8/19- Ah yes. That's why I can't stand using the kit lens on my entry level D40. Even at noon the light in my home is so low I can't get a crisp image without a flash. 

8/20- We harvested the Dark Red Norland potatoes last week and brought in a respectable 40 pounds from 5 pounds of seed. From what I read you should be able to expect 10 pounds of potatoes for every pound of seed, but in years past 5 pounds of seed has given us closer to 15 pounds of potatoes. You can see the cause of my excitement then. 





8/21-I love my new camera!!! The focus is amazing, it does even better than my D200 in low light, it has some fantastic new features I love, etc., etc., It's more user friendly too. Maybe now, my husband will be able to take a picture or two without bothering to learn how to shoot manually. 

8/22-Binky. Baby. Bokeh. In that order. 



8/23-I'll give you one guess as to who was sampling a hot pepper from the garden. Those hot lips needed some chapstick love to soothe them. A few minutes later Ben started wailing about his burning lips too. I'll give you one guess as to who was sampling the chapstick. 



8/24- Veg scrap. 

You shared some great ideas last year about how to reduce feed costs. Veg scrap was one of them. With our little piglets coming next week (FINALLY!!!!), we're all lined up to get them a nice supply of produce waste. In the meantime, the chickens & cows are enjoying picking through it. I was shocked when they powdered that pile in less than a day. 



8/25-That is a piece of functional ugly.

The produce still isn't keeping them in the pasture. Clipped wings and all, most are finding a way to get out and my beautifully dropping-free deck & walkways are now land mines again. Worst than that, they're getting in the garden eating all of my seed cucumbers aging on the vine and. the. tomatoes!!!! It's practically September and we've only gotten a handful of tomatoes so far. I could cry. 

The little ones are the best escapees since the bigger ones drive them out and they can find the littlest opening. This is our latest attempt to keep them contained, re-homing them into the pasture and getting them to be part of the flock. We threw the pullets back in there too since our last attempt to re-home them only lasted about a month.