Weird Weather!

Six months later and we still need rain.  The whole state is in a drought situation.  We did have some rain in August.

But it was barely enough to register in the rain guage.

We had normal hot, hot weather in August for Summerfest in downtown York.

And the ribs were delicious! 

I think our climate is gradually changing to one like Central America with a rainy season and dry season.  Thank goodness we had just enough rain (with occasional watering) for our summer garden of 70 heirloom tomato plants, 20 eggplants, and 30 pepper plants.  Not to mention the apples, figs, pears, grapes, peaches, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.  And potatoes!

I canned and dried everything all summer and we are enjoying it all now, especially the tomato juice and canned tomatoes.

As far as critters go, we discovered that all 10 of the Americana chicks that we bought locally were roosters!  What is the chance of that?  All but one went into the freezer.

The geese continue to be the comic critters on the farm.  

They love to play keep-away with an old tennis ball,

chew on anybody's shoes and shoelaces,

harrass strange dogs (Reese just laughs at them),

and censor the sex of all of the other animals.  

We call them the Priests because they highly disapprove of sex and will interrupt it every time.

All of our new hens are giving us eggs every day.  One hen, Madrecita, was broody and sat on a clutch of eggs for a month, hatching several.  She has been a very attentive mom and her babies are almost as big as she is now.

Our newest critter is Roo, a barn cat who was dropped off as a tiny kitten and chose to live in our hen house.  Roo still thinks he is a hen and sleeps in a nest box.  He and Jasmine have gotten to know each other and play well together, but Roo likes the safety of a chair to hide behind!

Luckily, all of our critters get along well together.

As far as work on the house goes, we finally finished wallpapering the master bathroom and bedroom and moved our bed back.  We're no longer sleeping in the dining room!

Our Christmas present to each other will be a four poster rice bed.  Anybody know of a bargain anywhere?

On the last day of August, UPS delivered my newest camera, a Leica MM which takes only black and white photos.  It's the camera I've been waiting for and I was so excited to get it before our trip to Italy.  

Thanks, Carl and Roger!

I tried out its high ISOs around the farm first.

We packed really light for our trip to Italy because we planned to spend two weeks hiking the Cinque Terre Trail between five villages on the coast of Italy;

however, there were so many tourists from the cruise ships that we left the coast and headed for a 400 acre Agritourism farm near Lucca.  It was wonderful.

We were there for the grape harvest this year and hope to go back next November for the olive harvest if we can leave our farm long enough for a farm vacation in Italy!  In the meantime, we are still eating all of our meals on the back deck because it is 75 degrees in the middle of December!  Weird weather.