The time finally came for Allen to take his first batch of chickens to the farm to be butchered and dressed for the freezer. I forgot to take a picture of the chickens to show you how large they were. We ended up with six chickens.

We took them to Warren over on Pincushion Road. Beautiful old order Mennonite country over there.

Warren's home is a ways off the beaten path. You have to drive past the beautiful amish schoolhouse.

And past the outhouse that belongs to the schoolhouse. Isn't that a large outhouse?! Must be a 10-seater!

Past the beautiful fields of produce.

Warren runs his organic farm according to princples taught by Joel Salatin at Polyface Inc. in Virginia. This is one of many chicken cages seen on Warren's farm. This is called Pastured Poultry.

The drive back to Warren's farm runs along a fence covered by honeysuckle. If you roll down your windows, you can smell the delicious scent. It was pretty sunny the day I took this picture, so you can't see the little flowers very well.

We dropped the chickens off at 8 am, then picked them up at 2 pm. Warren has a young family of four children (the oldest is 5), so I took them a large batch of cracked wheat sourdough dinner rolls...straight from the oven. It was worth it to see the look of delight on Warren's face!

I wish I could show you pictures of Warren's family...but they are plain folks and do not believe in taking pictures of people.

How large are the chickens? Huge! Two were 10 lbs, one 8 lbs, and three 7 lbs. Allen and I are very pleased. The one thing we learned? Be sure the chickens are in the henhouse when you drive the truck up for delivery. When I drove the truck up, these free ranging chickens scattered and ran for the woods!

One last picture of our cutie kitty, Ranger. I gave in and let Ranger have my flowerbox for napping. It's okay...the trees have gotten so big that they shade it too much for flowers now.

Today was a good day for my soul. Last week I found myself teary-eyed and constantly crying. I was just overwhelmed. Today is our day to help Dad cook for his church, but my children told me to stay home and relax. Wow. So Ruthie and I have been enjoying doing laundry and cleaning, the simple tasks of homemaking that I enjoy. Mike is in California for two weeks, so we are living simply.

Tomorrow I take Maggie to Walter Reed for her accupuncture appt and to show her dr all the latest results from her tests.

Hope you are enjoying your summer. God is surely good. Many blessings ~ Kathie