Friday Farm Photo: Have a Picturesque Weekend.

Breakfast in the front field.

Any plans this weekend? We're finally getting a little bit of much needed rain and are hoping for more tonight or tomorrow. It's mostly dusty and crunchy and brown out there, and the cool season grasses that the sheep and donkeys usually graze on this time of year simply aren't growing. Fortunately we've reduced the size of the flock so much in the past few years that we—knock on wool—should still have plenty for everyone to eat, plus the moisture from the early morning fog we often get down in our little valley helps a lot. But I think many of the local cattle farmers are going to have to start feeding out their hay much earlier than they'd planned.

I'm also hoping the rain will wash away these unseasonably warm temperatures (after two frosty nights we're back up in the 80s) and the thousands of little yellowish-green beetles with black spots that have been decimating the several beds of beautiful autumn greens in the kitchen garden that were supposed to keep us fed for the next couple of months. In 21 years of gardening in Missouri I've never had any trouble with—or seen so many of—these incredibly destructive bugs. This has been a really strange year in the garden. (Update: They're spotted cucumber beetles, which unlike striped cucumber beetles, feed on over 200 crop and non-crop plants. Crap. Thanks for the pest ID, Candy!)

Meanwhile we're working our way through the several pounds of only-slightly-nibbled lettuce and kale I managed to salvage that are stashed in a giant cooler in Joe's workshop (he's thrilled). Every night is Giant Salad Night! But between the fresh crisp greens and the last of the vine-ripened garden tomatoes, neither of us minds a bit.

© FarmgirlFare.com, home of the half hidden donkey.

Tuesday Dose of Farm and Cute: Good Morning Light

The 20-year-old homemade swing in the hayfield keeps getting higher as the tree gets bigger.

I haven't been taking any pictures lately, but a few mornings ago I decided to grab my camera as Bear, Bert, Henry, and I headed out to check on the donkeys, the chickens, the big dogs, and the sheep. Before we'd even left the farmyard I was seeing photos everywhere.

It's all in the light.

15 more photos below. . .

Wednesday Farm Photo: Hello, Autumn!

Looking past the recently rebuilt antique tractor and into the front field.

Happy first day of fall! Has your weather changed seasons yet? It's hot and dry and still seems like summer here, but some of the leaves have started turning yellow, and the nights are dropping down into the blissful 50s.

These cooler mornings feel fresh and energetic, with the promise that all those wonderful crisp autumn days are just around the corner. I can't wait.

P.S. Super Simple Spinach Soup made with fresh spinach and Old-Fashioned Pear and Apple Crisp.

© FarmgirlFare.com, falling into autumn faster than seven donkeys heading towards the treat trough.

Friday Farm Photo: Have a Colorful Weekend.

Any plans this weekend? I'm hoping to spend some time in the kitchen garden sowing a bed of Swiss chard and cucumber seeds (did I really order five different varieties this year?), finally getting the rest of my poor tomato and pepper seedlings in the ground (can you tell I'm a little behind?), pulling approximately 3,000 more weeds, and mulching everything I can with grass clippings—now that it's finally dry enough out there to cut the grass—and that wonderful, nutrient-rich manure/bedding hay from the sheep barn.

I'll also be savoring the fact that our hayfield no longer looks like it does in the photo above because there are 225 square bales of hay now stacked in the barn (we didn't cut the entire field, just what you see here). We'd hoped to get a lot more bales, and it's not the best hay we've ever put up, but it's nowhere near the worst.

Fortunately we still have a lot of big round bales left over from last year (because for the first time we cut Donkeyland as well as the hayfield) so no matter what Mother Nature throws at us this fall and winter, we should hopefully have enough hay to keep the sheep and donkeys fed well into next spring.

Even so, depending on the weather, the rain fall, and what grows up in the hayfield over the next month or two, we may try to go ahead and put up some more round bales just in case. Because if you have a farm full of grass eaters, an always unpredictable climate, friends and neighbors with herds of cows but no hayfields of their own, and some room still left in the haybarn, there's really no such thing as having too much hay.

Wondering how you put up hay? Have a look here and here and here.

© FarmgirlFare.com, hanging out on the bright side of life.

Sunday Farm Photos: Oops.

Looking out the bedroom window yesterday morning.

More photos below. . .