September was a good month on the homestead overall. We had the typical where it rains once, after a long dry streak of summer, then summer weather came back. At the last week, it cooled off and rain returned. Which is…pretty normal weather!
During the summer we had two hens go broody. One hatched 1 baby, which was hers (she was sleeping in her own coop then), these two chicks were hatched by the other mother. Another one tried to hatch but didn’t make it out. A fourth one hatched two days after these, and she rejected it. Another lady I know came and got it, her broody hen accepted it and it has grown well…into a rooster.
At least Goldie was willing to teach the two chicks how to be a chicken. We figured out that our Saphire Gem hen is the mom of the grey one. As it has grown, it is very obvious. Goldie was an egg hoarder!
Little honeybee visiting the Cosmos.
The “teens” as we call them, enjoying summer squash treats from the garden.
Pumpkins hiding.
The start of the Evergreen Huckleberry flow.
Tomatoes everywhere.
Green where there is irrigation, dry everywhere else.
The second crop of berries were just starting.
The ducks enjoying fresh cabbage I grew for them.
Sweet corn.
I loved the color of the stalks and of the corn husks. The corn was so very sweet and good this year.
Thai peppers.
Every sunflower was grown for the chickens, who happily stripped them.
When we harvested this Waltham Butternut it weighed over 6 pounds.
In September I end up making salsa or pasta sauce for canning a couple times a week to keep up.
Full moon at dawn, over the Olympic Mountains.
Acorn squashes.
Late summer into fall strawberry crop.
Golden Raspberries.
Clancy potatoes. I grew these from seed (not potatoes). I will use them for seed potatoes next year to continue it on.
Grapes off the vines.
That’s a big squash.
And how quickly we lose light. September 7th.
More fall strawberries.
The final push of summer into fall.
We took in 5 more hens from people we know. For now it’s a fostering thing, as they decide if they want to move.
Growing cabbage for the chickens and ducks.
More grapes.
The harvested garlic, long cured, gets pulled out. We sold quite a bit of it, for others to use as seed garlic.
Broken up and ready to plan.
Planted in summer, the fall potatoes are flowering.
Of the three chicks we raised, the single one hatched is showing he is a rooster. Which is OK, we are rooster free currently. He looks a lot like his father, Raven. Raven went to another chicken group to produce babies.
This was for September the 29th. We went from over 13 hours daylight to well under 12 hours. Light slips fast after the Autumnal Equinox in September.
In the final week we have the garlic, onion sets, shallots and more in the ground. Spinach and other fall crops are growing happily next to it all. Today on the last day of September, the rains dump, but October is promising to be sunny for the first week.
~Sarah