Happenin's on the Homestead

Well, been a bit since the last post hasn't it? Fair was last week and that keeps us fairly busy for a few days, although it's a tiny fair. Oldest child has a lot of fun with it though. She's the only meat goat project there and generally the only goat, period. She really needs some competition in the ring. She generally goes in, answers a couple of questions and that's it. She never really gets to show off all the practicing she does as far as showing or any real knowledge of the project. This year she went with a donated goat since her doe didn't take last year. This was an awesome gesture and we appreciate it no end as it did allow her to go to fair and show and all. However, this goat was pretty dairy. It got GC in the market goat class, just because she was the only one there. That really irks me. If it's a crappy goat, give it the appropriate placing even if she is the only one there. It really makes the ribbons meaningless. Oh, well.

On to other things. My garden is just not doing very well this year. I don't know why. I am not a master gardener by any means, but still..........I can usually do better than this! Most of my peppers and tomatoes were killed by a mid June frost but the ones that are left are just sitting there and not doing anything. A few grew a bit and have a few fruits on them, but most are just sitting there, the same size they were when I put them in the ground. And they are all in the same bed! I have volunteer tomatillos all over the place, but it's not looking like any fruit is coming my way. A shame as I LOVE those things!

My one good pumpkin plant

We planted several pumpkin plants. Four came up and only one is bigger that a 1' across. My corn is shorter than normal, and this is a short corn anyway. Some of the onions are doing well, the marionberries are doing very well, although it's all new growth so not a lot of berries this year. That's ok. Only a few carrots came up. Sunflowers not doing well, although the wild ones are happy.

3 yr old in with the corn for size reference

Painted Mountain corn has a lot of pretty coloring on the plant as well as the cob

I'm getting a lot of this stuff with this corn. Did last year, too, so don't know if it's me or the corn variety.

I've been checking my potato plants for bugs daily all summer. Not a thing. I leave for 4 days for fair and come back to an explosion of them. Typical, I suppose. Oh, well, that's gardening I suppose, right?

Some of my best taters are ones that were missed at harvest last year and are now in the corn patch

Pinto beans. Kinda small aren't they?

Sweet potatoes

Some very happy wild sunflowers

The animals are doing well. We're getting ready to breed oldest child's boer doe next month. We have a new buck, so hopefully things work this year. We got one of the steers off to the butcher. However, at fair I ended up purchasing a bred heifer. She's lowline/fullsize angus cross. I'm just wanting something to produce freezer beef. Hopefully this works out. She's very friendly and well trained so I should be able to handle her with minimal equipment for AI come breeding time. Hopefully, anyway, since I don't have any cattle handling equipment. :) She comes home next month.