We are still in a wet and rainy pattern. It's hard to believe this is June. There are some sun breaks but I am willing to bet this June is setting a record for the most rain. Normal is 1.1 inch. We have had at least 4 times that much, and the forecast is for thunderstorms and rain for the next few days and the posibility of flash floods. We are on high ground so no worries about that for us. The weeds are loving it, some of the flowers and vegies too, other vegies need more heat and sun or they will just sit there and turn yellow.
I planted my squash and corn starts between showers a few days ago. No need to worry about transplant shock! Most years I make little tents from straw or weeds to shelter the transplants from the intense sun for a couple of days, no need for that this year.
My sore footed horse seems to be getting around a bit better. I wonder if he will totally recover. He's retired so I wasn't riding him anyhow, but I would like him to be able to walk normally and be comfortable. He still gets the anti inflamatory medicine twice a day, and we both hate it! It's apple flavored, and no I haven't tasted it!, but still must taste bad because he tries to avoid having the syringe put into his mouth and the medicine squirted onto the back of his tongue. He can really hold his head up high and I have to stretch to reach him, but that is ok because the medicine runs down his throat and he swallows it right away. After he gets the medicine, then he gets to eat.
The fence project is continuing, they are reaching the halfway point. Our friend and at least one of his sons will come out from town and work on it again tonight after work, and then about half a day tomorrow. The hard layer of clay and broken rocks about 6 inches under the surface is making driving the steel posts difficult. They still have a lot of railroad ties to set for the second half, more steel posts between them, wire to string and stretch, etc, but they are making progress! We need to have a BBQ or something when it is done!
Hubby's volunteer day has been changed to Thursday, so I volunteered at the coop yesterday and got in almost half the hours I need to keep my 30% discount for another month. I ordered a 25# bag of pinto beans and one of red beans. It's cheaper to buy that way than out of the bins, and definitely cheaper than a pound at a time from the supermarket. They keep very well in 5 gallon buckets in the basement. We are eating more rice and beans now because of hubby's low fat diet.
Woopee, the sun is out. Lookout weeds, here I come!
Would you post some pictures of that fence and also of your horses here for everyone to see? I saw pictures that you posted elsewhere and the fence is charming in its construction. I would love to have some of those rocks. They probably look plain to you but they are beautiful to me.
Sure will, as they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
We will have our fence crew here again today, they'll finish putting the wire on the fence and then we will have a bbq, so I have to put together some food. This family has 2 teenage sons. They live in town but have previously lived on ranches, so the parents want their sons to know about country lifestyles, not just seeing but actually helping build the fence. When my hubby retired from the DA's office he trained this man to be his replacement, a job the man considers to be his dream job, and he is very grateful, and we are grateful for all their help. There is still a small section of fence to replace, the east side of the horse pasture, but it can be done in a couple of days. The major part is just short of a half mile. Then after that there is 1/4 mile of fence at the lower end of the property.
Many of the old fences in this country are A frame fences, with rock jacks. Often we have so many rocks both above and below ground, that digging holes is impossible. Even with modern post hole augers that are powered by a tractor, it takes a long time to bore a hole to plant a post.
This structure is called a rock jack. It can be used as a corner "post", a pair of them can support a gate, or about every 100 ft in a line of fence, one of these will add a lot of weight to the project. There is no shortage of rocks in this country. Rabbits and other small rodents often live under the rock platform, and snakes (rattlesnakes too), like them because there is shade under there, and often, food as well.
Last edited by Mary on Sun Jun 21, 2009 4:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
This is the type of fence we are replacing. The fence is over 50 years old, the wire is so old, brittle and rusted that it breaks easily, so it is time (past time really) to replace it. The new fence will be an upright type. When this old fence was built, there was no practical way to bore a hole to put in posts if the ground had too many rocks, or a layer of bedrock in the top 2 or 3 ft of dirt, so this A frame was developed. Some of the posts have a hole bored in them that the other side fits into, others were nailed or wired together.
It's Sunday, Father's Day, and our pastor was out of town so had asked my hubby to preach. I think he did a good job, and there were several folks who told him so, but of course the results are up to God. Our son and daughter in law took us to lunch after the service, we went to a Mexican place, not my favorite, but hubby likes it and it was Father's Day, so who am I to say I would rather have a different kind of food? On Mother's Day I got to choose. Hubby ate some food that was not on his low fat diet, but will be back to the straight and narrow, so one fat meal won't hurt him in the big sceme of things.
Our morning temperature was 38! Yes, that is right, 38! It was rainy and windy, so the horse got his breakfast but not his medicine. I'll give him his evening dose early and hope he doesn't have any discomfort. I started giving him some applesauce in the syringe with the medicine, hoping that he will remember a good taste. Last night I think he took it better, and he sure smacks his lips and seems to enjoy it. The tricky part is getting him to let me stick the plastic end of the syringe in his mouth. Hopefully he will decide that he has to or better yet, wants to go though that part before he gets something that tastes like real apples. He just needs time to learn to anticipate something pleasant instead of unpleasant.
Last week we had company for a couple of days, two guys from the Seattle area came down to visit, and we put them to work. The horse in the corral got his corral enlarged with pipe fence panels we already had, and now he has about 4x as much space as he had before, plus access to a small shed, and can get behind the shed if the wind is blowing into the open side. Hubby had them help him distribute railroad ties along the new fenceline, and clean wet, sloppy mud out of the holes that didn't have posts yet, before it dried and hardened.
Thursday evening there will be a gospel concert at church so I'm looking forward to going to that. The group is called Heritage, or Heritage Singers. Their website is www.heritagesingers.com . I haven't checked out the website yet, I just have the flier that was in the bulletin.
We went to hear the Heritage singers and they were very good. They sang a variety of music from old time gospel to modern era selections, and parts of hymns. I'd certainly go to hear them again.
Praise the Lord, the fence is finished. This morning hubby put an extension on the neighbor's gate that was in bad shape and too short once the rock jack was removed. It's like a new gate now because he restapled loose wires and added a couple more stays to it. I've been wondering for years why the cattle stayed in, because at least the calves could have walked through it.
Hubby has loaded up all the old wire, bent nails, staples, etc to take to the dump. All metal is free to dispose of because they can resell it when the price of scrap goes up, so he picked up a lot of misc stuff that was around the place to add to the load. Where does it all come from? We'll get rid of that today and pick up a prescription while we are in town, plus do end of the month banking.
My annual battle with itchy insect bites is in full swing. Last night when I was weeding I got into a nest of teeny weeny ants. I didn't feel the bites until they started to itch. Ice seems to settle them down, plus I am taking antihistamine. Anti itch creams and lanacane do nothing for me.
Last edited by Mary on Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
I am glad you finally have that fence done. It feels good to get something that major accomplished for another 30 years or so. Everything major that we do I tell hubby that should take care of it until we are in a nursing home or gone. He now looks at me with that silly grin and says the same thing to me. We have a wooden fence that has been with us for years, My daughter who just turned 53 helped her dad build it when she was about 15 or 16 years old. He is now replacing it. Guess how long we want it to last!
We will be traveling to the other side of the state to our granddaughter's wedding, leaving tomorrow morning and returning on Monday. The wedding is on Saturday afternoon, followed by a big reception at the home of the bride's family, then Sunday evening we have a missions board meeting, so it will be a full weekend. The trip is close to 400 miles each way, and takes us 6 or 7 hours. I often think of the pioneers along the Oregon trail, traveling about 15 miles on a good day, following that same route for much of the way, and how amazed they would have been to make the trip at that speed.
I've made arrangements for my neighbor to do chores while we are gone. He is the one who has the chickens and goats that were in my care about a month ago for a weekend. Our daughter in law will come out from town twice daily to give Bullwinkle his medicine. She is the nursing student, and volunteered to do it since she has summer classes and can't attend the wedding. Last week she came out to take a trial run. Bullwinkle got extra applesauce that day. He takes his medicine well because he gets about 1/4 cup of applesauce with each dose of medicine. He is looking better all the time but the medicine is what keeps him comfortable while his feet are healing. Daughter in law says she never had such a large hairy patient!
Finally, it got to be summer here! My vegie garden is getting a very thorough deep watering using the hose with a hand held type of nozzle that I lay in a little ditch beside the rows. It has to be moved every few minutes, so I weed nearby while I keep watch on the water. I've also got water from the spring overflow running through a series of miscellaneous pipes to water the grapes, asparagus and elderberrys. The potatoes look wonderful this year, under their straw mulch cover, and using new ground where I built compost piles about 10 years ago. Tomatoes are being grown in two places, one of them a new patch of ground beside the potatoes, and the ground by them is covered with black plastic. I watered 10 plants yesterday and will get the rest watered today. One group has a leaky soaker type hose under it, that's the easy one. All of them got tied to supports and pruned a bit yesterday while I was tending the water.
Today, more watering, and packing. I wanted to start packing last evening, but was just bone weary tired and didn't do it. It's obviously on the "must do" list today!
I may have mentioned that another feral cat has adopted our place. He showed up about 2 months ago, and has a crippled front leg that doesn't seem to be getting any better. Either he is a very good natured cat, or he feels at a disadvantage because of his leg, but he isn't being a problem. He sneaks out of hiding just before dark, eats near the back door and now isn't running every time he knows he is seen. I hear his yodely voice if I am outside when he is moving around, and this morning, just after daylight I heard it again. He was sitting on the front porch, a few feet from the door which was open, with the window on the screen raised. I looked at him, he just sat there, and was still there a minute later. I'm sure it's a tomcat, they are usually the wanderers. He's coal black without any white markings, and has yellow eyes.
Our granddaughter's wedding on was on Saturday, followed by a big outdoor reception, complete with a sit down dinner, and live music from a lady playing an electronic piano! Sunday morning we went to church, then there was a Romania Outreach Mission board meeting on Sunday afternoon. All the board members attended the wedding. They only have 2 meetings annually, so it takes a good block of time! Board members are from Wash, Or, and Calif. I didn't have to be there, so my friend and I were able to visit for the whole afternoon. She and her husband formerly worked with that mission, but came back to the states to be caregivers for their elderly parents. Sunday evening we all attended a nice cookout, but it rained so we ate inside. Burgers tasted just as good! We all praised God for the nice weather for the outdoor reception the day before!
My friend's father is in a nursing home because he has Parkinson's disease and dementia, and requires more care than the family can provide. He doesn't know the Lord, but he is asking questions and doing a lot of thinking. God also gave him a dream recently where he saw himself as a very ugly man covered in warts. He could see Jesus standing by waiting for him to ask for help. He understands that the warts he saw are sins, but says he doesn't want to be a hipocrite. I don't know his first name, but his last name is McClanahan. Please keep him in your prayers, he needs to make an important decision before he looses his mental capacity to do so.
We brought Fritz the Jack Russell Terrier home with us, because his real owner is the young lady who got married, and the rest of the family leaves for summer camp ministry in Romania this week and will be gone a month. We will make another trip back across the state to take him home when the family returns. By then, the newlyweds should have a dig proof pen built for Fritz.
I've been moving sprinklers and doing laundry today, and feel just a bit tired from all the travel, late nights, and activity. It seemed like a great day for a pot of bean soup, so I pulled out a bag of a soup mixture containing several kinds of beans, split peas, lentils, and barley. I added some brown rice, and cooked it all with some dried hot peppers to add a little zip to it. Before Hubby's heart attack we ate such things with Polish sausage or ham for flavor. There is enough left for another meal.
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