Busy working on this and that.  I have been treating Belle for hair loss.  I gave her double her body weight in wormer, then a week later did it again.  I see the hair coming back.  This summer has been hard on the animals! She never got to the point of losing weight or appetite, but did lose her hair.  She is going to need it soon as I see the trees already changing.

Who new bats could swim?  After some heavy rains,  I decided we really didn't need to catch as much rain water.   I saw this floating around in the barrel on the back porch and at first thought it was leaves. Then I saw what it really was!   I took a stick and got it to the edge of the barrel where it cleaned itself just like a cat, then slept the rest of the daylight hours.  It was gone by dark.

Even though Jess is winding up work, she comes home and works on the saddles.   They needed some real attention and she has most cleaned up and oiled nicely ready to go.

Tom and I attempted to do the chickens on his Friday off.  Friends from church let us borrow their plucker and it was suppose to be easy. 

It was just Tom and I and  we didn't get started until after 9:00.  It was already getting stinking hot.   We set up and attempted to do roosters first.  He butchered 5, and we started taking feathers off.  It was awful.  We didn't have the water hot enough and the flies were all over.  Black and white bees flying in and out.   We were done for the day!  Grrr!

The first Thursday of the month a friend of ours that got us started on the chicken idea last year came to help us out.  It was much cooler that morning and we actually started about 7:00 a.m.   We also had Jess and Becky to help us that morning.  We ended up using the huge pot Tommy gave me a few years back to scald the chickens.  That made quite a difference in the plucker!  Whiz-Bang they were done.    The black "fingers" pull the feathers out within a few seconds and they are off to be cleaned.

by  9:30  all the chickens were done and I was almost done putting them away.  I took all the backs that would  fit in my big roaster and cooked them down with broth, and all the wings that would fit  in my tri-crock pot and cooked those down.   Picking off the meat I attempted to do my first canning of meat.  The books said no water, which looked weird to me.  But they sealed!

We got done just in time as Tom was cleaning up and putting away outside, It began to pour!   What a nice way to end the day though!

Bible school week was a good all week long.  Jess and her friend taught Creation in their class.  The last day the kids had closing of fun night with telling all the parents what they learned, showing them the decorated rooms, and having a snack and playing games.

They even had face painting!