A & L Ranch

09/18/2026

Earlier this summer I was bummed that our Alberta peach trees may have been infested with something and all of the blossoms just didn't produce. I try to go out and walk the property everyday to see how things are going and to get exercise (Dr. Doesn't like me just sitting behind a computer all day). As you can imagine I have walked past these trees a few 100+ times, bummed about not having fruit.

Well today I did my walk earlier than normal and started to take mental notes about what tree needs to be pruned and sprayed this fall. So our biggest peach tree has a branch (kind of huge) growing up from near the base of the tree. So I was getting my body into the middle of this pretty good size mess to see how much could I prune safely without stressing the poor tree. I looked up and saw 2 beautiful peaches. Uh...say what? How did I miss you ladies? Yes, I do talk to my plants and trees. Well, you can imagine how excited I am to finally have peaches. 🍑🍑

My parents tried for decades to grow fruit trees.🌳 So, growing fruit trees to survive our winters ❄️was goal 1. So far so good. 👍

Goal 2, keep them alive and see blossoms 🌸in the spring. Ok... so far so good. 👏

Goal 3, actually producing some fruit.

Well... this years harvest 2 peaches 🍑 and 1 apple🍎. I guess... we can say we are in Goal 3.

Oh, what is Goal 4? Produce enough fruit for our family each year with so much left over I help feed other people in our community! 💞

Tomorrow's tasks, harvesting the last of the corn 🌽 and pulling the stalks out to feed to the 🐔 chickens. Seeing if we have enough green beans to can. Hopefully harvest the onions 🧅 and potatoes 🥔. Oh and take a count of our beautiful pumpkins.🎃 🤓

09/16/2026

Tonight I made 2 homemade salad dressings for our dinner salad. Now what... those mixed salad greens came from our garden! We have so many salad greens!! Oh, I've been picking a few berries everyday as well! Fall might be here but our garden is not done producing.

09/16/2026

With JJ Harrison – We just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

09/12/2026

Here is our favorite rodeo clown, JJ Harrison! Yes, A & L Ranch was in the house at the Lewiston Roundup!

09/12/2026

09/06/2026

What... did someone come and paint our cowshed? Nope, we painted it yesterday and today we installed the roofing.

We are almost done with the cowshed! Just need to finish the windows and paint the trim.

On another note, we've started working on enclosing the Fort Knox aka the chicken run. That will take a bit longer, but the goal is to have the part we intented to have covered, covered by winter.

Tomorrow is finally painting the canning shed and installing a solar light. Pictures... will come soon.

Until then here is progress on the cowshed and the vegetables I picked just for tonight's dinner from the garden.

09/04/2026

It truly is harvest time. This is only 5 of the 8 rows. I would've continued picking but it starting to rain.

I guess more tomorrow!

08/31/2026

The cowshed progress....

08/31/2026

Here is an update on the cowshed and some produce.

The cowshed is ready to be painted then the window/shutters painted and installed. The final step is the roof. Why is the roof last? So I don't spray paint all over it.

Produce is coming in. I picked about 2 pints of beans from the main garden... yeah the one with only 20 plants out of 400 seeds. The corn will have to be picked and processed soon too. Oh... did you know mice really like earing carrots. Yep... so those will get moved to a sand box in the garage very soon. The onions are ready to harvest, I'm just not sure they will be very big.

Then the only produce in the main garden will be the pumpkins, beets, and potatoes after the above items are harvested..

The lower wall has beans, 3 varieties of lettuce, spinach, and cabbages. The other wall has fall peas and tomatoes. All will be harvest later September or early October.

We should have a good fall harvest considering the cooler temps.