Baby Sheeps & Buggy Buds

"...He has made everything beautiful in its time..." Ecclesiastes 3:11a

Fall is one of our favorite seasons. Cooler weather, beautiful colors, happy sheeps, getting gardens ready for a long winter's nap...

Digory is just like his papa. The stable makes an excellent scratchin' post...

The Unsteady Six. Mama's three newest lambs in the background. Annabelle's babies in front.
All a little suspicious of the crazy camera lady...
Meanwhile, Eva, Eustace, Ezzy, & Edie are all clamoring at my knees for cuddles, ear scratchin's, and treats.
and trying to eat the camera.

Eustace is trying to explain to Evie that the camera is 'not so scary.' 'in fact, it's rather tasty.'
...as I'm trying to wipe his slobber off my uber expensive lense...

Gus & The Not-So-Fast-Chicken-Nuggets

Gus was very interested in the chicks that we brought home a couple of weeks ago. 

It's a good thing that these darling little handfuls of fluffy down turn into ugly and fat birds.

Sewing, Gathering, & Farming in General

The NeCamp Farm is taking a wee sabbatical from chicken herding. We have been making a few changes 'round these here parts. We're keeping a small flock just for us, but no more Friday mornings of washing dozens of eggs 'till my fingers are super raisin'y'. and smelly.  

Papa harvested our small plot of wheat. We've been waiting for some odd weeks for the wheat berries to be crunchy not milky. A truly golden sea in our very own yard. There's something old fashioned and sweet about growing wheat. Like my inner 'Laura Ingalls' spilling with farm'y' delight. 

Papa bundled our wheat into tidy little bundles.  

I decided the wheat would be an excellent location for showing off my new apron. Our church is having summer sewing classes this summer and so I was delving into our scrap bag. A Is for Apron was the inspiration behind this one. Aprons can be addicting. to wear. to sew. 

The towel loop is a huge addition to the apron.
I have been known to steal towels from the kitchen like security blankies. 

What Comes After Jumbo?

Papa brought the eggs in this morning. One egg stood out a bit more than the others...

We weighed it. 

4.15 ounces.

Extra jumbo eggs that you buy in the store weigh ~ 2.75 ounces.

wow. 

Maybe one of the girls wants to be an ostrich. 

Bubba Roo

Yesterday was graduation day for 20 of our chickens. Nineteen of them were planned...and one of them certainly was not.

Hannah took pictures of the turkeys instead of looking at the violence.

We had been raising a brood of Cornish crosses to harvest for fall and winter chicken, maybe even enough to get us into spring. After eight weeks, these marvels of chicken genetics had reached a very nice harvest weight. This time around, we decided to try something new. For the past few hundred chickens that we have harvested, we did the harvesting. It isn't my favorite job. I value the life that God gives to His creatures, including the chickens. It is not a happy thing for me to bring their lives to an end. But I realize that these are God's gifts, fulfilling His purpose, and we are grateful for God's provision of home-grown, well kept chicken. However this fall has been a particularly busy time, and it takes several hours to process so many birds. So...we loaded up the graduates and took them to a nearby poultry farm. What would have taken me several hours took them 30 minutes. Hannah and I came home with coolers filled with fresh chicken...and a certain "appreciation" for the process. Let's move on.

This spring, we purchased some chicks to raise for eggs and meat. And we decided to keep one of the roosters, sparing him from graduation, in order to trying hatching some of our own Australorp chicks. Bubba-Roo was quite a handsome bird. The glint of green off those jet-black feathers when the sun is shining on them...well, it is just plain beautiful.

Bubba lived alone, which may have delayed his entrance into rooster-meanness for a while, but eventually he went the way of nearly all roosters. Even though we couldn't really socialize with him, we tried to give him a comfortable home in a nice large pen. Feeding and watering was a little bit dicey, but we managed. And we looked forward to letting him move in with one of our smaller flocks to hopefully prepare some eggs for hatching in late winter.

I don't know exactly what happened, but yesterday morning when I went out to start preparing the graduates to march, I saw Bubba-Roo lying down too strangely in his pen. Even at a distance, I knew that Bubba had left us. I say I don't know exactly what happened, but I have a pretty good idea. Something - probably one of our neighborhood raccoons - made a persistent effort to get to Bubba. The chicken wire was stretched and bent, but not broken. Bubba didn't have a mark on him. My conclusion is that he simply died of fright.

And even in this I am reminded of the dark power of fear and how it destroys life. And I hear the Voice speaking to us, "Fear not, for I am with you..." I hear the Psalmist testify, "I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."

I would be lying to you if I did not confess that I have some fears, some very deep fears, very terrible fears. I want to learn, I need to learn to trust the One who gives Life and who gave the Life of His Son to destroy fear. And I look for a Better Day when fear shall be no more.

Tom