with a heat lamb on them until they were big enough to go outside.

 We renovated the old chicken coop and moved it to a new location.

 After the chickens got bigger, we moved them outdoors to the chicken coop.

     Our chickens are growing nicely and we are looking forward to farm-fresh eggs later this year!