Another busy day

     Today was the last full day that eldest son was here to help with work.  We started off early enough to get breakfast in town and make our weekly Farmer's Market run, and for a change, we were early enough to actually score some real goodies, fresh corn, raspberries (Yummy), new Yukon
Gold potatoes, cheese, eggs (the girls aren't producing with any regularity yet), some meat for the winter freezer.
     Our afternoon was spent making modifications to the Chicken ark/tractor.  After using it for 5 weeks, I realized that the walkboard was too wide and hung down beside the feeder and over the waterer.  I'll just say that chickens are nasty birds, so we moved the walkboard across the width at the end with the perches, added one additional perch and put hefty eye screws in the peak to hang the food and water so that the chickens will have room on both sides of the feeder and waterer and more ground space to move around in.  We also added a door on one end that will allow me to more easily return escapees to the run and to let them out for some free range time so that they aren't so crowded as they get large.

     After a dinner of Farmer's Market and garden goodies, the garden became the focus of the rest of the days labor.  It is now about half weeded again, plus harvested another quart plus of fresh peas, two grocery sacks of kale, two cabbages (the others were so shaded by the kale they need more growing time), and a couple dozen potato (or cluster) onions.  The onions are curing, the cabbages are stored, the peas are shelled and most frozen for winter meals, a meal's worth saved out for tomorrow's dinner and I started on freezing the kale, but ran out of vac/seal bags material, so the rest will have to wait until tomorrow.  It is great to be filling the freezer again with garden veggies, chicken that we raised and beef and pork from the Farmer's Market.  The wild blackberries will be ripening soon, the wild raspberries sooner and there are a couple of pints of blueberries on my young bushes.  Some of the berries will be made into jams and some frozen for muffins and smoothies.