It was a great year for our Asian pear tree! We picked lots and lots of Asian pears and canned them all!
We ended up with 119 pints of Asian pears! Woohoo!
I just finished making jam with the strawberries, raspberries and blackberries from our yard! Yummy! Tried a new recipe without using boxed pectin, used granny smith apples instead with the fruit and honey for sweetener! Turned out great!
We dehydrated all the carrots this year and the parsnips too!
These would be all the apples we got off our trees this year. Made 2 pints of apple sauce! And we got enough pears from our tree to make 17 pints of pears!
Kara's 17th birthday BBQ was awesome! Had lots of friends and family over! Can't believe she's 17! Wow how time flies!
And we visited with Gma Shelley on Kara's birthday.
We have added to the farm again, with 3 new piggies. They are a cross between Hereford and Berkshire. Nice and long, so hopefully lots of bacon! Mmmmm bacon!
We have 2 males and 1 female. The males were not castrated when we got them and Rob, Liam, and I took on that "lovely" task, with Rob doing the "dirty" work. lol Liam and I were the "holders". Usually, they are castrated at about 8 days old. These were 11 weeks old, so a little bit harder to do, but the job got done and they healed up fine.
We have put them out by the chickens and they are doing a fabulous job of rooting up the big mound that was left from Rob moving stumps, and clumps and such. Hopefully, they will take it all down and then we can smooth it out a little and plant some pasture grass. Then we will move them to another area to do the same thing!
And we added a steer to the farm. Mr. MooMoo, as I have dubbed him, is a Jersey/Holstein cross. He has done a great job eating the grass we do have in the back 3 fenced acres. We supplement him with pasture grass. He runs with Gus and Marty.
In more family news, Liam's football season is going great. I believe the freshman team is now 3-1. One of the high school photographers snapped the photo below as Liam was carrying the ball! I think he's scored something like 4 touchdowns so far.
Kara is having a great senior year. She had her first senior photos taken for the yearbook, which came out fabulous! This is her and Tanner, after Tanner got his hair cut! What a cute pair!
And Aylia and Alex are now engaged!!!!!! The photo below was taken at the dinner after Alex proposed! They both look so happy!
Robert is elk hunting, black powder, right now and at the end of this week, Liam will be joining him for deer season. Hopefully, Rob will get an elk and both will get a deer. Liam drew a tag for elk also, which is later in November I believe.
The garden is winding down. We have lots of sugar pumpkins and butternut squash that we are going to can this year instead of freeze. Want to leave the freezer space for meat if possible.
We moved the treadmill and weights out to the garage to set up our own "Box" to workout. Liam and Grandma Susan and I did our WOD (workout of the day) the other night and it was awesome! We have added a rowing machine, a 45lb barbell with bumper plates. Just need to get an iHome or something better to play music with than just the iPhone. We will be adding a pull-up bar and hopefully a climbing rope down the road. Found a great place in Everett that sells CrossFit equipment very reasonably priced, so don't have to pay for shipping!
That's about it for now. All is well up at Shelley Hill Farm!
