Little by little my vegie garden is being planted. Yesterday I got the first planting of corn into the ground. The actual planting takes just a few minutes, but the preparation work is time consuming and labor intensive. I shoveled old manure from a big pile into a wheelbarrow and wheeled it down along side where the rows were going to be, then using the shovel again, put it along the row in an upside down v. Next I went to the compost pile and each row got a topping of compost. Then I sprinkled bone meal along the top, ran the rototiller over it all to mix everything, and then was ready to plant corn seeds that had been soaking in water all day to give them a quick start. The rows got a drink of water with the shower wand to help the seeds settle in.
I prepared enough row space for the next two corn plantings, 2 weeks and 4 weeks from now, and also for my green beans which I hope to get planted today after church. The hard part is done. This week I will plant squash and that will finish the planting. Winter squash (butternut) will go at one end of the garden and summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers will go at the other end, as far apart as possible to prevent cross pollination. I save seeds from the winter squash and haven't bought any of those in about 15 years. Last year I had some volunteer pumpkins near the winter squash, so I am using seeds from the previous year to keep from growing squmpkins.
The day before yesterday when I watered the potato rows with the hose there was nothing coming up, but before dark last night there was a good showing of baby potato leaves. I planted Yukon Gold, a red one, and a russet. Hopefully they will give us a good crop and we will not have to buy potatoes until late spring next year.
A couple of days ago I took Patch to the vet who also does chiropractic work, he could find nothing out of place and so we have concluded that Patch probably just had a muscle cramp that made him lame half way through the endurance ride last week. I'll be going to a 2 day ride with him this coming weekend so I hope he really is ok. Otherwise, I will be doing a lot of helping with the ride. It takes a small army of volunteers and I try to do my part whenever I can.
The neighbor has his cattle here on our pasture for a few days before we will move them to another pasture a couple of miles down the road. Only two cows have not had their calves now, they are in another pasture where they can be watched more easily. This morning the cows and calves were near the pond looking very contented.
We have had several hummingbirds entertaining us for about 2 weeks now. Two of them are Rufous, a rusty gold color with an irridescent glow in the sun. I hope they stay and raise babies here. We also have a pair of black chinned ones and the regular type that we get which I think are called Anna's.
The local fox family has outdone themselves this year with 10 babies! I counted nine yesterday when I drove past the mound in they neighbors pasture with all the holes in it and little foxes playing hide and seek in and out of the holes. What a playground! Most of them stopped to watch me go by so they were fairly easy to count.
And that's the news from the farm on the hill today.
Woopeee! Praise the Lord! the propane man came today (just a week later than what he originally said) and we are all hooked up and can finally fill in that trench. It's been in our way ever since it was dug. Now we need to call the furnace man and he can finish his job and connect the furnace propane line to the outside line, but first my hubby needs to do some wiring to hook up the furnace. Between that and the trench refill job his weekend is planned. Everything takes more time than we ever thought it would, so it's a good thing winter isn't coming anytime soon.
This morning I helped move 2 bunches of cows and calves. First the last 6 cows with their little calves went to an adjoining pasture but they didn't want to travel up the hill to the gate so it was a bit of work. The calves don't see too well, and have never seen a horse, so some of them followed Patch and of course their mothers were concerned about that.
After those were in a new pasture we moved 25 cows, with their calves and about 20 yearlings down the road a couple of miles. Along the way they found a brand new opening in a fence that our new neighbor had made and hadn't installed a gate. Leave it to a bunch of cows to find a place where the grass is greener on the other side of the fence!
I mowed the lawn (ha ha, just grass and weeds) and put the clippings on the new asparagus row. The plants are showing signs of life, some of them have itty bitty stalks coming up that are about the size of pencil lead. Not too impressive, but they are alive! It's exciting to see things grow, well, not the weeds, I could do without those.
Our weather has turned cold again after being nice and warm for planting my garden. The heat kept me busy watering everything and pulling weeds. In some places the weeds and quack grass in the flower beds are waaay ahead of me and I'm going to have to dig everything up, salvage what is good and start over.
Last Friday, after a busy morning watering everything so nothing would die while I was gone, I left for an endurance ride. The temperature was already up to about 90 with a hotter day forecast for Saturday. The trip was hot, the next 2 days were very hot, and it finally started to cool down on Monday. We got some rain and I expected the weather to heat up again, but we have a cold north wind, 3 36 degree nights in a row with a high of about 45 during the days. What a shock this must be for my poor little tomato and pepper plants, even through I covered them up with rhubarb leaves, making me think of Adam and Eve and their fig leaves.
My next ride is this weekend in the mountains of southern Idaho. The weather is supposed to be about 60 from what I can guess from a forecast for Twin Falls, about 50 miles away at a much lower elevation. I haven't been to this ride in years, and one memory of it is the moose that wandered through ride camp during the night sampling hay and getting the horses all excited. My horse was still snorty several hours later. We also had an encounter with some hornets or yellow jackets that lived in holes in the ground near the trail and weren't happy about being disturbed by horses trotting past making earthquakes. Another year my inexperienced horse was feeling pretty low on the food chain when we came across fresh bear sign on the trail. I hope it doesn't get too interesting this year.
My ride got cancelled due to a foot of snow at ridecamp. So I will be staying home, pulling weeds, going to church and to the church picnic Sunday afternoon. Of course the weather on ride day is supposed to be just fine, but the snowstorm brought trees down and really made a mess of short term plans.
I neglected to mention that I got Patch's saddle refit to him last week when the saddle company representative came through here on his way between other places. The type of saddle I have has removable panels under the saddle, so they can be changed when the horse's back changes due to weight gain or loss, and the fact that they build more muscles as they work more.
Tomorrow I will be helping with branding calves and vaccinating cows and all the stuff that goes with that, so it is good that I am going to be home.
Yesterday my hubby and youngest son left for 2 1/2 weeks in Romania. Our son, who is a carpenter, will be working on some construction projects and my hubby will be visiting with several missionaries who are supported through our Foundation. He wasn't sure if he could go until the last day that he could get some discounted tickets, but the Lord worked it out.
Our day started early with a 300 mile trip to the Portland, OR airport. Goodbyes were said at the curb, and then I drove to Salem to take care of an errand, then to another town about 30 miles away to pick up Fritz, the Jack Russell Terrier who lives with us when his missionary family is out of the country. From there the trip home was about 7 hours and 400 miles. With a couple of stops to walk the dog and stretch our legs, I was back home shortly after dark. Total mileage for the day was about 800 miles.
Today it's back to pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, planting more corn, hoeing potatoes and beans, and getting started on digging up and cleaning out some long neglected flower beds that didn't get any attention last fall or this spring. The quack grass in them is so bad that I am just going to dig them up, clean out the grass and weeds and replant anything that is good. I think it will take me a week or more to get though the mess.
My youngest granddaughter, Brittney, was adopted from Romania when she was very young. My son and his wife went there to get her. She is a beautiful child in every way.
Click to see full size image
A few days ago we weaned the lambs. The ewes and lambs were all run through a chute with a dodge gate that Paul uses to block the chute when a lamb comes through, diverting it into a corral, and then letting the ewes go straight through.
After they were sorted we moved the lambs out to a good pasture about a quarter mile from the corrals, and left the ewes in the corrals to fast for most of the day to help them dry up. Then they were moved in another direction to a pasture with poorer quality feed to let them eat but not encourage them to make much milk.
The lambs were happy for a couple of hours, then started hollering for their mommas. The first day was noisy, the second less so, and now they are fairly quiet.
This morning when I took Fritz for a walk we scared a young fox who was in the pasture. He ran along the fence line and then through the fence into the neighbor's grain field. Fritz was busy sniffing and never saw him at all.
Hubby called me from Romania this morning. He has been busy visiting missionaries, and gave me updates on what he and our son have been doing and will be doing in the next few days so that I could pass the information along to our daughter-in-law.
It would be great if you could share some of the information concerning his trip to Romania. You might want to wait until he gets back home and can share stories with you however.
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