Chuck is learning many new tricks on the farm. Here he is balancing a chicken. Duke, the faithful guard dog, is the chicken spotter.

A word about Duke and the chickens. Duke is taking his new role of being the chicken protector very seriously. About a week ago, the ducks were quacking louder and longer than their normal quacks. Chuck looked outside and saw a raccoon approaching the chickens. Out comes Duke. Needless to say, no chickens were harmed. I can’t say the same for the raccoon.

Another day, a friend of ours had her dog over. The dog decided to chase the chickens, Duke decided to let this dog know that was not okay. No dogs or chickens were harmed.

Yesterday the duck alarm went off again. (Every time it does, Duke runs to the chickens and stands guard and looks around.) But this time something must have been in the woods by the coop. Duke went after it. The outcome of the critter is unknown, but Duke is back to guard the chickens.

This is just plain old chicken love.

Not that the mushroom season ever ends, but we don’t get out as much as spring and fall. Chuck hunts more than I, but I went along on this mushroom adventure to take some July mushroom pictures.

Here’s a community of shelf mushrooms. It was a fun find, because we weren’t finding much.

Here is Lentaria byssiseda. It isn’t edible, but it is photogenic.

I love this one.

Chuck and Duke enjoying the arch of a tree.

Duke thinks he has found something more than a mushroom.

He knows something is up there, but my human eye can’t see it.

The garden has become quite bounitful. I find that I can’t keep up with the lettuce. I am giving it away by the basket load.

I also have baskets and baskets of beans, but I don’t give these away. I just keep eating them.

They are just beautiful and wonderful!

A couple of tasty treats. The first one, fresh raspberries on vanilla yogurt. Yummy! I don’t make my own yogurt yet, but one of these days.

Another day, another treat—we also put some swiss chard on pizza along with fresh mozerella, tomatoes and roasted red peppers.

One of our adventures this summer is to make wine from the fruits that we can forage off this property and the surrounding woods. We started with 4 gallons of rhubarb wine from a rhubarb patch that was planted by previous occupants. After that we made gooseberry wine. Then another batch of rhubarb. Below is the beginnings of 3 gallons of wild black raspberry wine.

Once the fruit is crushed, sugar and yeast are added and the must is put in a plastic bucket to fermet. When the fermentation is really going, the room fills with a yeasty, alcoholic scent.

Here is a video of the fermentation lock. Turn up your sound to hear it click away. What you are seeing is the CO2 escaping from the fermentation vessel. The CO2 is produced when the yeast converts the sugars in the must into alcohol. That’s an awesome carbon footprint!!!

Below is our rhubarb wine. On the right is the first batch that is starting to clear. On the left is the second batch were fermetation has slowed down enough so we can put it in glass jugs. The milky color is the yeast. It will start to settle out when fermentation stops.

This is Durango’s first time to the Dane County Fair. In fact, it is his first time to a horse show. He will have many firsts today. This is Maddy’s last trip to the Dane County Fair. She is ready to graduate from 4H.

The two girls are all packed up and ready to load.

Here’s Maddy warming up in the outdoor arena. I didn’t take any photos indoors because the lighting isn’t that great for the camera I have.

Maddy is helping Madeline get ready for the show. She was quite the grand champion in all of her events. Congratulations Madeline! Congratulations Lindsey too, for your grand champion guinea pig.

Here is Tori doing a little before show ballet.

Good job Tori, your ballet practice paid off.

Maddy and Kendall became friends through shows like the Dane County Fair. They are in different 4H groups, but seem to have a lot in common. They wanted a fairwell photo together.

I love watching the plants grow. Every day you go out to the garden, there is a different story. Here is snap shot of July 18th.

This is Elmwood, but I call him Elmer for short. He has moved into town to delight the ladies. If all goes as planned there will be nine babies in the spring.

The herd seems to accept him just fine.

We’ve done it. We’ve turned this into…

this. Homemade Mozzarella.

It all began by reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.” Which I highly recommend. Thank you Alisa for lending it to me. Kingsolver talked about making cheese and recommended a few websites, cheesemakers and a book by Ricki Carrol. Chuck received the book for his birthday and I set out to make the “30 minute Mozzarella.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes as the process was going according to plan.

And yes, we had homemade mozzarella for our homemade pizza. Life is good.

Berries, berries everywhere. We could pick as many raspberries as there is time in the day. We found both red and black raspberries. So if you have the time, and don’t mind thorns and misquitos, we have berries. Come on down.