Farmer Friday

The last few weeks have been doozies. In fact this whole year has been something else. My culverts clogged a bit and I had some run off from the hill pen. You can see more of that in the video  below. 

I worked on new steps up to the hill pen. 

And it rained. A lot in a few days. I’ve gotten as much rain this month as I did for the whole year of 2019. 

So the goat pens flooded and needed mucked out. 

14 bags of bedding barely dried out the goat pens and the brooder coop. Most of the other pens had at least some dry space. 

I dug a little ditch around Caramel’s pen so hopefully the water won’t run in there again. 

There was so much water on tarps it was bending the kennel panels. 

View from the top. Took me all one day to bail water and muck out pens. 

And THEN!

It rained some more!

Since it was nice and cool I did make a pizza: Brick House Bakers pizza dough, home made mozzarella, homegrown tomatoes, basil, garlic chives with some figs from the Superior Farmers Market. 

Tons of weeds growing like crazy but so is everything else. A little birdhouse gourd. 

And a big one. 
Cosmos or maybe coreopsis 

Dahlia 

Tomatoes are starting 

Armenian cucumber 

A jungle out back

I got some of it tamed

Wild fungi

Another dahlia I love the colors, reminds me of water lilies 

Sorting out some Nankins. Nankins are little bantams that shouldn’t be too big. A young cockerel like this should only weigh about 20 ounces. Some of these are too big or don’t have the right coloring to keep for breeding. So I’m giving them away to 4H kids for showmanship birds. I have several pairs. Message me if you are interested and local

I did pick tomatoes and okra and a couple cucumbers but forgot to take pictures. Maybe in the morning. But I did get one of this weeks flowers. 

#appreciation

Today I appreciate we’ve gotten rain. I appreciate that despite the wildfires and floods I still have my house, my gardens, my animals, food in my belly and clothes on my back. 

Rain Finally!

Yesterday afternoon it rained hard for a bit then slacked off to a drizzle. 

1 got 1.4”

The creek ran a little 

Then today it rained some more. Yea. All my clean clothes are still on the line. 

Today I got 1.6”. Poor Posie and Caramel were pretty wet at milking time which was delayed because of the rain. Caramel was the wettest so I’m pretty sure Posie wasn’t letting her get under the shelter. The cover came part way off the pop up that I put up for shade. I’ll have to rope it down tomorrow. 

Had a good size rattler by the front steps a couple nights ago   I think it might be the same one we saw a couple weeks ago. Trying to clean up the junk in that area so maybe it won’t feel so at home. 

A little earlier that afternoon there was a baby king snake

And earlier in the week I rescued this little rat snake that was in one of the Nankin houses and couldn’t find its way out. 

Really this is the earliest I remember seeing snakes in the yard. Usually they don’t start showing up until late July or early August. 

#appreciation

Today I appreciate the rain. The plants are just soaking it up. I hope no one has flood damage and everyone is careful. 

Back to Sorta Normal

We were evacuated about a week. The moving stress upset some tummies so I gave all the goats some probiotic paste a couple of days and cut back their grain a bit. That helped. 

When we banded Buddy we also banded his horns. They weren’t really quite ready to come off but he managed to knock them loose. 

So my friend came and helped. His horns were just hanging by flaps of skin so we snipped them off, cleaned him up and covered everything with blue kote to prevent fly strike. His eyes were a bit swollen and his temp was elevated so a few days of antibiotics. He’s recovered now. Just to note that *usually* banded horns come off with just a small amount of blood, the rest of the horn base having healed up already. 

Flower color of the month, hot yellow to match our 110-112° temps. 

I put up a canopy in the hill pen with 90% shade cloth on two sides to give the goats more shade on hot days. 

I didn’t milk while evacuated since Posie and Caramel both were still nursing their twins. When we came home it was just too hot to put them on the hill until I got the extra shade for them. But I did resume our regular milking schedule and got about one cup of milk from each of them each evening.  Now that the temps have come down a little and there’s more shade I put them in the hill pen for the day and milk in the evening. 

Posie before milking on a 9 hour separation 

Caramel before milking on a 9 hour separation. They are both giving about half a gallon of milk a day. Caramel’s udder is still quite lopsided but beginning to even out a bit. 

We had two new fires start, again one to the east and one to the west and had several very smoky days. I think they are out now, I’ll have to check. 

Down to two cats, Tink the old lady on the left and Freya on the right. Always a standoff. They don’t like each other at all. 

I worked a bit on the hill pen this morning getting ready to set more T posts to hold a cattle panel and tin to hold back the dirt. 

I’ve been trying to resurrect an old canopy and got this far to discover a couple of the roof pieces were mangled. I’m not sure they can be fixed or not. I’ll see if my son has time to look at them. 

Aelf checking out the new girls next door. 

A dahlia opening up. 

I had pretty good success rooting some dahlia cuttings. 

Some things are struggling and some are thriving 

A leaky wading pool helps hold moisture for some potted plants

Another dahlia 

Gazelle and Chocolate 

And soon we’ll have okra 

I did evening chores with a light sprinkle. It wasn’t even enough to wet the ground but it did smell good. 

Chocolate and Gazelle are still wild and jumpy but I have found a good motivator!

In other news I set a batch of cheese, started getting my desk cleared off and unpacking my tools. (Yes I evacuated my tools!) and of course the usual chores. 

#appreciation

Today I appreciate just being able to hang out and do a few things at home.