Freedom and Fall Veggies

Well, I took a slat out of the chick pen door, so the Barnyard Mutts can now come and go as they please.  I still have their feed and water in there so they won't have to compete with the older gals for food outside the barn. 

You go first.  No, YOU go first!

While I was milking, I had Rhiannon scatter some scratch just outside the chick pen door to entice some of them outside.  It didn't take long for one, then another to hop out.  And of course, as soon as the group saw one chicken interested in the scratch, everyone had to be out. 

There was a little chasing and sqwaking going on, but nothing terrible.  The Barnyard Mutts ran right back to their pen if they were getting picked on by the older hens.  And the older hens are too lazy to jump up to the pen to follow them.  Hopefully everyone gets along once the little chickens make it out to the yard again.  Although it's pretty cold and windy today so I'm betting they stay in or around their pen for a while.

I think we're only supposed to have a daytime high in the mid 40's so I suppose I should get the plastic tarp ready to put over the zucchini tonight.  We've harvested five nice sized zukes from the fall planting and there are still about five more on the plants.  I know that it's not a huge crop, but since we normally wouldn't be getting them this time of year, I'm happy.  I'm hoping to grow out at least two of the zucchini to "zucchini-boat" size.  I want to be able to make at least two more batches of Zucchini Fritters.

And speaking of the garden, look what I got from it yesterday:

Zukes and Yellow Wax Beans

I still can't believe I'm getting stuff out of the garden in November!  I also picked on of the cabbages last week:

Egg Rolls?  Coleslaw??  Golumpki???

The peas are doing nicely, but still need a while longer before I can harvest full-sized ones.  Paul & Rhiannon planted some lettuce, spinach & green onions, but they are still really small.  This was our first year planting a Fall Garden and I'm definately going to plant more next year.  And for some reason, there doesn't seem to be such a rushed feeling with the later garden.  Maybe because I'm not having to water as often or weed as much.