Thanks Kimberlee for starting the journal. I was missing it but didn't want to get greedy with it. LOL. Wonder where Harry ran off to? I enjoy reading what everyone is up to.

We moved rabbits this afternoon. We had several young ones that needed cages of their own so DH and I got that done. We have also been working on getting all our fall and winter veggies set out and ready for the first frost which has been predicted twice this week but thank goodness hasn't arrived yet.

I had Doctor appointment Monday and DH became ill at school yesterday and has to go to the doctor and was still feeling poorly this morning so stayed home today.

We are having Fall Festival this weekend here in Philadelphia. DH has a booth for his craft items. So we have also been trying to get some of those all ready to go. I have to get his table covers ready tomorrow. I hope he is feeling up to doing this Saturday.

I have been collecting seed from various veggies and flowers for next spring. Mostly flowers, although I did save okra seed.

We are very dry here. Really need some rain. The dust has been terrible and the pollen even worse. Every time I go outside, I come back in wheezing. But the skies have been the bluest I think I have seen in years. They have been so beautiful.

I have been reading a lot of articles about keeping rabbits in a colony. DH and I have talked about trying this with a few of our rabbits. Just the ones that we keep for ourselves. The processor that I talked to about our meat rabbits told me that she did not want any that have been on the ground. But I thought it would be nice to put the ones that we keep for our own personal use in a colony. Seems they would be easier to care for.

My little chicks are growing like weeds. I am keeping food there for them all the time. Want them to grow off so I can put them in the freezer. Will keep a few of the pullets to put in with the laying hens. But hope to have at least 20 for the freezer. If I have 7 more young pullets to go with the ones I already have I will have 16 hens to lay. I already have one lady that wants brown eggs so maybe I can sell enough to buy the food anyway.

Trying really hard to get things going where we can pretty much raise all our food and become as self-sufficient as possible. Plus have some to sell. That is my real dream. I would love to get our grocery bill down to almost nothing. Keep on dreaming girl. LOL

Hope the rest of everyone's week is good.

Well, I'm like everyone else, wishing someone else would write, lol.
we've been trying hard to get ready for winter, frankly i'm thrilled about what we do have done, but dreading finishing up.
we actually cut, split and hauled 34 rank of wood in 3 weeks time! our son and family and us, should have enough for the winter, we have it all ranked and into the dry. we borrowed a splitter from the neighbor--wish we had known years ago how handy they are ! loaning our chipper/shredder as "partial" payback.
now, we have furnace gas paid for, fireplace wood in-and hay's in the barn, oh, that feels good.
now, have to clean out the chicken house, get the garden beds ready for winter, mow everything for the last time, and waterproof the deck. that in itself is a two week job!
hubby cant do much anymore, but he wears himself out trying to help. son still looking for a job, the great one he found closed down and jobs are scarce in this area, picking up a few odd jobs here and there.
put roosters on free-cycle, you know, noone wants roosters?just learning bantams hatch out 60% roosters-but the pullets i purchased have too many roosters too.
really, i think the economy is getting scarey, how about the rest of you? think so? how's things in your area, prices, jobs, etc?

Not much going on here. Things winding down for the winter. Weather has finally changed to seasonal yesterday. Down from high 60s to low 50s and wet...well at least we got 1/4" yesterday, first moisture for a long time, more fronts stacking up in the Gulf of Alaska so maybe we will be near normal from here out. I sure don't want another brown winter.

Finished up work on the wood patch a week ago, got the last very small load off that big log and trashed the bottom 7 ft. That was as much work as if I had made wood out of it.

Finished work on the wood pile, all split and piled, trash cleaned up. Nice pile out there. My eyeball says I cut about 12 cord this year. After packing the woodshed and backporch for this winter there is now about 30 cord on the outside stacks, about 8 of those are Black Locust that doesn't rot. Building a stock for when I have to quit cutting. Still need to move one pile of about 8 cord. That will reverse it so I use the oldest wood out there next winter.

Monday, borrowed the 24' ladder to prune trees. Figured to prune 3 Black Walnuts and a Green Ash, load brush and haul the next day. HAH! I didn't ask my legs opinion of that. got 4 pruned and the brush from 2 loaded before legs said enough. Up and down the ladder plus moving that thing really got to me. Tuesday back to pruning, just one Black Walnut to go on the far side of house. Ladder to move twice, use small ladder once, got the branches on the ground and legs again say QUIT! At least I backed the pickup around to get to the brush (very tight fit) Figured to pick up that brush Yesterday. Yep, tried. Drizzling, grass knee deep and sopping wet. Still the same thing this morning, still wet so I just retrieved the PU and hauled all the rest of the stuff to the 'patch. See that a huge tree broke and fell. It was dead but I didn't realize it was that rotten.

Got the back yard mulched with the mower at least on Tuesday. Gave up waiting for the rest of the leaves to fall. Still need to clean up the leaves on the patio, probably do that today.

Off to Spokane to the German Deli tomorrow. Alma will probably go for about $100 of stuff out of there. Need to shop for some new jig-saw puzzles too. Got a lot of dead time staring us in the face.

Harry K