Gone Molin'

Gone Swimmin'

Isn't it amazing how animals just automatically know how to swim? Harry was completely unconcerned the first time he went deep into the pond and his feet could no longer touch bottom.

Texas Sunset

I can't take credit for this picture. A friend borrowed my camera and took this while visiting our farm.

Weeding Results

I've almost got all the hairy vetch and the bermuda that was growing beneath it pulled out. It's taken about 2-3 hours of pulling weeds almost every morning for a couple of weeks now. It's so satisfying to look back on those cleared garden rows.

The tomatoes are growing fast and there are several unripe tomatoes on the vines. I didn't get tomato cages on all of them, so that might be a mistake. I thought I'd get something better than I had last year, but ended up not getting anything at all.

Still, my corn is not doing well. It seems that there is one row that just doesn't want to grow corn. I've planted three times and have little to show for it. The lettuce is out of control. I need to make a note to myself not to plant so much lettuce.

I stopped milking Hyacinth on Monday. Tom and I decided to start leaving the goats outside at night and hope for the best. I was going to gradually stop milking, but when I checked her udder on Tuesday morning, I could tell that Cosmos and Rose are still nursing. Leaving her out with them keeps her milked out. So much for weaning them.

One of Pansy's kids has a funky lump on his neck. Uh-oh. I thought it might be CL abscess like his mother had, but the sites that I looked at on the internet say it's a wattle cyst. I hope that's right. Ugh.

Storms

It's stormy here in Texas today. I didn't take this picture until after the worst of it, but it looks like more is coming. At about 1:45 a.m. lightening struck our power pole again, knocking our fuse off and causing a power outage. Tom called the power company to let them know. We thought they'd be around in the morning to fix it, but about 20 minutes later their truck pulled up. I was shocked that they would come out at 2:00 a.m. to restore our power. I'm impressed. The last time that happened was on a Sunday morning and they arrived about a half an hour after we called them.

News Flash

I heard a little news brief on the radio today and I wish I could remember all of the statistics they gave, but I can't (stinkin' aging brain). But it could explain somewhat why Americans have such a hard time keeping weight off.

The gist of it was that our food has more fat and less nutrition in it than it used to, even 20 years ago. They gave the example of chicken...something like 165 more fat grams, because instead of the chickens free ranging and eating what they would naturally eat and getting exercise, they are all stuffed into those chicken farms, standing around doing nothing but eating the fattening food that they are fed all day. Same for feedlot cows, pigs, etc.

And our vegetables don't have as much nutrition because they are treated with chemicals, which causes them to grow faster and they are picked before they have a chance to develop or absorb the nutrients that they would normally have.

So even those people who are trying to eat right by eating chicken without the skin, "lean" cuts of meat, and lots of veggies aren't able to keep the weight off or stay as healthy as they could.

Today's Projects

After mowing a couple of pastures and helping a friend load 90 bales of hay on his trailer, Tom put in a water line to the garden. Previously, the faucet was just outside the fence and we had to have hoses running across the field out to the garden. That causes problems for mowing since I'm known to mow over whatever is out there. Paden helped Tom dig the trench to lay the pipe. Some of the area had hard packed clay and rocks and was much more difficult to dig up than the ssand. About halfway through it I had the bright idea to bring the tiller out there to break up the ground so it would be easier to dig the trench. It worked, but the tiller gets away from the operator easily and Tom ended up breaking a piece of the fencing. So, the trade off for easy trench digging is fence repair.

I had an easier time of it today. I spent a couple of hours digging out bermuda grass and weeds from the garden and trying to recover from the setback the hairy vetch caused. Then I replanted some corn, squash, and cucumber. The rest of the day I spent doing mostly inside projects.

It's a chore keeping Harry out of the garden. He doesn't really do anything, but he's so big and floppy that he crushes plants wherever he goes. I ended up tying him to the golf cart while I worked because it's impossible to get anything done while constantly watching, yelling at, and chasing Harry. I'll be glad when he gets to big to squeeze under and through the fence.

First Cutting

First cutting of our hay - cut, fluffed, and baled entirely by Tom. He and Paden spent many hours picking the bull nettles, which stung them even through leather and rubber gloves, long sleeves, and jeans, out of the hay before baling. This cutting has a lot of weeds so we'll be selling it to a friend for just the price of the fuel it took to process it. Subsequent cuttings will hopefully be organic hay that someone will actually want to pay a little more for.

Barbie Carrot

**wolf whistle** from the carrot gallery.

A Bale Was Born

This was an exciting moment for us even though it doesn't appear terribly exciting on video. Tom bought this old baler and it worked perfectly the first time out...well, it made bales and tied them although they weren't exactly uniform.


"ca-chunk, ca-chunk, ca-chunk".

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Those words are beginning to have meanings for us that we never thought of.

First you cut the hay with a cutter and let it dry. The weather has to be just right. Then you take this machine and fluff it, which turns it over to dry on the other side and piles it in rows in preparation for baling. Tom has cut and fluffed a test area.

Our fluffer needs new tires.

Some Things Have Survived

Despite my problems with planting several things too early so that they didn't sprout, I have had some success with a few things. Carrots and onions have done very well. Even the cabbage, whose leaves look like lace because of some evil little caterpillar munching, has produced it's first full head.

More about Harry...We've been giving him a rawhide chew each evening as we leave him in the barn for the night. It's to keep him occupied so he won't spend his time chasing the cats or tearing up stuff in the barn. We thought he was completely consuming them.

Not so. Evidently, he is stashing them in places for future use. I found three in the golf cart today. They're in a basket that we keep in the back to carry things that we use regularly. When I took the cart out to feed the donkeys, Harry jumped in and took the rawhides, one by one, and stashed them out in the field. He made a feeble effort to bury them, but I don't think he actually dug a hole...just scraped the cut grass around, but the rawhide in and covered them with his nose. I don't know if he'll ever find them again, or if he'll even remember putting them there. We gave him a big bone today that he was ecstatic over. It disappeared when he got tired of chewing. I'll probably find it with my lawn mower in a few days.

More Guard Duty

zzzzzz

Guard Duty

Huh? Whazzat?!

Don't be alarmed. I got it, I got it.

Plum Harvest!

Look what I found under the new plum tree we just planted this year! A perfect little plum. Granted, it's just one little plum, but hey, we didn't expect any fruit from the fruit trees planted just a couple of months ago so we're feeling very blessed.

I ate it. It was good.

Ridin' is Better

Harry has figured out that riding in the golf cart is much easier than running along behind. So he's getting ready to go out to the front pasture with Larry and Tom to pull fence. This is how he likes to ride - sticking out the back. Pretty soon, he will be too big for the cart.

Growin' Reds

Chickens are all feathered out. We still don't know which ones are hens and which are roosters. With our luck, they'll all be roosters. Tom takes Harry with him to tend the chickens so Harry will get used them and hopefully not chase or kill.

Harry

Harry likes to roll in the ground cover and is digging a hole to China right by the back door. He had his vet check up today. He's nearly eight weeks, 26.5 pounds, good health, no parasites.

A Job Well Done

Kip has been successfully integrated with the goats in the pasture. He's with the mommas and babies and there have been no casualties. He's turned out to be such a sweetie.

The thinks he's going to get a treat.

Hey! We want one too!

Kip is showing Harry who's boss.

Fraidy Cats?

The cats are afraid of the puppy. What's up with that? I mean, they aren't afraid of anything. They weave around the donkey's feet even though the donkey has tried to kill them. They follow the goats out to the pasture and hang out with them outside and in the barn. The slip into the stalls with the donkey and goats every chance they get. They play with Pearlie and rub up against her even though she would like nothing better than to kill them. They lay in front of a moving vehicle as if they are unsquashable. They weave in and out of our feet as we walk and they climb all over us. They go into the pasture next door and dare the longhorn cows to chase them. They climb to the very tops of the tallest trees. And they cornered a big snake, for goodness sake! So why are they afraid of a big sloppy puppy?

They stay up in the rafters of the barn, hiss with big wide pupils, and run around with their tails puffed out.

Silly cats. I hope they get over that or the rest of their lives will be miserable having to share the barn with the dog.