This week we worked on cleaning up the home garden which had more weeds and vegetables that had gone to seed than edible food. It took two full days, but now it looks great, and it is easy to harvest tomatoes. We got the "chicken tractors" that we are borrowing from the neighbor. These are portable 10'x10' pens that the chicks will live in for the rest of their lives. They get moved to new pasture every day, so they will have fresh food and a clean place to live. We also worked on the yurt. We finished the weather stripping and cleaned the area of overgrown weeds and blackberries. We set up the rafters four times, but they were not stable, and the whole roof kept corkscrewing and falling down. It was very annoying. We also helped Beth cut flowers for a person's wedding. We had a really nice weekend, and we camped out with some friends at another farm.

Kylie's Visit, part 2

Another week with Kylie here. We have been teaching her a few things like budget shopping, how to use a saw, and the importance of drinking enough water. Last Sunday, we went up to Dutchman's Peak where there is a fire lookout. After playing in the snow, we ate lunch at the lookout and climbed up into the cupola. Afterwards, we went for a little hike on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) which goes from Canada to Mexico. The work week went smoothly with early mornings and afternoons off to go swimming and tomato eating. We weeded the lettuce and the squash and worked on the yurt. The yurt is a huge pain in the neck. We discovered that we would not be able to get the 20' 1'' circle we needed, so we had to take the floor off and add some pieces in to make it large enough to get a 20' 8" circle. We then got the walls and cable set up. For the next step we'll need a drywall jack.We are down to 10 chickens. The raccoons have feasted. One was caught in a trap; Tim shot one, and Grant shot one. It is the only mammal he has shot. After that he became quite the hick...wearing Wranglers, talking about trucks and guns, etc. (not really). He threw it by the creek a little to close to our favorite swimming and hammock spot, and now it smells horrible. We thought something would have eaten it by now.On Thursday, we drove down to Sacramento to get Kylie to her plane on time on Friday morning. It was a good week, and now I am sick of driving.

Kylie's Visit, part 1

This week Kylie was here! We picked her up on Saturday from Sacramento and started the 5+ hour trip back home. On Sunday we went to a poultry class at another farm and afterwards went to Emigrant Lake again for climbing and swimming, which was fun and much cooler than not being in the water. During the week, we changed our schedule to starting at 6:30 and going until 12-12:30, eating lunch, and either finishing our two hours after lunch or later in the evening, so we could avoid the heat of the day which was reaching around 100. We moved the goats, cows, and sheep. We also planted seeds for fall crops of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, chard, and pok choi. We also thinned the corn and weeded most of the lettuce. We also worked on the yurt deck and helped Tim put up a swing set in time for Quinn's birthday. During the afternoons, we have a little routine of going swimming in the creek and then going on a search for ripe tomatoes in the garden and green house. We also made homemade pizza one day which was pretty fun. In chicken news, chickens are continuing to die regularly. The culprit is a family of raccoons. Now there is a trap out there for them. We also got 105 baby chicks. They will be ready to eat in 10 weeks. It's been a good week of fun with the little Kylie.

We moved the goats, sheep, chickens, and cows, and also clipped the sheep and goat hooves. We worked on the exasperating yurt platform a little. On the plant front, we hoed the tomatillos and squash and thinned the kale. We also got a raise because now we have skills! For 4th of July, we went to the goat dairy for a little while before starting the drive to Sacramento to pick up Kylie! I saw a bolt of lightning that went from Mount Shasta to another mountain, or it at least looked like it did.