Despite my tardiness in posting, we had a nice thanksgiving. Our main course was gumbo & french bread (here's the gumbo cooking)


I made delicious bean dip from Foodie Farm Girl's recipe. (It's not terribly photogenic in this picture, but we ate it before I remembered to get a better picture!


We also had pecan pie, squash pie, and soybean pie (yum).



(I ate squash and soybean for breakfast and lunch for days afterwards....)

It might be time to get the leaf blower out...

S. has been busy chopping wood for the past month or so (this is only about a third or less of it...the rest is under a tarp). Doesn't it look warm? :-)

We had Thanksgiving up at our place again this year, with S's parents & grandmother and my parents. I always love to read about what everyone else has on their table, so here's what we had. (I neglected to take pictures of dessert...):

So our egg total continues to grow and grow and grow. We're trying to sell them, but so far no takers (there's a dozen dozen in the fridge right now...) . As the autumn months proceed, we have noticed a slightly decreased volume (a few more days of 5 eggs total, rather than 6), but not by much. There is still plenty of grass and green stuff for the hens to range and feed on, so we haven't noticed a change in flavor really, either. As it gets colder (avg. has been in the upper 50's this week), and the bugs and green plants get scarcer, we may see a change.

We did switch feed a few weeks ago. Now we're using Layena, which is 100% plant-derived (not sure what Dumor was, I didn't see a specification on the package). It has marigold in it, which has definitely made the egg yolks even yellower/oranger than they were before! It's a tiny bit more expensive (our store just started carrying it about a month or so ago), but we had heard nothing but good things about it, and the hens seem to like it better. Next week we're going to start mixing some scratch grains into the food mix in addition to giving them some separately. As it gets colder, the extra fats and oils are good to help them all keep warm.