We opened up the barn garden to the chickens and ducks.

We had a couple of people here from The Natural Garden in Harrisonburg. They were very impressed with our meadow.

Marigolds next to the compost.

The garden spider greeted us for several weeks as we opened and closed the gate to the barn garden.

Dave walks by our volunteer cherry tomato plant growing on the compost fence.

Freda inspects the boneset. I harvested it for my herbalist. She said it is good for fevers.

Pretty, too.

It was great to have some young people here helping us through the alternative economy – hOUR Economy. They worked and we fed them and they camped out on our property. We really enjoyed their company and I think they had a good time, too.

Two of the guys helped Dave install gutters on the back of the barn for a water catchment system.

Dan, Kurt, Meghan, Tim and Savhannah.

They helped out others over a four day period and biked form place to place. We’re talking 15-25 miles between work sites. To have that energy!

Our bushel basket gourds didn’t get bushel size – more like quart size.

As I was walking to the barn one afternoon about a half dozen bluebirds flew off the pasture fence into our big, old oak tree.

I can see two bluebirds in each of the above photos.

Just some of the butternut we harvested.

11-11 update – finally estimated how much butternut we harvested this year. I counted 85 at approximately 2 lbs. each. So that’s about 170 lbs.! I think butternut is about $2 a lb. in the store so about $340 worth!

Just after we opened the kitchen garden to the ducks.

And finally, here is the water catchment.

We got a lot of rain late September to early October. We were amazed at how the water accumulated so quickly. Dave has already used it to water our brussel sprouts and an artimesia (wormwood) we transplanted to the barnyard. It helps prevent worms in chickens.