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“If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson

Monday, May 21, 2012

May Farm Update

Wow, I can't believe it has been a month since I posted anything. Things have been so busy around here with finishing up the children's activities, the garden and the farm. Thank goodness we are seeing a slow down in activities that the children are participating in as the driving was really beginning to get to me. The garden is doing great this year and providing us along with others an abundance of food. I have been steadily putting up food for the past couple of weeks from the spring crops which are just about finished. I didn't think that I would replant those areas and take a break during the hottest part of the year, but I have decided to put up extra beans and peas so I will be replanting those things only. I have found one thing that I don't like about my biodynamic garden and that is that the lushness of the garden in full production can make it hard to see "visitors". I had one of those the other day and I must say that it gave me a bit of a scare. As I bent over to check underneath a squash plant I was looking at the belly of a snake! Needless to say I jumped back a bit to watch him move on his way underneath my kidney bean patch. I found him again underneath a different squash patch and then lost him under the tomatoes and carrots. I am pretty sure that it was just a southern water snake, but that other slight not sure had me worried since they are colored almost identically to a water moccasin. My husband has since combed every inch of that garden and we are mostly sure that he is gone. With all the activity he probably decided it wasn't as nice of a place as he thought, however I am very careful about moving things around with the machete now instead of just sticking my hands in. I will be making some more posts about the garden within the next week so I won't take up this whole post with gardening stuff. I also have pics taken by our resident photographer, Petunia. We have finished the new shelter in the pig pasture and looking at getting new pigs soon. Even though we still don't know the status of our farm situation it doesn't look like we are going anywhere soon and we need to get moving on our pigs if we want hogs to butcher this winter. This year looks like it is the tree cutting year. Too many tallow trees have grown up and they spread like wildfire. They will make good fence posts though so at least they won't go to waste. We cut down two huge pine trees that were dead right on the fence line, but we didn't get them down fast enough before they took out the corner of the fence with their dead branches. One of them was covered in poison ivy so the goats thought we were the greatest goat parents ever to have given them such a treat. They made short work of the poison ivy on the tree before we burned it. Speaking of goats...I still do not have one single baby and am still without milk. Sugar is due any day now and absolutely looks like she is going to explode. We have made the decision that anyone who didn't catch this year will be sold or eaten. I hate to do that with some of the girls but I can't afford to feed non-producers and I had several that didn't catch last year. We need to downsize anyway and really only need to keep those that are giving us something for their keep. We had a bit of a bad bout with the rabbits in that we lost two of our breeding does to bloat. That really had me upset for awhile as I blame myself. They were getting so much food from the garden weeds and extras that I greatly cut back on their hay. I knew better than to cut back that much and the end result is that I lost them. The good news is that I have plenty of replacements to choose from. The colony is taking a bit more work to keep clean and dry than I expected. I just didn't realize how bad the roof leaks in that barn and so when it rains of course the bedding gets damp and then starts smelling mildewy. It then has to be stripped out. The good news is that we will be hitting the dry season soon and I won't have to strip as much. Maybe we can work on those leaks before the winter rains set in. I am also looking at ways to get a couple more windows in so that there is more light in the colony. Now that the leaves on the trees have fully come in there is so much shade that the colony doesn't get much light in from the open wall. We didn't get as much of a hatch from our broody hens as we would have liked. They hatched out 8, but two didn't make it. So we have 6 little chickens. Here's hoping for all hens! We have a third that went broody under the old tool shed and when we checked to see how many eggs she had we found......3 golf balls! We took them away and then a few minutes later heard her take some more from the golf ball bucket! I hate to tell her but she isn't going to get anything from that. I am still cleaning up and clearing out, both in the house and out. Trying to get as much done before the full heat of summer gets here. The mornings are still pleasant, but the evenings are full of bugs! So not much gets done around here outside in the evening. I use that time to finish up the house chores for the day. We still haven't had to turn on the AC yet, so that is nice having a lower power bill for a little while anyway. However, I might have to turn it on soon as Petunia's allergies are beginning to get pretty bad which tells me that the house is too damp even with the ceiling fans going. I really hate to do that, but for her sake it looks like I will have to. Maybe I can get by with just turning it on for a couple hours a day to dry the house out for a bit. That is the one thing about living in the deep south is the humidity and this old house doesn't handle that very well even though it stays cool in temperature. Well, I suppose that is it for now. Like I said I will post more gardening stuff later this week. Blessings from the farm, Kat

1 comment:

Kelle at The Never Done Farm said...

Good to hear from you Kat! I totally understand the word BUSY! LOL!!! I'm of course slowing with age but darn the days just don't seem to last as long either, never mind the weeks and months*wink*

Looking forward to more about your garden, ours is off to a slow start but we have hight hopes it will go gang busters soon!