Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Be careful what your ask for.......

We've been asking for moisture for our pastures and last night it came, to the tune of 1-1/2 inches in approx. 10-15 minutes and also included was hail most of it was pea and marble size but there also were many that were ping pong ball sized and hard as rocks. If you click on the photos you'll see larger images. We did sustain crop damage, mostly shredded leaves and some broken vines on the squash, and cucumbers. The hoop house received damage as well, although only two or three through and through rips, the rest are just dents in the plastic. For the rips we're ordering plastic repair tape. Of course it goes without saying that it certainly could have been much worse, so we are thankful and the crops will pull out of the damage and still produce for us. All of our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cantaloupe were spared any damage. The moisture was a definite answer to our prayers and has given us a much needed break from irrigating the pastures. There is just something about rain that makes everything green up and grow so much quicker. 

The larger hail is the ping pong ball size and rock hard. Thankfully we didn't seem to sustain any damage to our vehicles, windows or roof.
It looked like a river ran through it on our back patio and sidewalk! The rain was coming off the roof so fast it seemed to miss the gutter and what did go in the gutter was run to quickly to collect much in our rain barrels.
If you look you can see our sunken rows are totally flooded as are the walk paths. It drained away quickly because of our sandy soil.
This was our rainbow( actually there are two, you can see them both better in the picture below) after the storm passed over
                                  Does anyone else know what the promise was in rainbows? 

Monday, July 26, 2010

We're beginning to see progress :o)

See how stunted our corn is, typically by now it's at least 5 ft tall. Although shorter it has tassels and ears.
Pole beans with bush beans in the background
Closest to the hoop house are cape gooseberries, to the left millet, late carrots and peppers( odds and ends) and to the very far left carrots in one of our raised beds.
Rosemary, these we had to purchase, although I did get two to germinate, but they are still tiny and planted in the greenhouse to give them a better chance.
Finally it is coming along!
The sunflowers self seeded themselves as did poppys into our herb beds, so we left them and it's all quite beautiful. :o)
Potatoes, beginning to die back and we have nice looking spuds, I peeked, *wink*
Our fryers, looking for some garden goodies. They get some of the extra greens and weeds pulled and thinning from the garden, so they watch us carefully when we're out in the garden, LOL!
Cabbage is looking good, need to sprinkle the heads with DE to ward off damage from cabbage worms. We did loose 4 plants to what I think was a cutworm, but we'll still have plenty for making kraut :o)
The inside tomatoes, peppers( on the right behind the potted maters) and to the left are eggplants, sweet peppers and late tomatoes. It won't be long and we'll have pink egg tomatoes to eat and the other tomato plants are setting on nice sized fruit too.
Eggplant only one growing so far but several blooms on each plant, so I'm hopeful.
Banana pepper
Green peppers are coming along nicely and seem to enjoy the warmth of the hoop house.
                                         Pink egg tomatoes, beginning to change their color, maybe by weeks end we'll have them to add to our salads, Ummmm, Ummmm. Cucumbers have set on fruit, as have the zucchini, so salads will have a bigger variety to choose from*wink*   The bush beans are going to have beans to harvest late this week and the corn has set on tiny ears. :o)

                                        Still busy catching up, irrigating, collecting the last of our firewood and getting it split and stacked, plus all the regular chores and endless projects we hope to complete before bad weather hits. So..... we will post as we find the time, until them blessings for your summer!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Our blog will be vacant for awhile......

I'm sorry to say, as much as I enjoy the social contacts, I have to take an extended break from our blog. This is a combination of lack of time, personal/ health  issues and trying to get my life back in order.  Those of you who'd like to stay in contact via email leave a comment with your email and I'll send your ours( I won't publish them) and I'll try to keep up or even better we'd love to get a snail mail letter too!  I hope everyone understands and I'm praying it's only for the short term.  We will try to keep up on all of your blogs, but that too has even become a challenge. 

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Saturday, July 3, 2010

19 yrs ago today.... our daughter blessed our lives! Happy Birthday Cortney!!!!

This is the oldest photo I have on our computer. Sorry we were slow to getting into digital. This photo was of a piano recital she and Jon( her big brother) had before we moved to our homestead.
Here she is plucking chickens, look at that smile... if memory serves me right she wasn't to happy to have to do this, LOL!!!
Our first calf, Brownie.
Hauling water to her chickens

A heifer calf given to Cortney. We intended to raise her up for a dairy cow(Gelbvieh's?) but she ended up with a problem and had to be butchered.

Here she is at Christmas(2007,I believe) in a dress we found at a secondhand shop. The dress was simply gorgeous and looked as if it was made just for her. Of course she's beautiful too!
Cortney and my Mom's Cairn Terrier puppy, Rumble
Getting Mo, our Fjord, back into shape after a lazy winter. I believe she was working him in figure 8's trying to get him to pay attention.

While at Grandma Nita's last summer

Her favorite graduation picture
Another good graduation picture
At her Graduation party last Sept.
March of this year, holding her new niece, Jayla, who BTW is over 3+ months old now.
This Spring, raising bottle lambs for our friend
                                                       Another bottle baby for a different friend.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

BPA free, reusable canning lids These have been around since the early 70's but as usual I'm just finding out about them, via my Backwoods Home Magazine.  I read the testimonials and while they seem wonderful I'm going to order a 3 dozen box of each regular and widemouth and give them a try myself. If they prove good I'll look into ordering 500+( a mix of each reg. and widemouth) Just thought there may be others who haven't heard of Tattler reusable canning lids.

Turn up your volume.... this should surely become a gold single



Listen to the words and feel free to forward this link  to your Senator(s) and House of Representative(s)
Blessings for your Independence Day weekend :o)
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