the goings on's around the farm

I've been missing in action for a few days, not by choice tho. It's been miserable hot here, in the mid 90's every day with 85% humidity. Sticky yucky! Hmmm, is that proper sentence structure? Okay, let's start with the biggest news of all, something I'm pretty proud of.... drum rollllllllllll- I quit smoking. Yup, cold turkey last Sunday. Now that doesn't mean I will quit growing tobacco, I just decided to not indulge anymore. Geez, I have no bad habits left!

Okay, now for the farm news. The wild blackberries are finished, I ended up with 3 dozen jars of jam. Not bad from all wild blackberries. The corn finished out, I ended up with 5 dozen pint jars. The deer, corn worms and the weather were all pretty hard on this years harvest. My field corn is starting to make ears, pics of that in the next day or so. The melons are doing well, lots of babies on the vines. None close to ripe yet, I'm watching closely for the skunks to start showing up. We had a storm blow thru here this afternoon, some nasty winds and hard rain kind of beat up my sunflowers a bit. Tomorrow they should stand back up in the sunshine. None of the heads are even close to cutting stage. It's nice to see the honey bees all over them tho. I will try to get a pic or 2 of them. They scare me a bit as I am allergic but bees are a welcome sight here, they are the best pollinators.

The root cellar hole is a mess, it's got 3 foot of water in it! The ducks have been swimming in it, having a grand time with the pond we've built or them. I guess we'll put a bit of the dirt back in the hole to sop up all the water... was kind of stupid to dig it without having the concrete, gravel and blocks ready. Pretty much how it goes here, someday I'll go into depth about why it is like it is here........ long story.

Woohoooo! My new this year chickens are starting to lay eggs. I'm pretty pleased as now I have enough eggs to cover what I want from day to day and left overs to sell. I'm just at 3 dozen extra a week but have found a customer so all is good!

I also found a rabbit customer. All the rabbits I have for sale every month. Not too bad, I usually have around 10 or so I would be willing to sell without putting a dent in what I need to eat. Every little bit helps.

Oh, I got the haybine fixed! I will be cutting a couple small hay spots when this rain goes by. I'm still several hundred bales short of what I need or the winter so I'm not upset about it raining. Rain makes the grass grow!

I'm working on a wheel of co-jack cheese today. I know I said I wasn't going to make any cheese while it's still hot out( awful unbearable in my kitchen right now) but I'm dying for some cheese! I'll share pics when it comes out of the press.

Speaking of cheese, I've had a few people ask me about the cheese making. How about a cheese maker day here on my farm? I'm in southern Illinois, way down south, closest major city is Marion. Would anyone be interested in attending a cheese making day? There's a couple hotels within 15 miles of the farm and even Rend Lake Resort. Ah, just an idea...... it would be later in the year, October maybe...