Daily Garden Basket (Jessie)

This is a photo of today's harvest from the garden. My mom picked a good portion of the basil to make pesto! There are good smells in our house tonight!

Murmur Creek Staff goes to PA (by Jessie)

This Weekend we went to PA to visit Grammie, my Aunt Kathy was also there visiting, yea! It was time for our annual tradition of picking blueberries with Grammie...

We had lots of fun!

We ate until our bellies hurt... well at least my brothers and I did,

and even then we ate some more!

 After all of our buckets were full we headed to the scale. 
I helped Grammie add it all up... 

 It came out to 97.5 pounds! 

WOW! 

I'm sure it was over 100 with all that we ate.  

Thanks for the blueberries Grammie!

Sad Day at Murmur Creek Farm (by Ken)

We were all away for the weekend for our annual trip to PA to pick Blueberries with my Mom (and sister Kathy this year! - photos another day), and right before coming home we learned that our prized buck, Vivaldi, had died.  The short story: he managed to hang himself from some baler twine he pulled down through the floorboards above him.  It is hard not to get angry for not preventing this, a simple move of a bale or a board over a hole, but I didn’t quite see this scenario playing out.  Sadly it was when we were gone, and our neighbor found him.  This morning while Rosetta was at work we buried our Big Buck and cried together remembering how scared he was when he first came home in the back of our minivan, yet he became such a friendly buddy in the pasture (at times a bit to friendly).  

Well... Vivaldi - thanks for being part of Murmur Creek Farm

 We miss you already!

(Here are some photos of Vivaldi the Great)

(Vivaldi & Homer - who will get the best piece of grass)

 (Vivaldi & Homer)

soooo much...guess I'll just talk about cycling (by Ken)

 It has just been way to long since we’ve posted anything on the blog... 

So much has gone on it's hard to know where to start: Summer vacation (for Jess, Mic, & Sam... Rosetta still works mon-fri), bee swarms, one swarm captured, female goats finally calming down... a little bit, 

sick goats, annoying goats, crazy fighting chickens, a completed chicken coop (well they don’t have a slide yet...), 

demolition of another building though today I broke a part on the excavator while doing some of the demolition...so more delay on getting this project done, 

 new lawns (instead of mud), a growing garden yea!, 

deck expansion for the play house 

(we needed a better overlook to keep an eye on those chickens), 

growing bucks...beards and all, 

oops bucks and does together when they weren’t suppose to be,  

soccer for Mic & Sam, tennis for Jessie, 

 Sam gets a bunny... 

and through all of this 
Rosetta and I continue to train for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Bike Finger Lakes Ride.  

This is our first organized bike ride and we are fundraising together with our friend Scott Watkins to support MCC’s work in Haiti.  

We purchased two used road bikes through craigslist, and we've been trying to ride whenever we get a chance.

So far we've completed some 20 mile rides some 30+ mile rides... and we are working toward the 50 & 60 mile rides that we will do each day in the Finger Lakes.  

Finding enough time to ride is our biggest obstacle at this point.

We are also excited about the upcoming adventure (and time off) together and thrilled to have so many people already part of this with us as sponsors - helping to reach our $5,000 goal for MCC

If you are interested in learning more about this project click the following link: Forests for Farmers in Haiti
or if you would consider contributing click here:
 Watkins-Landis Finger Lakes Ride - Registry

We would love for your to be part of this adventure and help us reach or exceed our goal of $5,000 for MCC.  Our part is already paid so all donations go directly to MCC.