More Harvesting going on

Time to get back at it. Even tho the weather front has passed, I'm still suffering from some hip troubles. This has been by far, the worst year since the surgery. I just gotta keep at it tho, nobody is going to do it for me.

I've about given up trying to keep ahead of the weeds and grass growing in my garlic/onion patch. I weeded about 1/3 of it last night, got ate up from skeeters, again, and harvested 22 lbs of garlic, 12 lbs of red onion and 38 lbs of yellow onions. Plenty more is ready but I need a break to make more blood! Those skeeters about sucked me dry last night.

A pal told me to try Listerine to repel skeeters. I'm going to give it a try tonight. According to the directions I got, take a baby wipe, pour a little Listerine on it and wipe your arms, legs, any exposed skin with it. It dries quickly and isn't sticky. Sounds like a plan to me.... I don't have baby wipes, hope it isn't part of the trick....

The first planting of corn is about ready. If you recall, the crop didn't go so well and is seriously stunted. The ears are pitiful. I may just let them fully mature and dry on the stalks and use them for seed corn next year rather than try to harvest those tiny ears for eating or food storage. The second crop looks great tho, it's due the end of the month.

A small tragedy today, the Californian doe (rabbit) kindled and killed every one of the kits. Never even pulled fur and had them out of the box. Strike 2 for her...

The chickens are all doing well and the ducklings are growing like crazy! I have one more nest being set on, hopefully I can get another 6 or 7 ducklings. I've cleaned out all the old nests so the chickens and ducks will go back to laying eggs for me.

I've been working on my food storage and my disaster preps too. Reorganizing and making lists of things the kids and hubby have liberated out of it. They've wiped out every single piece of candy in it and all the chocolate! If that doesn't qualify as SHTF, I don't know what does, LOL. How dare them eat all my chocolate stash!

I noticed I'm down to the last dozen quart jars of tomatoes, good thing this years crop is coming on! We eat lots of tomatoes throughout the year and since tomatoes are so easy to grow, there's no reason to even be out of them. I'll be setting up to can tomatoes this week.

More farming updates soon........

Goofy cats

Hahahaha, had to share this. Our farm has lots of animals, the cats have to be close to the top of the list as favorite animals. Each one here has a distinct personality and individual likes and dislikes. This one is Tardo. He was this teeny, pitiful kitten I didn't have the heart to put out of it's misery. The dog often carried Tard around like a bone and slobbered him soaking wet several times a day. Now, 2 years later, he's the farm pet, the biggest cat on the place and the highlight of my day. Here he is, flopped on the couch right in the middle of where I happened to be folding laundry today. He snuck up there while I was putting towels away. Now I can't say for sure if he was really asleep or if he was faking it so he could keep the spot.

Pictures I promised

I hope everyone had a pleasant Independence Day? Mine was.... well, never mind, I'm still angry about it. Anyway, it rained this morning adding some much needed moisture to the gardens. As funky as this year has been, I'm pleased with what's still going strong and the rest that is now coming on.

The pump for the milking machine is tore up so I'm helping milk one cow at a time with the fair milker. It's working out just fine but it takes much longer of course. My farming pal has lent me the use of her wash machine while we're milking. So at least the laundry is getting done whilst I work on getting my washer repaired, again. Things just aren't made like they used to be. I hate paying so much money for an appliance that is designed to be a throw away after a few years. That's not good for the consumer at all.

A little happiness tho, the beans and cantalopes are flowering out nicely. The added fertilizer should help as well. I got it laid out there just in time and I have another pile of it ready to be spread.

Since it's been overcast and sprinkling rain today, I did some cooking and used up the last of the home butchered beef. Time to think about another steer....

A nice Friday on the farm

Well, most of the day anyway. Had to do a little running around first thing and it took 6 hours! Good thing I got an early start. The normal stuff, getting fuel, looking for rabbit stuff, truck sticker, searching for guards for the haybine, the monthly stop in to the gun shop and the flour, sugar and salt purchase. Whew! Lots of stops! But, got it done and back to the farm. I got all the loose straw picked up.... oh, I didn't tell ya's about the straw! A neighbor I used to coal mine with combined his wheat(mine too) and pulled the adjuster out so the chaff would windrow for us to bale. 500 bales for the calves, goats and horses. We borrowed a hay elevator thingy from another farming friend and put it all up in the barn loft. What a cool piece of equipment, no throwing bales up into that little hole above my head! Of course, now we have to fix the hole in the barn roof from the inland hurricane. Turns out the barn is in worse shape than we thought but we got the hole fixed so we'll have dry straw and hay up there. Back to the straw... the New Holland combine is a rotary combine and it beats the wheat stalks half to death and makes it very chaffy(is that a word?) So, the bales shed straw and made one heck of a mess all ove the ground. Guess what I did with it???

Now to what I did today after all my running around... I've been weeding a little at a time out in the front patch and my cantalopes are working on flowering. Some plants are still very small but that's okay, they'll catch up. Anyhooo, I raked out some bunny poo, some chicken poo and mixed it with the straw chaff and spread it out on the cantalope patch. I wanted to go all the way down into the beans and sunflowers but the skeeters were munching me! Dang things are like mini vultures! Tomorrow before the rain comes in, I'll take a picture of it and finish it up. Too dark now for a picture.

Cucumbers are producing! I finally have cucumbers! I also have green peppers, tomatoes are just now looking like they're starting to change.

The fat sheep is outside today. He needs some sunshine so I got the pen up and kicked him out into it. So far, so good, he's still in it! That's more than I can say for the goats. I gave up trying to keep them in a pen. They are a pair of Houdinis. So, I've been altenating tying one or the other, staking them out in the shade and so far that's working good. The one that's free runs around a little bit but they both stay close enough to each other to not get into any trouble.

The ducklings and banty chicks went outside to the chicken coop. Waaaa! My house brooder is empty. I miss the little chirps already. Empty nest syndrome! hahahahaha

The coffee plants are doing well, a picture of them for tomorrow as well.....


Oh, I'm attending a Tea Party tomorrow to support my fellow patriots and to voice my displeasure with what Congress and President Obama are doing to this country. I am angry over the health care plan they have and the cap and trade bill currently in the Senate, all the new taxes on everything the can tax......