June was such a busy month for me, I’m afraid I only blogged twice!  It’s really a shame because I should’ve been on here spending time bragging about my new GLO Chicks, but instead I was busy, hatching, cleaning, moving, rearranging, building, and working in general!Since I last wrote, I have decided to let go of all the White Orpingtons I have aquired this year, in order to make more room for my GLO Project.  They are LOVELY birds, but I just don’t have the room to mess with this recessive white variety, many of whom hatch with the wrong color legs.  There were a few people on the waiting list for White Orpington Fertile Eggs, and I have written to them to give them the first opportunity to aquire the birds I’m letting go of.

Everyone else is doing well, unfortunately, I did NOT receive my replacement order of Turkeys from Sandhill Preservation Center.  This is a major let down, as I have been planning on and waiting for them for MONTHS now.  I suppose this is just another sign that I should work on another Heritage breed, and will now set out to investigate which breed that might be.Things are in flux right now in all the coops & chicken areas as there are some growing up, some moving around, and others just hanging out waiting to see what happens next!  My GLO chicks are getting bigger and bigger and the group of rose comb chicks are looking really good!  I think that I have about 5 boys and 7 girls, finally some balance!!  Out of the other family with straight combs, I have 1 boy and 2 girls; not many but still a good variety.  There has been some disagreement about the outcome on that hatch, some experts agree that they boy I hatched COULD NOT be from the mating of my Gold Lace Wyandotte Cockerel with Buff Orpington hens, and so I have put that family back together and will be drawing more eggs for hatching in August.  I too am curious to see the results duplicated and put this issue to rest after all.  Thing is, he came out black, almost entirely black, and is now filling in nicely with gold & black feathers.  Its been discussed that this is likely an accidental mating between my Black & Buff Orpingtons, but I insist that was not possible.  So the only way to know, is to do it again.  As always, I will keep you updated.

The gardens are doing ok, there have been some changes there too.  My topsey turvey imposter bags, have pretty much finished their season.  The Bell Pepper did the best of all, providing 6 peppers so far this season.  The pickle bag was too crowded to properly produce fruit so that was almost a total waste (next year, one plant per bag for sure).  The tomatoe plant LOOKS the best but has only put out 2 tomatoes so far, with 2 more growing as I type.  The raised garden has been replanted with Black Beans and those are doing really well along side of the Leeks & Onions, and even the watermelon & cantelope located in that same bed are doing quite well.  Our green bean crop has already been pulled and replaced yesterday with a 2nd planting of corn, bi-color this time.  The sweet potatoes are growing like crazy and are doing well in the back garden.  One of our Apple Trees does NOT look good with some sort of nonesense going on with it’s leaves.  We are considering returning it to Lowe’s before it’s too late.  My spaghetti squash plants have ALL died! At least one tried to put out a fruit, but was then damaged by one of our dogs and so died.

That’s about all that is new here!  Please let me know how YOUR doing by signing my guestbook and leaving a note!

OH.. and I’ve been SO busy too working on a new website: www.SmokySaver.com Check it out please and let me know what you think!  If you’ve ever been to our area, please take a moment to login to the online forum and share your experiences!  I will surely appreciate it!