Summer Ups and Downs

I'm happy to report that our new roof is functioning perfectly, and we've had the weather to test it! Since the first of June we've had at least 34" of rain here on our farm. We are quite soggy. Adam can hardly mow. The dogs' paws are soggy. The chickens' feet are soggy. The garden weeds are out of hand.

Needless to say, the rain (plus the 3 weeks of horrible heat with no rain) has been detrimental to gardening, and not much is coming from the veggie garden these days. But aren't we glad we got a new roof before this rainy summer?!

The hatching of new chicks has been up and down too. Here's chick #1, the prettiest baby chick I've ever seen:

 She's about 2.5 weeks old now. I'm fairly sure it's a pullet (i.e., female) by her wing feathering and wing length, and her fluffy tail feathers.

 Such pretty colors! And I love her Cleopatra eyes.

Three eggs in the clutch were not viable. The last one of these was broken open with a perfectly formed chick inside, dead :(  That's hard to see, after waiting all this time.

Then yesterday morning, this little one was born!

 I could tell from its shell color that it's from one of the silkie mamas, which is great. He/she will have some pretty coloring too.

One of my two silkie mamas was pecking at the baby pretty hard, so I removed her from the broody box and put up a barrier to keep her out. The silkie mama still sitting on a few eggs has been at it for a long time. I hope she's okay.

The only plants looking quite happy these days are my gourd plants and my loofah vines. No loofahs are dangling from them yet, but I do have some gourds coming along. Here's the one I picked this morning:

It was a volunteer, probably from some little decorative Thanksgiving gourd I dropped in the yard.

I'm skipping the farmer's market tomorrow because somebody's here for a fast, flying visit!

He's much loved by doggies. It will be nice to have a break tomorrow, stay home, and make pancakes like I used to on Saturdays.

Farm Update: July 3

I haven't done a farm post in nearly two months. I have various excuses: rain, rain, and then a bit more rain. A wedding. The outrageous heat. But truthfully, I had energy for one blog, not two. There you have the unvarnished truth.

For future reference, here are a few stats:

*3 chicks survive from the May clutch. I think two are hens, but unsure still. They are nine weeks old today.
*Ethel is broody on four Ameracauna eggs, one week in. 
*It's a bad tomato year. I have about 25 plants in the garden, but the Mini Orange plants are performing badly because of excessive rain - rotten fruit. The 2 plants in pots with drainage did better.

*Matt's Wild Cherry tomato plants are doing okay. The 3 plants that overwintered on the porch have done extremely well. I should try that again. I had abundant cherry tomatoes all through June, which is early. The rope trellising is not a good solution for tomatoes. We need a new plan. Cages are too short for vining varieties.
*Cucumbers are bearing very well. The pickling variety turn yellow quickly. But the rope trellising is perfect for cucumbers. We will do that each year.

*I started my Blue Lake bean plants too late. I have 8 plants in a bed fenced against rabbits. Difficult to weed. Pepper plants also in there, and growing well.
*The greens bed was fabulous. We could not eat or sell even a majority of it.
*Babies' Breath and Chamomile did not grow well. Heavy rain destroyed the first and heat/weeds destroyed the second.
*Carrots appear to be growing well. No sign of orange root yet. I sowed seeds on March 29.
*A good year for onions, which were put in as sets last fall. At the end of June their tops were down enough to pull them. They're curing on the front porch. Then I think we'll store them in the frig.

* Each year our potato harvest improves. Adam harvested them today. He'll brush off the dirt and we'll store them in the spare bedroom.

*I've had decent farm sales at the market, selling nearly everything. 
*I have so much tomato sauce left over from last year that I'm cooking it down and turning it all into tomato paste, which Adam uses most readily in cooking.

Reduced by half, after simmering for a day

*We ate some peas this year, but did not freeze any. We don't tend to remember what's in the deep freezer, and garden produce sits there for a long time, uneaten. Need to improve on that.
* I made a batch of tea tree soap in February, one of lavender in March, and just made a mixed batch last week. I've steadily made batches of Healing Herb Ointment, Bee Balm, and Insect Repellent Lotion Bars, all of which sell well. I'll make a bit of ointment for ourselves today because we use it so often.
*Herb beds are doing very well, if weedy. I made a large batch of herbal tea (mint, lemon balm, tarragon, lemongrass), and sold the first tin of it at the market on Saturday.

*Adam's willow tree starts are doing extremely well. Thicker wands have grown better than thinner ones. 
*My seven loofah vines are looking very good. They won't bear until autumn. I sold almost all of my last year's loofah scrubs.

I think that's about it! If you want to know more about what's happening in our lives -- the roof, the wedding, the dogs -- skip on over to my other blog, Through a Glass Darkly. Thanks for stopping by!

Thank You, Canada!

Here comes the Arctic blast! Are we ready?
*Put straw in new chicken coop for insulation and to eliminate drafts
*Build door on farm dogs' barn bay
*Install heater in farm dogs' barn bay
*Cover eucalyptus tree with hoop house plastic
*Give Sylvie more straw under her broody eggs
*Close off spare rooms in the house and crank up those space heaters!

Yessiree, the cold air is acomin'! Monday night's low will be 16 degrees, but it will feel like 7 degrees. I know that's nothing unusual to some of you tough Northerners, but to us wimpy Southerners, that's bone-chillin', teeth-chatterin', move-me-to-Arizona weather!

On the front porch greenhouse, I eat a little cherry tomato nearly every day. My 3 tomato plants are quite happy.

I zoomed in to photograph this female cardinal outside my window.

 Then Adam hung two bird feeders there, so I can see the birds better, take their pictures, and perhaps include them in future stories.

 Isn't he sweet? All I did was say something about watching birds, and boom! Two bird feeders appear.
The cold weather gives Beau some staticky hair.

 I started my Winter Journal. I tried stitching a snowflake on it, but I'm not quite sure it's a snowflake ....

 I painted this mouse, just for practice. My new story is about a mouse family.

 Speaking of stories, I mailed out three copies of the Punkin story today! I'm so, so excited. I now have 13 copies promised to friends. It's just so fun to share one's creative pursuits.

 

 

Finally, I'm weaving again. I warped in a selection of gray/blues and deep reds, with some sparkly yarn thrown in. The weft is a smoky blue. The photos don't do it justice -- this one was a surprise. I pick out yarns, and I load the loom, and I begin weaving ... and that's when I find out if my selections were mediocre or magical. This one is magical for some reason. It is brighter, sparklier, and more rustic than the photos.

Well, stay warm out there, folks. This next week promises to be a doozy. We will be inside, eating soup, thrusting our toes toward the heaters, and going a little stir-crazy. Cheerio!

First Hurricane on the Farm

Hurricane Matthew was kind and skirted out to sea, leaving us with high winds and a dab of rain for us, but no serious damage. Saturday evening brought the heaviest rain and the beginning of flooding in our house lot.

With a forecast of 10-15" of rain, I was quite worried our house would be stranded like Noah's ark in a small pond by morning.

We moved our 3 vehicles by evening to get them out of the water. That was a pain! Adam had to walk back from Bayboro twice.

The wind howled loudly most of the night, and our electricity went out. I tossed and turned. Everyone I spoke to on Sunday said the same thing: "We have no electricity. I slept horribly last night."

Sunday morning, we walked the farm to assess damage. I'm happy to say we had only one branch fall on the barn roof. Otherwise, the yard and field were strewn with hundreds of small branches. Adam got one small hole in the barn roof that he'll repair.

The chicken yard was attacked by the pine tree overhead.

Before the storm hit I removed everything on the front porch -- 65 mph winds were expected and they did arrive! I noticed my rose bush had one last bud just opening. I cut it and brought it inside, a little touch of warm, bright summer as autumn's stormy season takes over.

Sunday morning dawned sunny and suddenly cool. What a relief!

We began gathering debris, two truck beds full.

Monday morning Adam began a fire to burn it all. The wind had died down.

Strong winds robbed most of the county of power, and work continues to restore it. Ours came on Sunday night, and I'm so thankful. The farm is fine. Our young pea plants and lettuces were battered by wind, but I hope they'll recover. But another crop was encouraged by that wind ... the pecans! Quite a few fell, and I began gathering them today. Pecan-gathering means that autumn is truly here!

This and That and a Hurricane

A few days ago Adam came in the house and said, "Guess what?" And he showed me the first two pecans he'd picked up this season.

We each ate one. They were large and well-fleshed and tasty. 

Quite a young, chewy pecan, if you know what I mean.

What is that new drapery over the back door, you ask? Did I mention that Adam found a torn weather balloon in our field? He did. There it is. I had fun taking that in to work and showing it to the kids and teaching them a little about weather balloons. I'm constantly looking for anything that might be interesting and educational to them. They enjoy seeing and touching anything that they've never seen before. I enjoy letting them guess what it is before I tell them.
Take this food sieve for instance. I found it at the local thrift store for $5.

I used one of those 20 years ago in Iowa to make grape jelly. An elderly friend brought a box of her own grapes to me, with her sieve. That was fun! I also have a food mill that I used to make applesauce. I suppose they serve similar purposes.
In addition to the sieve and the food mill, I took these wooden items to show the kids:

The bottom one, of course, is a sock darner. But the middle one? For years I wondered what it really was. I used it to darn socks, but it's a bit long. Neither the top nor the middle item really works as a rolling pin -- although I think my mother always described the top item as my great-grandmother's rolling pin. As I researched these items a bit online, I discovered that both the longer ones are pestles! Think of how large the mortars would've been, that they were used with. For the kids to understand what a pestle is, I took in Adam's quite-heavy stone set with a sprinkling of crushed allspice in it. I passed the mortar around for them to smell. Such experiences are important with children. As a teacher, you toss out to them dozens (even hundreds) of little experiences, little pieces of information, little sensory appeals. A few of them embed deeply in a few children's minds and take root and grow. You never know which ones.

A chicken in Beaufort is ready for the foul weather.

Rain gear will soon be in vogue here on the farm. Hurricane Matthew is coming this weekend. It will probably bear down on us sometime Saturday night/Sunday morning. We haven't lived through a bad hurricane since we moved here in 2012, but Hurricane Irene did horrible damage in 2011 just before we arrived. Our farm is a bit of a low spot. Much depends on wind direction, wind tides up the rivers and creeks, how fast the storm is moving, and how much rainfall it dumps on us before it moves on. I'll keep you posted as long as I have internet connection to do so.

September on the Farm

We survived Tropical Storm Hermine over the weekend, and now temperatures are definitely cooler compared to a month ago. Phew! We're weary of that heat!

The hens continue to give us about three eggs each day. I think maybe my Rhode Island Red is the freeloader holding out on me :) Goldie loves going to the field with us and rolling around in the grass. We call it her "Salsa Dancing."

Hermine dropped lots of rain, but she moved quickly through during Friday night while we slept. She left a soggy yard.

 Lines of pine straw indicated to us how high the water washed up, but it didn't stay long.
This is the bottom of our house deck ramp, just a bit of water.

 The path to the out-building was soggy too and scattered with fallen pecan limbs. One large one punctured the ground.

 On the other side of our house deck, I finally told Adam to remove the huge holly bushes that flanked the steps.

 They were quite tall. Walking between them each morning was a little creepy. The spider webs were significant.

We'll find something else to go there eventually.
Yesterday Adam had a big fire in the pasture for all the brush; it was cool enough at last. Soon he will pull almost all the remaining tomato plants out of the ground. They still have fruit, but the tomato hornworms have found them at last. I pulled off and squashed about 25 of them yesterday. Most of the remaining fruit doesn't look good. A few plants we put in later are still thriving and healthy. Adam is putting in peas in the two tomato rows.

Cucumbers continue to bear a bit. Our watermelons have come .. and come ... but each one rots. Adam investigated and found they were deficient in calcium. Next year we'll know better. I've picked two pretty gourds and one pumpkin. They sit on the front porch.

Not an impressive return for the massive gourd plants twisting their way 'round the garden!
Adam admits that he spent an inordinate amount of time MOWING, all summer long. It eats into his available time to do other farm work. Next year, if finances permit, maybe we'll get a better mower. Maybe!
Next year:
We hope to get grapes from the vines, if they're getting enough sunlight.
We hope to use the dehydrator.
We hope to harvest honey.
We hope to double our greenhouse space.
We hope to have successfully had a winter garden and corn and sunflowers.
We hope to have a Sheltie and for Goldie to have moved outside full-time.
And many other things ... we hope for.

Even Though We Don't Have Chickens ...

Even though we don't have chickens (yet) or goats (yet), we do have an ever-increasing number of animals on the farm. If you read my other blog, you know we acquired a new farm dog this past week, Moose:

Moose is a lab mix with some Great Dane in there too.
And today, we adopted a cat named Bill. Bill is a she. She needed to be rehomed because her owner is moving and needs a good place for Bill to live. We hope she likes it here after she has acclimated to us. She's staying out in Julia's building at first because I'm allergic to cats. Later we hope she'll be happy as a farm/barn cat. If you have any helpful advice about winning over the affections of a cat, or rehoming a cat, or getting a cat to stick around (especially on a farm), please let me know in your comments!
And the worms! Let me not forget the worms, though they be small and quiet. Adam recently "rehomed" them also.

That's our old bathtub that came out during the Great Bathroom Redo. It's in the barn now and is the perfect home for worms. Adam keeps it covered in cardboard and plastic when it's chilly (which it's been). It's set up on blocks:

And it has a plastic tub under the drain hole to catch the moisture that comes from the compost and worms. That liquid is called "worm tea" and is quite desirable to water plants. It's chock full of nutrients plants love. Adam removed a good bucket of it just today. Our worms are doing very well.
The bees are doing great too -- five healthy hives going into summer. Adam will add boxes as needed to encourage honey production.
In the greenhouse, I have 145 tomato plants germinated, from itty-bitty to quite large and ready to go in the ground when it's warm enough ... which it should be next week. My tomato plants, I'm proud to say, are quite beautiful and healthy.
Note to self: do not plant beans when it's cold. We've lost two plantings thus far. They sprout and get zapped. Live and learn. We will wait until it's good and warm. It's tough being a newbie.
Sister-in-law Anne from West Virginia gave me some plants to bring home, and they are all thriving! (Thank you, Anne!) The hosta is sending up many spears, and even the yarrow, which I feared I'd dried out, sprang back to life when I put it in the ground and gave it a good watering.
I've been mowing and mowing, getting the "lawn" under control. The knock-out roses are beginning to bloom, and the wisteria is dripping from the pine trees like pale clusters of grapes. We had a freeze warning last night, but here's hoping that's the last one! That's all from the farm!