Pumpkin Harvest!

We have a bountiful harvest of pumpkins. Large Jack-O-Lantern types, Sugar Pie Pumpkins, and miniature pumpkins too. This is the first year we have grown pumpkins, and they did great. I have heard that other people didn't have a very good growing year, as it has been cooler and not as humid, but it doesn't seem to have effected us too much. Below are a couple of pictures.

Excuse, the dirt...this was before washing!

Fall harvest display of pumpkins and a corn shock.

If anyone is interested in coming out to the farm for a tour and/or to buy pumpkins let me know. You can email us at picketfencefarm (at) gmail (dot) com. Prices are as follows:

Large Jack-o-Lanterns $4

Sugar Pie Pumpkins $2

Miniature pumpkins 3 for $2

Corn Shocks $5

We have not harvested all the pumpkins yet, so if someone wants to pick their own, that option is available too. And, as always, all of our produce is chemical free.

House Update

They've started on our house! It's exciting to see it finally going up after waiting all this time. Here are a few pictures of the progress.

This first picture is kind of blurry because it was taken from the road. This shows the crew working on the first day. We are building a polebarn style home through Dutch Mill Supply, and they have a crew of Amish men that build for them.

This is today (the second day). They have made great progress! They say it will only be 4 days (or so) and they'll be done with the outside, then our work will begin finishing the inside.

Here is a picture of said inside. By the looks of things we have A LOT of work to do...

Creepy Crawlies

Our garden is FULL of these menacing looking spiders. They are harmless though, and actually good for the garden because of all the pests they eat. I think I've probably counted a dozen of these webs and garden spiders, and I am sure there are more. Most of them are yellow and black like the one here, but I have also seen black and white with a little yellow. The webs are really quite neat.



Okay, we saw this snake on the road by our farm...lovely, isn't it? Can you hear my sarcasim? I'm not a big fan of snakes. Anyone know what kind this is?

Honey Harvest

I thought I would share some pictures of our recent honey harvest!

These are the guys from Busy Bee Acres, all suited up and ready to harvest honey.

This is honey from their box on our farm. See how it is FULL of honey. They set their's up at the very beginning of the season.

This is from our box that was set up later in the season. Quite a difference. They ended up getting 5 gallons of honey from 4 bee hives. We got 3 pints from our 1 bee hive. We are hoping to get another hive built over the winter, plus get them both set out early in the spring so we get a bigger honey harvest next year!

This is a picture of the smoker. The wood chips inside smoke to calm the bees and help keep them from stinging.

Thanks to Busy Bee Acres from Otley for all their help this year with the honey bees. It is something we are quite interested in and still learning about. Hopefully we'll have a great 2010 honey harvest!

Our New House is Underway!

These pictures seem to be out of order, but no matter. We are excited that our new "farm house" is finally under way!

This is the slab foundation poured (with the rough in plumbing). It doesn't look like much yet, but after this sets for a few days the builders can get to work on our house.

This picture is of site work being done...this was the day our plumber was roughing in the pipes and drains in the slab.

This picture is of the footings after they were poured. I know, not very exciting...I am going to try and take pictures of all the different stages in the building process and then make a scrapbook for remembery (as my daughter likes to call it ;)

Fall Is In the Air!

“The cheerful joyous season,
The Autumn time is come.
With song and shout we welcome
The Golden Harvest Home.”
~Author Unknown