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Monday, June 14, 2010

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.....

8 comments:

  1. I'm so happy to hear your garden is kicking butt! Yep its hot... I know summer is still a couple of weeks away but you sure couldn't tell it here either.
    I don't know if I will be canning tomato's this year but there is still a good chance. We have 6 plants with fruit and flowers right now and 6 more that are looking prety good. No blooms on them yet but they got a late start!
    Glad to hear you can use your own puter at the library. Hopefully that means we will get some pictures from you soon! Have a wonderful week and I'll be waiting for your next update!

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  2. How about a recipe for your hot pepper spray?
    I haven't seen any of those nasty beetles yet but have been expecting them.

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  3. Sooo glad to hear your garden is doing well. I am getting worried that the constant rain will bring fungus among us.

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  4. Looks like you made it to the library!

    Keep those photos coming. We are just barely planting out tomato plants - this week was our first week with no freezing temperatures. We were still getting snow until about 10 days ago.

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  5. Been hot and humid here too! I also have lots of weeding to be done out in the garden. We don't have many horse flies but we do have LOTS of mosquitoes!

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  6. Wow! Our tomatoes aren't even close yet! I would love to be able to start canning already! And I am just south of Chicago...what a difference a few miles make!

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  7. Glad to hear from you! Everything is growing like crazy and your right weeds are kicking butt here also. I started using grass in between rows and it's sure helping. I used your idea of potato's in buckets and they look great! Thanks for the tut! Did youhave a chance to make more soap?

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  8. Kat....would you mind adding the "search this blog" here?

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Comments always welcome