The Next Big Thing

Well, the next big thing on our farm, anyway.  :)  What is the next big thing?  A high tunnel!  

We got a great start on it this weekend, thanks to a lot of help from our families.  This little puppy should allow us to grow crops later in the fall and earlier in the spring.  Kansas tomatoes in May?  Maybe.  June for sure!  The possibilities are endless.  :)  And with the size of the one we are putting up, we should have plenty of space to grow LOTS of things.

And, of course, plenty of space for little boys to play in the dirt.  :)

Autumn in Kansas

Autumn in Kansas means plenty of round bales.  I had a hard time getting my son down from this one.  He thought it was pretty great!  :)

Bluegrass!

Another Bluegrass has come and gone!  What a great time at the Walnut Valley Festival this year!

End of Summer Synopsis

While my weekly picture post has obviously gone by the wayside this summer, I am going to attempt to make up for it here with a MEGA-post (which is really the opposite of a synopsis which, by definition, is a brief summary, but we won't get into that ...)

We got a new kitten named Milo.

Here he is cute and tiny ...

  ...And then he grew.

We did some fishing ...

...and some more fishing ...

... Sometimes we fished for cats.  :)  
(don't worry ... it's only a bobber, no hook)

We planted tomato plants ...

 ... and we harvested tomatoes ...

... we sold at farmer's market ...

...we picked more tomatoes (and a few peaches and apples!)

...we made salsa ...

... picked more tomatoes ...

...made LOTS of delicious Caprese Pizza ...

(And pasta sauce, and tomato soup, and bbq sauce, and tomato jam.  That's right, tomato JAM.  I know it sounds gross, but it is actually delicious.  Just ask Bruce!)

... sold more tomatoes ....

Okay, I bet you are sensing a theme.  :)  Let's just say that other than keeping up with our two year old son, keeping up with the tomatoes has been the driving force this summer.  

Now back to some other NON-tomato related activities ...

As I posted this spring, we got bees ...

This summer, we harvested honey ... lots of honey!  We will be selling this at market next year!

Gage, Roger and Jeanette worked on the greenhouse and shed a lot of the summer.

These pictures aren't the most recent ... it is almost finished!

They also worked on putting up barn wood on the porch ceiling.  Neat!

We harvested apples ...

...ground apples ...

...pressed apples ...

... apple wine, anyone?  

Okay, so this isn't really the apple wine.  :)  And while Gage did make wine with the apples, we also bottled and labeled LOTS of wine from last year.

See?

We sold our 66 Chevy back to Aaron Moreland, which is okay because we now have the Red Beast from Dighton ... Grandpa Kalo's old pick-up.  I think Gage likes it.  :)

Bruce learned his favorite place on a hot farmer's market day is the back end of the SUV.

I learned to start checking Bruce's pockets before throwing his shorts in the wash.

Our little pond is a lot littler due to the summer's drought ... but we got an inch of rain last night - hooray!

We played hard ...

... we napped a lot ...

... We picked more tomatoes.

Puddle Jumpin'

I think someone has enjoyed the recent rain ...

Jonah was more interested in playing in the mud than in puddle jumpin'.  :)

And then we couldn't get him to come in out of the rain!

Rain.  Hallelujah!