Brown Snout

Apple Museum in Pennsylvania

Ran into this website: National Apple Museum

Opened in 1990, the museum is housed in a restored pre-Civil War bank barn and is owned and operated by the Biglerville Historical and Preservation Society. The museum mission is to preserve and exhibit the history and attendant artifacts pertaining to the Apple and Tree Fruit Industry's history and contributions to the development and growth of Adams County. Exhibits include early picking, packing, and shipping of fruit, pest management, commercial fruit processing equipment, early orchard photographs and a recreated 1880's farm kitchen and a General Store. The museum also features collections of farming implements, apple peelers and fruit labels and much more apple memorabilia.

Looking through their photo gallery, they have a wonderful collection.
Definitely worth a visit if you are traveling through Pennsylvania.

Harvest

It is getting towards the end of the growing season. The days are getting noticeably shorter and the leaves on the trees are thinking about changing color.

Jen went through our garden this morning and harvested the garlic and onions.

One of last years garlic plants had 'escaped' harvest and this summer, all of the individual segments sprouted. Here is the result:

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The $1,000 Duck Egg

We got our first Duck Egg yesterday.
Ducks start laying a lot sooner than Chickens or Guinea Fowl.

Given the cost of all the coops (about $300 materials each) and the feed and initial purchase price, we figure that this one cost us about an even thousand dollars.

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All of the succeeding eggs will, of course, be a lot cheaper but this one really set us back a bit.
It was very tasty! More flavor than any store-bought egg and the yoke was a deep rich orange color.

The nutritional value is not to be sneezed at… Mother Earth News just finished a testing of their free-range flocks and compared the data with the USDA analysis for Supermarket Eggs. Their chart makes the differences very clear:

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Guinea update

Jen left a comment on the previous entry about our Guinea's first day out:

Well, “not the most intelligent of God’s creatures” is an understatement. We're talking about a bunch of critters who wandered around thirsty for 3 days after I put their waterer on a piece of plywood to keep the water clean - I didn't change the physical location of the waterer at all, just elevated it 1/4 inch.

Not a single one of them returned to the snug, safe coop tonight. Hopefully, they've found safe trees to roost in…

Well, we woke to an ungodly racket this morning at sunrise. A number of them had found roosting perches in a large tree near our house. At breakfast, there were about a dozen of them milling around the driveway and while I was working on some computer stuff, I heard them outside my studio. Here is a group of 16 and there were a few others nearby:

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They are eating bugs and grass seeds. Go Guineas!

Our ducks patrol the garden and it has been wonderful this year with very minimal loss to slugs or other insects. Perfect lettuce leaves.