Mid July Farm Update

We got a little rain to cool us off. 112F with 85% humidity was horrible. Thankfully, it was just a couple days and we lived thru it with no air conditioning. The creek swimming hole is a life saver ;)

Thank you to the 2 blog readers that have helped us with fuel money this week. God Bless you both!

The garden is full of pig weed and bermuda grass. I pulled some out last night but it will take me the rest of the week to get it all cleared out. The corn meal corn looks really awesome and I'll take a pic or 2 to post. The tobacco this year is being attacked by some tiny bug I've not seen on it before and I intend to spray them with the hot pepper spray this evening. I'm hoping it works since I refuse to use chemicals here. Even with the bugs, the plants still look good and are flowering like crazy. A good harvest of seed for my next crop! I've lost 3 rows of kidney beans from all the rain, the plants just wilted and died. What's left is covered in bean pods tho. I had a few horn worms munching on the tomatoes but I pulled the grass from around them and the chickens picked the worms for me. Good chickens! Today I will be finding my garlic and onions amongst the pig weed and grass, hopefully they are okay from all the rain. Oh, the peanut plants have the prettiest orange flowers on them! The replanted sweet corn is growing okay, it looks nitrogen deficient tho. It's from all the rain.

We finally got the deposit slip for the long term disability. 2 weeks at $170. Wow, now we can retire, LOL. Hubster insisted on a return to work slip so we don't lose our farm with that 30 day default clause. I don't know how he's going to tolerate it in so much pain and discomfort. We will make the July payment on the last day before default and just deal with it. Not like we don't have plenty of experience with trying to catch back up to even ;) So, all we need to do is make it the next 15 days. Pray for good results from all the tests this week and an easy fix to his illness.

Tuesday, before the rain came in, I tried to make myself a little fuel money by custom baling a small piece for a fellow up the road. I didn't get 10' and picked up a piece of tree, snapped the sheer pin. It was horribly hot so I folded up and headed home to fix it in the shade. Not 100 yards down the road, I blew a tire! A baler tire, not a tractor tire. What a mess just the same. The blow out bent the rim on me. So, some pounding on the rim and some grinding on it to get the road tar ooze (it was so hot, the road was all sticky and oozy) and gravel off of it, a $3 inner tube and now all I have to do is empty the chamber, get the piece of wood out, pull the knives off, file the knicks off them, put them back and I'll hopefully be good to go.

Little Spud is doing good. I turned all the goats loose so they could graze and find a shady spot during the heat of the day. Keeping them in the barn when it's this hot is animal cruelty. Just too hot for them in there. Pictures of Spud soon too...

Quiet Sunday

Little Spud is growing like a weed and is following the herd out of the barn now. The last couple of mornings have given me a giggle or 2 with his tiny goat antics. By the time chores are done, he's wiped out and ready for a nap.





Flopping a gate across the front of the barn has kept his safe from curious horses and has been pretty good protecting my straw bales from those same nosey horses. Can't sell any this fall if they're all broken and stomped on.

Garden update- the tobacco is covered with japanese beetles and budding out, about ready to start flowering. The corn meal corn is 8' tall and most stalks have 2 ears on them. I saw a couple that had 3 ears pushing silks in there too. The beans are covered in pods and the tomatoes are covered with little green fruits. The cucumbers are rotting before growing to a decent size, too much rain. The hot peppers are still working on setting fruit and the sweet peppers have not yet recovered from Lucky goats buffet. The sweet corn Lucky munched on is up and looking decent. A side dress of rabbit poo for the nitrogen might be in order if it even quits raining long enough for me to walk around in there...

We're starting week 7 of the hubsters mystery illness. We'll be going the next 3 weeks without a paycheck. A whole week full of tests scheduled as well. Soon we will be done tho, we will run out of fuel in the truck by Wednesday and the co-pay for the doc visits will wipe out the rest of what we have. Not too sure what we'll do or even what we can do at this point. The stress is killing my guts now :( Even if we refuse his treatment and force a release for work, we will still go 3 weeks without a paycheck and he will still be ill. Not sure at this point how we'd even get him to work. I spend quite a bit of time wondering what we've done to be punished so. It gives me a headache.



Here's the broken baler knife. A replacement is only $75 but it might as well be a million dollars. Geez, this is just too much...

Food Freedom??

This has got to be the most stupid thing I have ever seen. The city of Oak Park, MI is prosecuting this woman because she planted raised beds in her front yard full of vegetables. Someone in her neighborhood turned her in to the city. How sad is that? You don't think every aspect of our society and our country has gone seriously off track? This is government in action folks.

Chick Babysitter

Silly Lucky goat, he's got to make sure those chicks are eating properly!