Farm Update

Here we are, another week has gone by and what have we been doing? Well, sweating our hind ends of mostly! It is pretty darn hot down here in southern Illinois. The humidity is thick enough to cut with a knife. The rains have been hit and miss the last few days but enough to keep me out of the hay fields. The scorching heat is keeping me watering the tire garden even with the rains. I am pleased to report that everything is growing well here, even the weeds! I spent 2 hours weeding the sweet corn, beans, peas and hot peppers. I'll bet the darn biting flies sucked a pint of blood out of me! Those things are vicious. The humidity brings them in full force. I can really empathise with our ancestors as they struggled to live in the wilderness of our country. No air conditioning, no hot water unless they sweated to boil some, no running to the store when they thought they needed something. Everything that had to be done was done by them or it did NOT get done. It's hard work living a simple life. Now, doesnt that seem kind of silly? Here I am, living a simple, basic life and it's so much work? It is tho, especially when it would just be so much easier to buy my food from the grocery, pay the neighbor kid to mow the lawn while I sat in an air conditioned house watching TV and eating popcorn. No critters to tend, no garden to weed... wow, what a boring life that sounds like! Well, at least if I lived like that, I'd not have a couple dozen horsefly bites all swelled up on me and itching. Ah, I think I'll just keep going with what I'm doing now. The food tastes so much better and the sense of freedom providing for yourself gives you simply can not be duplicated.

I'm about a week from starting to can up tomatoes! I am very pleased with how the tomato plants are coming along. Not a single horn worm yet but the japanese beetles are already out in full force and since i don't have any peach trees now, they are crawling all over everything else. Time to mix up some hot pepper spray for them.

I just found out that the library is a Wi-Fi and I can bring my own computer here and use the internet! How cool is that? Thank you to the folks that donated a couple dollars to the home internet fund, much appreciated. I still a bit short but hopefully it won't be long before I can get it all lined out. So, another update on Wednesday with some pictures.....