~

Hello, my lovely readers and happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers out there (including mine)! We have been through so much as a family, and my father has been one of the strongest men I know. He taught me to shoot my first bow, he taught me to survive the apocalypse (as every father should 😉), and he taught me how to take care of myself and not depend on other people. (And my mother taught me the beauty of helping other people, but not to let them become dependent on me.)

This year for Father’s Day, my hubby and I went out to the yard to pick mulberries off the tree in the front yard. We ended up with enough to fill two small mason jars. One for my dad, and one for the neighbor who had brought us over jam the other day. We wanted to give our neighbor back his jar today, so why not send it back with fresh berries in it!? As for my dad, he has been a huge supporter of our little homestead, and he has done a lot to help us with everything around here. Now, the berry bushes we just planted may not be big enough for any berries this year, we happen to have a fully developed mulberry tree that has plenty of berries for him!

It was a lot of fun to go out there and pick mulberries off the tree! Hubby grabbed the branches and pulled then down for me while I climbed up on my little step stool and picked them all! We rinsed them, stuck them in jars, and they will surely be gone by this afternoon!

~

So, what have we been up to this week?

Well! We have added another raised garden bed out front! This one was honestly a ‘little’ taller than I expected.. But we decided it was good height for potatoes or herbs. (Something we didn’t have to crouch down for!) We are currently (with the help of our neighbors) filling the box with all of the sticks, grass, and leaves that we can get our hands on! Soon, we will be going over to my parents house to pick up woodchips for around the raised beds, and hopefully we won’t have to mow the front yard when we are done with it! 😉

We have also gotten what we need to make our clothesline! We will be putting that up next week early in the morning, as the weather is going to be extremely hot this week! We’re talking, 100 degrees outside, and full sun-shiny days! If that’s how the weather is going to go for the Markets this Wednesday, we may not be going this week… 😅

Yesterday was also a crazy day, the morning/afternoon was spent at my cousins graduation party, and the rest of the afternoon/night I was at a friend’s wedding having a blast and getting to see her marry the love of her life. ❤ I am so proud of my cousin for graduating high school, and so very happy that my friend finally married her best friend (it’s all we’ve been talking about for the past few months), and now she can finally relax after the craziness of the wedding and enjoy some quiet time with her hubby.

Another weekly update that needs to be done is the chicks! With it being so hot, they will be spending their first night out in the coup/pen! It will only be as ‘cold’ as 80 degrees the next few days, so they will be plenty warm out in their coup overnight! They have also now taken a fascination with the camera, and every time I go to take their pictures they want to peck at the lens! I try not to let them close enough to peck at the camera, but it sure makes for some cute pictures!

Hubby has finally made a summer coup for them, but it’ll need some fixing before winter. For this week though, it will be just fine. It’s something that keeps them out of the sun in the heat of the day, but also warm when they are huddled together at night. We also finally got the white tarp that came with it on top. It started to rain the other day while the chicks were out in the pen, and instead of bringing them in hubby decided to just slap the tarp on it! The chickens got to see their first rainstorm in their dry and cozy tent, and they were having fun trying to catch the water droplets that were dripping off the side of the tarp.

So that’s what’s been going on in our neck of the woods!

More posts to come soon! As always, smile, have an amazing day, and go pet a chicken! ;P