Fellows, your gardens look great! Love the containers coyote. 
HT, those Cornish Cross are looking like they will be ready pretty quick. I imagine they are going through a ton of water with the recent heat. 

They are getting pretty chunky. My water barrel system works great. Same setup for the pigs.
I move the pen every week since it's large enough to keep them on grass for a week.
Even though we've had hot days, we've also had some nice cool ones as well so their way better off than last year .
The end date is July 4th after I return from Rhode island.
The next batch of chicks arrives on July 13th.

Thanks for the compliment. Not sure how the dirt was going to be since I had buy topsoil for the new beds. I‘ll definitely improve it with some compost and manure by next season.
 
Pork: Last year I used the tires whole to grow taters but the voles decided that made a great home with food. This year I took the cordless sawzall to them to make a bigger planting area for the pole beans and cucumbers. As long as you stay just below the tread in the sidewall it’s like a hot knife in butter. I put taters in the buckets this year as an experiment.   
 
HT: Livestock looks great. chickens look like they’ll finish around 8# give or take.
 
Here’s to a bountiful harvest for everyone 

Had garlic scapes with dinner last night, along with fresh picked garden salad....yummy....

My wife noticed the first beetles of the year in her hibiscus. I was hoping a normal spring would have curtailed them the way it seems to have knocked down the ticks. But no.

So all the roses, fruit trees, and ornamental trees got a spray of Sevin this morning. Some of the roses had a beetle or two; some apple trees had clusters of a half dozen; and the cherry had more than a few clusters.

Hopefully I got them at the start and they don’t strip the leaves like they can.

The beetles showed up on some Genovese basil in my wife’s raised bed herb garden. Obviously, I cannot use something like Sevin to get rid of them.

Any suggestions on what I can use on consumable plants before the beetles eat them all?

Peppermint spray has been suggested, but there is actually a peppermint plant within a few inches of the basil (beetles are not bothering it though).

 YouTube has a bunch of remedies...
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyvcmpyD7FM

Thank you.

Yesterday was a great day of work to process our chickens. The wife and I had an awesome system down and our work stations went perfect.
We first plucked ( with a plucker) and put all the birds in a tub of ice water.
Second station we cleaned and heat wrapped 10 birds whole.
Third station we halved the remaining 15 birds.
4th station we vacuum sealed 30 halves and all the wings seperate.
We took many breaks in between each station to clean/ sanitize and cool down in the pool.
While it took us mostly all day, the actual work was about 4hrs, not counting cleanup.
In about 12 weeks, we'll do it all over again. 😀

Today I'm going to pick some of my garlic and start the drying process. I will plant some more tomatoes in their place.
My tomatoes are doing great and many on the vine but still always away.
Cukes seemed to pick up a bit.

Oh, we also processed 10 lobsters for freezing and about 200 clams for chowder.
One of these days there will be time to rest on the homestead, lol..

Happy independence day!

100 garlic bulbs harvested today.