Another month has rolled around and we are headed back on the road
again. Saturday, August 13th, we will be in Des Moines, IA, again for
the Downtown Farmers' Market from 7-12 a.m. We enjoy visiting with all
of you who are able to stop by our booth. If you have an order you
would like us to bring to the market for you, give us a call or email
and we will get it ready for you. The sooner we receive your order,
the easier it is for us to work it into our schedule. It would be
especially helpful to hear from you right away if you are wanting
Sunshine Granola. Lydia makes is fresh a day or two before the market
and likes to plan ahead how much time to allow for that project.

It has been a warm summer. Last month's heat, rain and humidity were
wonderful for the garden, corn, soybeans and alfalfa. It made the
harvesting of the small grains a little more challenging. We have the
wheat, rye, spelt, and barley all in now. The oat harvest is just
about done. Daniel thinks it will take about an hour to finish it. We
received 1 1/4" of rain last week, so that brought it all to a halt.
We had another nice rain last night, so it will be a few more days
before he can get back out to the field. We are needing to walk the
bean fields to cut out the stray weeds before they go to seed, but
that will have to wait a few days too, since the fields are rather
muddy at the moment. That means we will have time to get ready for
Saturday's market!

We bought a couple sheep to add to our flock and a bull to breed our
cattle. The calves that were born this spring are enjoying their days
out on the pasture with their mothers and are growing up fast. We have
one calf that thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the
fence. We have a hard time getting him back in and when we do, he
finds his way out somehow. There isn't any obvious way that he gets
out. But, we are thankful the others haven't followed his example.
Rachel has about 75 chicks that hatched from the eggs she put under
settings hens. Our hen turkey has two chicks following her around.
They are all growing up so fast.

I better get back to work. We're looking forward to seeing all of you
that can make it to the DSM market Saturday.

Until next time,

Teresa
(for the Paul Family)