The Harvest begins......

We have been planting and weeding in between rain showers and downpours and it's paying off no matter how much the mosquito's try to discourage us. We do get a couple of hours of sunshine most days and so we try to complete little projects before the heavens open up again. Yesterday morning was foggy and cool. I thought it would be a good time to do some weeding and transplanting. The broccoli was definitely ready to be harvested and the tomatoes needed to be staked. We had just two hours before a nasty storm blew in. We sat on the farmer's porch and watched the rain and lightening make it's way up the valley until the lightening got too close for comfort and I came in the house. Guess I'm a chicken : it was incredibly loud! It was a spectacular light show for a few minutes.

I discovered last night at chore time that that light show blew up my electric fence charger. The company informed me today when I called them that I can purchase a lightening arrestor for $10 to prevent that from happening. Wish I had know that before hand. I had a small charger as a spare that I'm using for backup. That big charger isn't going to be cheap to replace. I'm hoping it's repairable

Our first broccoli harvest

The storm didn't last long thankfully and we had another lovely rainbow. Once the storm passed my Mom and I put 50 quarts of broccoli in the freezer. I am always so encouraged when I can start harvesting and filling my freezers and pantry. I'm one of those "worrier" types and I relax a little more each time I "put something up". I planted 40 broccoli plants. They will keep producing side shoots for quite some time that we will eat fresh.

I've had good luck with bush beans but my pole beans didn't germinate well so we will replant tomorrow. One variety of corn did well and the other did not germinate at all. I still have time for it to produce so will try again with that as well. Will plant a few more rows of Swiss chard, spinach, mescalin mix, beets, radishes and carrots. We have a very short growing season here but thankfully the things that need a long season are doing well.

The rain has also been great for the grass. Our spring lambs are growing nicely. Below are a few photos of our Shetland lambs.

Tylerfarm's Robin -2008 Shetland ewe lamb

Tylerfarm's Towhee - 2008 Shetland ram lamb

Tylerfarm's Woody - 2008 Shetland Ram lamb

They aren't exactly thrilled to have me follow them around with the camera. They want to eat! Hard to believe most of them are over two months old. They will start going to their new homes next week. I'll be sad to see them go but it's part of the process for us. They go to wonderful homes and I couldn't be happier about that.