Our Big Red Tractor and the little Praying Mantis

Some of you may remember our wonderful vintage tractor.

Well it runs like a charm and we love it!  Apparently our resident praying mantis loves it too!

He (or she) rode on the hood of the tractor for over four hours today!  He just roamed around and turned his little head to scan the landscape while my hubby (alias Farmer Toby) did his work.

The little cutie held on like he was having fun or something cuz the tractor was bouncing up and down but still he stayed put.

I wonder if he is the same one who hitched a ride inside on the Christmas decor last year, see him Here

My Chickens made me Breakfast

I unabashedly admit that I LOVE my chickens! Not only are they entertaining and eat tons of bugs but they are master chefs! They make me breakfast everyday! Yes, they are part of the family so let me introduce them, there's Maggie the Rhode Island Red, Goldie and Tillie the Buff Orpingtons, Betsy the Ameraucana who lays blue and green eggs :) and Mabel the Barred Plymouth rock who actually turned out to be Marvin hmmm, no eggs from him. Here they are enjoying an autumn day in the chicken pen.

Yes one day I heard what I thought was a pathetic attempt at crowing, I said to myself.....self was that a rooster crow you just heard? Nah, the feed store guaranteed they were all hens but guess what? they lied! Mabel alias Marvin now proudly struts among his harem crowing his head off. Oh well, I'm already attached so he stays.

Maybe the ladies are enjoying the attention from Marvin because they've been laying like crazy!

I love going out early in the morning to feed the chickens and gather the eggs. The lovely little flock get so excited when they see me coming it makes me feel so special and finding the eggs in the nest is like an Easter egg hunt every morning. It's such a simple thing but I love it! 

Yummy Fig Preserves

We have two fig trees on our property and they yielded a bumper crop this year. This is our first year here so I decided to give fig preserves a try. I gathered a basket full of the purple plump cuties and gave them a nice little bath.

I added sugar, water, lemons, a pinch of salt, some sure gel and of course the figs in a large heavy pan and cooked on low for 3 hours. I'm telling you it smelled sooooo good in my kitchen!

I sterilized the jars and lids to ready them to be filled with delicious fig preserves. Then a 10 minute water bath and waited to hear the pop, pop, pop of the lids sealing. There you have it, the most mouth watering fig preserves ever!

These will be good for 1 year. Next I'm going to dry some so I can use them to top cereals and just to eat as a snack. Did you know that 1 cup of figs contain twice the amount of calcium as whole milk? Thats good news for women, as we need to keep those bones strong! If you would like the complete recipe here is the link Yummy Fig Preserves

Loving the Farm Life

Time for a midday nap

 I really love living close to the Earth so to speak. My garden is flourishing
and the chickens are laying. It just doesn't get any better than this. Here's a few, well okay a LOT of pics for you to enjoy!

Yum can't wait to eat me some corn

More beans and radishes

Getting ready to cook these up straight from the garden

Our wood pile just called for an old timey black and white

Chicken coop for the ladies that my husband made, so cute!

The ladies' grand entrance

Tillie hunts for dinner

We mix a variety of feed for the girls and save the table scraps for them as well

There's Goldie coming out to greet the day, I hope she left me a present in there

Hmmmm...looks like they're saving the eggs til later

Here are the lovely gifts our ladies left us, did you know that eggs from the store are already a month old by the time they are put out for sale? Chickens are easy to care for and they give you so much in return. I would encourage everyone to get two or three if your zoning allows. Haha, hubby is in the background with his kneepads on, he's always working on some project.

My hubby designed and built the coop, he put a side door in for easy clean out. I use the scrapper to scrap out the poop into the barrel to later be used in compost.

Easy access to the nest boxes

I can't believe the blooms on the crape myrtles this year.

Great old abandoned one room house next to our property

We have about 20 pecan trees on the property, last year the drought resulted in zero pecans. This year is going to be a bumper crop. Thank you Lord Jesus.

Saved the best pic for last, isn't this the cutest?