Farmer Ed

Ellen harnessed up her 14 month old colt Annie to our older mare Abby today...  Annie didn't seem to mind and even pulled a little and Abby didn't let Annie get away with  any nonsense.

Ellen won 2nd place with peanut butter and jam cake

Grace won 2nd place with an apple carmel pie

Jubal won 1st with his watermelon that he coddled all summer

Jed won 1st with his honey

Jubal's giant watermelon figured it weighed about 75lbs

Colt nursing when horses stop for a blow

Jubal getting banjo lessons from the sister of the founder of the Dixie Chicks while Rosie looks on

Gracie working with her colt... getting the colt use to having its feet lifted

teaching her to lead

colt is pretty subdued

Lesson over time to get back to mama

Harvested honey from our apairy today... even though we had a drought up thru July the bees still were able to give us a fair harvest. 

The boys and I in the thick of it...  Jed always like plenty of smoke!

Hauling a tub of frames out of the apiary

 Looking at the inside of the honey extractor. Honey is extracted from the frames by centrifugal force as the basket turns... of course everyone likes a turn at the crank.

Grace straining the honey as it comes out of the extractor

Fine looking bowl of honey

Our mare Abby had a colt a month ago and we couldn't work her 3 months prior due to her pregnancy but we started working the team again today and let her colt run along side her mommy.

The girls had been having a hoot riding their horses thru this little pond so not to be shown up... 

Rosie leading her colt behind us to get her use to the noises of chains and cart.

What you are seeing is squash, watermelon, cantaloup, cukes and sweetcorn.  This was a experiment  we were trying with the white plastic mulch and irrigation to see if it was possible to start a second crop in heat of summer...  we are very pleased with the results which lead us to believe 2 and 3 sequential plantings of produce a year are possible in Oklahoma.

Jed put bike training wheels on this ol' horse drawn 5 shovel and cultivates his garden...  He harvested a bushel and 1/2 of beautiful cukes for market last night