This and That catching up!

Wow time really does fly when you're having fun, or even working your backside off*wink* I still have to get pictures of certain things around the farm, it's just finding the time to do it that's the problem.  Seems as if the days are not long enough to get everything that NEEDS to be done, done and it's now complicated by the fact that we have been invaded by millions upon millions of mosquitoes. So you either douse yourself in Deep Woods Off every hour or so or you work in the heat of the day, when they are in hiding from the heat.*sigh*  Trying to keep up with the weeds this year has proven to be a real chore, with all the rainfall we received in May and beginning of June we have a bumper to bumper crop of weeds, some of which we've NEVER seen before. LOL!!!   Also now we're seeing evidence of a bumper hatching of grasshoppers, just praying the stay out in the fields and don't migrate into the garden areas. This years garden has been such a struggle already and with storm after storm and the worry of hail damage, adding  in a grasshopper invasion might just break the proverbial camel's back. 

Here are some pictures of how high the river has been and the fact that we've lost 10 to 15 ft of land along our bank and one corner even took out a line of fencing, which we temporarily fenced until high water is done taking away our land, then the whole fence line will have to be moved in and restrung. We're just glad we didn't flood, our neighbors to the East and South of us did, our banks are  high enough to have kept the raging waters at bay, praise the Lord!  The high waters are gradually receding but will continue to be above normal until possibly Oct. 
Here are some pictures of the rive, our animals and some of the happening around here.

 Cortney and Mike hard at work changing fluids, spark plugs, spark plug wires, checking belts and hoses on Cortney's car. Yes, Cortney's car, she saved and saved and bought her own car. I don't think I posted that she passed the driving portion of her driver's test on June 11th scoring a 100%. Her car is a 1990 Ford Taurus sedan and we are so proud of her!

 The river, well we've been dealing with high, extremely high snow pack runoff since beginning of June. If you look( click photo to enlarge) at the right side of the picture( that's our bank), as far up the river as that white building, you'll see that there is still 2-3 ft of back, well when the river is at normal levels that bank is 15 to 18 feet tall, so gives you an idea of how high the water is right now.

 I the shaded portion of this photo we used to have 10-15 ft of bank with a willow tree, chokecherry bushes, wild roses, etc.....   The picture below shows it from another angle that portion of the bank missing was further out than the bushes at the base of the tree( below).

 You can see the T- post in the foreground, well about two feet to the right( toward the river) was our fence line corner posts, not anymore!*sigh*

 Cortney my nephew and niece( here visiting from AK) and myself pulled these three Railroad Ties up out of the rushing waters. I felt good about saving them to reuse when we re fence this entire line of fencing. Right now we temporarily fence that corner off with T-posts so the cows don't get in the river.

 Two days prior to this photo of the bridge, just to the east of our farm, the water was lapping the bottom of the upper portion of the arches.  It sounded like a freight train and it was scary.

 The farmers across the river from our farm have corrals close to the river, as you can see they are flooded, as was the county road to the ranches/ farms behind us due to flooding and washing away of the roadway.

One blessing of the 9" of rain we received in May was a bountiful harvest in our hay pasture.  We typically get around 2 ton of hay from one cutting and then we graze it the remainder of the Summer, Fall and Winter. We baled it this weekend( Sat.) and took off 5 bales over 4 ton of hay! We are so............. excited!!!!!!  This weekend we baled the 4+ ton of hay, loaded it and put it in the barn loft, along with an additional 2-1/2 ton we purchased from a friend. I feel good that it's all up safe and dry in the barn. Now all we need is 1-1/2 ton of alfalfa hay and that is plentiful this year, so we shouldn't have any problems getting the needed amount.

Cortney celebrated her 20th B-day on July 3rd and she wanted to share a very special blessing she received from a fellow blogger friend; Sandra over at Thistle Cove Farms( you can find her link on our side wall)  Isn't that a beautiful wrap and it matches so many dresses Cortney has, it's going to be a well worn piece of clothing.  Thank you Sandra, for being so thoughtful. :o)

 The garden and all the weeds( hoping you can't see how many*wink*

 Raspberries starting, can't wait for them to ripen :o)

 Hoss, says Good Morning. He's enjoying the coolness of the morning .

 Another view, so you can see how big he's gotten and such a baby yet. He enjoys his morning hip and butt rubbing( right between his hind legs, as hard and fast as you can rub, he loves it!

 Button in her own little world, getting ready to chew her cud.

 Some of the apple trees we planted 7 yrs ago are simply loaded with apples this year! I'm so excited to try these new varieties( one is a Wolf River, another a Liberty and another Duchess of Oldenburg)

 Here's Angel, doesn't she look great! her twins are gone and she's dried off and putting on some much needed weight.  We had to worm her twice before we noticed her gaining weight and holding onto it. She's so shiny and slicked out now. We really enjoy her, she's such a sweet little goat and she loves to be around people.

 Ginger is looking good too, she's all slick and shiny too and is now giving us almost a gallon of milk a day. :o)  She's not as friendly of a goat, but is beginning to show that she enjoys our company and bleats when she sees us now.

 Here is Pistol, Ginger's wether. He's going to his new home, hopefully this week. We will miss him, he's very sweet. If only he'd been born a girl! *sigh*

 Turkey poults and their two mamas. We had 9 survive and feel blessed as we have all of them sold already!

It's hard to get a good picture of all of them as the toms and hens are constantly on protective detail, LOL!!!!!

Well, hope that catches you up a bit and we'll try to get more photos posted on day to day projects, we have several in the works.

Update on our progress :o)

We canned 10qts of peaches and.....

these peaches are going to be made into Peach Rosemary Jam. It's a new recipe shared by Farmgirl Cyn

Check out her blog, it's wonderful and she shares the most fabulous recipes.

Half of our Painted Mountain corn is picked, we still have 6 rows to go. It rained last night, so we'll wait for them to dry back out before harvesting those rows. It's such a joy to shuck these ears to see what colors God put together.

Here you can see blue, pink and green( click on any of these photos to see an enlarged close up.), words just can't convey how beautiful these colors are.The ear at the top of the photo is purple and I mean grape ape purple!

Purple, in all shades, red, red with orange and a brownish orange.....

You've gotta click for a enlarged version of this one, it has variegated kernels, so beautiful!

Can anyone guess what type of seed this is? I'll reveal the answer in the comments, tomorrow. It's a first for me to collect this much and I look forward to experimenting with growing it.

Next on the list, I picked these yesterday while Cortney was cleaning up our firewood storage area, in prep for more wood to be split and stacked. Mike brought home this load of wood last weekend( see below) with approximately 3-4  more loads just like this to be hauled home over the next few weekends. This will finish off our wood supply needed for this winter and get a good start toward 2011's winter wood supply. :o) Mike has been so busy with his job( they moved the entire store to a temporary location, while their new store is being built) that getting time to cut, split and stack firewood this year has been a challenge. We knew this and forewarned my parents that maybe they'd better stock up on the pine slabs my Dad gets from a lumber mill 60+ miles away.

Cortney and I also removed the plastic from our small greenhouse( sometimes, you get what you pay for) We'd purchased this 8x8 greenhouse at Harbor Freight( for something like $130), last Spring and although the frame is sturdy and we will revamp it adding 4 yr greenhouse plastic for use next Spring, the plastic it came with didn't even stand up to a years worth of weather.*sigh* 

Well, got to run and get busy making jams, then off to plant some salad greens in the hoop house. Praying the remainder of your week is productive and filled with many blessings. :o) 

Root cellars, how we built ours.

We had a small root cellar 5ftx8ft, when we bought this place. We used it but

I always worried about the safety of it. When my parents build their home here, it was in the way of the contractors and we opted to collapse it, fill it in and build a new larger cellar in a different location. My parents agreed to help rebuild a new cellar and they paid for the materials. It was decided that 12x12x7ft was a good size. Mike bartered with a man to dig the hole 5-6 ft deep with a backhoe. We couldn't go any deeper because of our high water table( water is at 8 ft.)

Mike and my Dad planned out how to build it and the best ways to preserve the wood. It has a vapor barrier and then is wrapped in tar paper, with rolled roofing on the roof( you can see that in the photo) It is vented at ground level and at the roof level as well( you'll see the vents a few photos below)

It was filled in entirely by hand. 

My Dad who did the majority of filling in and packing the dirt.

All filled in around the back, sides and some on the roof, but needed to build the outside entrance and steps

Here it is before being completely covered by dirt

This is what it looks like in the summer months, now that it is completely covered with dirt. It hold at a fairly regular temp. from 42-44F in winter( when sub zero outside, we block the vents) and 44-48F in summer. We did have to add a vapor barrier to the floor due to excess humidity. The humidity is just about right for root crops, and cabbage.  The squash and pumpkins will store, after being hardened off and coated with a thin coat of olive oil or lard, for 3-4 month before mold spots begin to show up. We did however have to add some additional support beams along the center support and added some additional 2x4's in the walls for added strength. It's amazing how much dirt weighs, especially when wet!

Here are the shelves and bins we use to store our potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, squash, turnips, etc...

The potatoes on the shelves were dug when it was wet( 3 summers ago), so we let them dry and cure for several weeks before adding to the potato bin

Our carrots are stored in dirt( our soil is sandy), laying them flat, not touching one another and covering with soil, then layer again, repeating until the bin is full. We also use a plastic tote for this as well. Our carrots typically keep from one garden season to another, after approx 11 months in storage, they begin to get hairy with roots and dehydrate down some.

We couldn't live without a cellar now.

Seeing some progress.... :o)

Monday morning while Mike was picking up the metal roofing and other needed lumber I started multi- tasking. Grated up 7 zucchini, mixed up a batch of zucchini bread and got it baking, sliced another batch for the dehydrator( see below)

Got laundry going

took pictures of how hot it was already at 11am. Yes, we're a Farmall family*wink*

Once Mike had the 1"x4" strapping in place, I began hauling sheets of metal roofing and helped, by holding and lining up the edges, while Mike got them screwed into place at the top. Then I helped from the ladder by screwing in the bottom edge.  I forgot to get pictures of the daylight through the inside of the roof. The shingles were so brittle and we knew it needed to be replaced but were hoping it would last until next summer. The hail a month or so back changed that quickly.

I stepped back to get a picture of our progress.... Looking good, don't you think?

Closer view, the grey picks up the lighter grey in our house roofing and matches my parents house too.

All finished, it took us two days, but we got a late start on Monday, waiting for Mike to bring materials home and then on Tues. had to take a break and meet Mike's sister, who was taking Cortney to visit Grandma Nita in ND. Can you see the moon just above the ridge line?

Finished and trimmed. We're even adding soffits! There will be a 3/4" bull nose trim added to soften the edge and give it a finished look. Then we'll prime and paint it green to match the house trim( which we're gradually converting from dark brown to forest green.  Now all that is left is to scrape, sand and pain the remaining trim, on the garage, to match and wait for next year to afford new siding for the whole garage(white to match the house)

I also took some pictures of the parsnip seeds we collected......

                                          and some calendula flowers, mini pumpkin seeds and fenugreek seed.
                    In between all of this I managed to water the garden. Yesterday we got the yard mowed and water put on it, then picked green beans, leaving the two bush beans for Friday's list.  Laundry only took until today(Thurs. ) to complete*wink*  Tomorrows plan is to pick bush beans, raspberries, water in the green house and wash sheets to hang on the line. We're still watering the yard and orchard and when moving water I noticed plums are ripening, so will concentrate on picking the ripe ones. It's a daily occurance that we harvest 6-9 zucchini a day and the cucumbers are approaching warp speed too. It appears that this summer everything will come on at one time! I'm just glad it's producing so well after our slow start and hail damage  :o)

Blessings for your day!