After the storm

Last night a line of thunderstorms pushed through ahead of a welcomed cold front. We received a quarter inch of rain. My plastic on the greenhouse finally gave into the wind. It has lasted far longer than I would have thought it would, being it was 6mil off the shelf sheeting. It held up through the winter ice and snow and springs wind and hail storm, but gave into degradation from the sun and not enough duct tape on the small tears and wear spots.

Looks like I can finally install the new channel and spring tie down system I bought earlier this spring. I thought I would have had it done much sooner than the end of June.

Fuzz the snake killer. Enlarge this picture...he looks like he has some big old puffy lips.

The bean arches are starting to close in. The purple podded beans are out doing the blue lake big time.Our sweet potato rings are beginning to fill out and trail. Another two weeks and this should look like a damn kudzu patch.


Some of the pumpkins are that were set out early have set some nice fruit. This one is by far the largest of the six that were of the same planting.

Sticky

Summer kicked in the door here with a hardy heat wave and ridiculous humidity. Nothing like going from a wet and cool spring to the dog days with the coming of the solstice.

I have been pulling the remaining garlic from the greenhouse. The hard neck did not produce as large a bulb as the other soft neck variety.

Our blackberries are making a fantastic addition to ice cream.

We pulled the rest of our beets last week. Theresa was canning late into the night the evening before she left for a mid week all girl float trip on the Black River. A good soaking in a cold, spring fed river did wonders on removing the beet stains from her fingers.


We found this odd character among our beets. It was white as a snow and smelled like a beet. Anyone have any ideas on what it might be? The tops looked the same as the rest of the beets.

Mid-June

The rain has finally stopped. I've lost track of exactly how much we've had in the last week because both of us were emptying the gauge. The best we can figure is we are well over five inches this week. The ground is saturated and some of my tomatoes are showing their displeasure with having wet feet.

This mornings rain total.

Thankfully our drainage is fairly good for having heavy clay soils. We have used raised beds and heavy mulching as well as a fairly large composting cycle to build up our garden plot but there are still low spots that get swampy. I'm also happy with my decision to have our pigs at the top of the hill. I've seen so many pig pens that are stuck in the lowest, worse draining area of a farm. Granted that we don't keep hogs year round but if we did I like the idea of not seeing a damned mud filled paddock. They need to have an island of escape from soggy conditions.


Tomatillos
Toothache plant...it works well. I'd like to see if its pain killing properties can be used on small hand wounds but I haven't remembered to use it when I'm jabbing my hands into stuff that I shouldn't.
Potatoes
Cherokee purple
Beans are working their way up the arches.


Golden and Detroit beets



Slowly I'm turning the plant selection in the greenhouse to peppers and eggplant. I pulled some of the soft neck garlic this week and was very pleased with the results.



Canna
Butterfly weed.
We picked up a second pair of blue slates.

Butterscotch earcandy

We just got home from another great show at Wildwood Springs Resort. We were treated to another fine meal and The Infamous Stringdusters were absolutely fantastic. A bluegrass jam band with very, very strong players made for a night that was just what I needed to fill my ears.

RIPE

Granted that these little guys came out of the greenhouse, they are still the first and earliest ripe tomato I have ever grown. I have been so damn excited about having fruit on the vines so early but to have ripe fruit a month before I've ever had any before is remarkable to me. If you're considering building or buying a greenhouse I would have to say that I would be all over it.

Last week Theresa, Katy and I went to see the Cardinals against the Reds. Great game. Great time. We brought home a winner too.


The following is what happens to a ten year old with a digital camera during a pitching duel at the ballpark all sugared up on Dr. Pepper.

Texas Chihuahua

My niece and several of her friends came by the house this weekend to visit and pick up a load of firewood because they were camping. One of the girls was asking about all the chickens, turkeys, pigs and dogs. What breed is that? She asked me about Daisey, our mutt of unknown lineage. What kind of dog is she?

Texas Chihuahua....I said straight faced.

"Really...I had no idea they got that big." she replied

Everything is bigger in Texas you know. I told her

She nodded her head in agreement and we all went on talking, never returning to breed questions the rest of their visit.

:)

I hate when that happens

Early Wednesday morning Theresa was shaken from a deep sleep by a crashing sound that she could not locate the source of till she was getting ready to go to work. My side of the closet collapsed. Let me say that again so that I can wrap my little brain around the concept of MY SIDE of the closet breaking free from an obvious overload.

I look over at my lovely brides side of the closet that is PACKED with her clothes yet it seems to defy the laws of nature. There must be some balance act or her clothes are so tightly crammed together that they form a new type of plywood. Lamented structural cotton and poly support trusses...yup that has got to be the answer.

Upon further review I've got clothes hanging in here that I haven't worn since my arse was that fitting of a healthy, physically fit 29 year old. Hell...my old Boy Scout uniform is still hanging, kinda sorta from the rod. I guess with age and weight every thing succumbs to gravity and settles a little closer to the ground.

The silver lining of this little dilemma is that as soon as I begin to get this mess cleaned up and a new closet system constructed is that the sun will come out and tease me . Once again the showers have foiled my attempts to plant our sweet corn. No doubt that we will have a repeat of last seasons corn in late September due to late planting.

May wrap up

This week the sun finally made an appearance after what has seem like a month of overcast and rainy days. I've got most of this years plantings in with the exception of our sweet corn.

When I heard that my source for round bales of straw lost his wheat crop to flooding last year I was dreading the thought of using hay for mulching. With the price of straw around here well over 3$ and all the weed seed in hay can make for a mess in the garden and leave my wallet in ruin. Fortunately for me Chet came through with two old quarter rotten 4x5 net wrapped bales that were below his barn and only retrievable with a crawler. He pulled them out and dropped them, one per trip, in the bed of my truck. Each round bale is equal to about 15 or so square bales so I end up with enough to liberally apply a mat around our garden that just about melts into the soil by next season. I use sheets of cardboard that I pick up at the feed store and our empty feed sacks under the straw as a weed block. The worms are just thick under last years sheets of cardboard. I did find that some of the feed sacks had a plastic sheeting between the paper. Those sacks will be used as starters for the fire pit from now on.


I ordered a channel and spring tie down system for the greenhouse plastic. The days of me bragging about only having $206 into it are over. The tack ran me around $150 with shipping. It will be much easier to replace the plastic now than with the old batten boards I was wrapping the sheets ends in and screwing to the frame. It has been warm enough to open up the side panels to help keep the temperature more moderate. 100F isn't too uncommon now with spikes around 110F. Soon all the greens will be coming out of the house and I'll put in some more eggplant and peppers.


So far the greenhouse tomato plants are just making me giggle. I have never had fruit at this point of development EVER.


The plastic has seen better days. Not to bad a track record for off the shelf 6mil. When duct tape starts to become a major surface area of the greenhouse roof there is a pretty good chance that the plastic needs to be replaced. I was thinking about trying to sell advertising spelled out in tape but I would think that it wouldn't pay real well since slow, low flying aircraft would be all that could see it. What do you think...See Rock City?

It finally has dried up enough that I could haul a couple of loads of manure up the hill. This pile will be next seasons. The smaller dwindling pile in the background is this years gold. I almost hate to see it shrink as quickly as it has this year but I'm opening up a new block of the garden that had only been used for hilled vines. I moved at least 20 loader buckets into the block for corn this year.

The garden is starting to explode with all the rain and warm nights. It has officially become weedin' season!

Strawberries are coming in by the basket. As I'm posting this Theresa is making a strawberry pie.

My favorite flower in the garden!

Our peaches and blackberries are beginning to develop wonderfully.


Very soon I'll be making myself into one of these...

What's growing on

I truly enjoy this time of year when every walk around the house and trip out to the garden is a surprise of new growth.



There haven't been any new takers on the free rent offer in the gourds.

Baby peaches...

Columbine.

I have been moving most of our seedlings to their permanent summer homes. The tomatoes are next to get transplanted.



I just feel downright geeky getting excited over having fruit on the vine in the greenhouse. This is my first year using this tool so it's a ton of fun to have been able to move along with our garden at such an accelerated rate.

We just planted our greenbeans and the potatoes have yet to break through the mulch but I did take a peek at one end of the rows and they will soon be busting through. I'm still hauling in loads of compost for the area that we will block in our sweet corn.

Dyeing and hot cross buns

We were dyeing damn near everything before Easter. T-shirts, socks, babies clothes, dish towels and eggs.

The kids came out the weekend before Easter to tie dye. For the most part everyone was happy with the results.
Easter weekend my nieces came out for egg dyeing and a vicious "flute off".


Katy and I candled our eggs that we have had in the incubator. The best I could tell we only had two out of fourteen that were bad.

I picked up a few bronze poults to add to the mess that is poultry here. I'll be posting soon on my most recent misadventure with our flock. Fortunately a bloody, feather strewn death was not the ultimate outcome. Whoda thunk it?

I also included a few chicks from the mystery bin...cause I don't think things through sometimes.

Waiting

As of 5:30pm we are still waiting for the arrival of our freshest grandson Hunter James. Amber is in hard labor as I'm writing this on my son-in-laws laptop. We have been here since around 8:30 this morning hoping for a trouble free, fast delivery of Amber's second son.

No troubles...but not fast.

All in God's time.

Update...

A healthy 7.94# beautiful baby boy was born 8:29 this PM.

I just hate it when...

We recently brought home a breeding pair of blue slate turkeys. My track record with keeping poultry unmolested, or even alive, has not been very good. My friends ask me if I've killed any chickens lately and they don't mean for the freezer. They chuckle at the facts of my miserable management of a flock. They have even felt sorry enough to gift a few birds to us after a recent massacre. Surely those birds had no idea they were headed for Euthanasia Ridge.

Having had such a crappy record of poultry protection I was ever so diligent in the preparation of the turkeys new digs. A 10'x10' dog run with some roof metal wired across the top and additional chicken wire to make this the Fort Knox of turkeydom. A cool nesting box made from some left over cedar siding with metal roof and a feeding trough completed the cozy and secure confines.

You can understand my utter disgust when I found that the pair had sliced open nasty wounds on their breasts on the corners of the nesting box. The dogs had been harassing them causing them to try and flee. I was sure the hen would not make it through the night. The plan was to super glue the skin flap but I was just sure that I was going to have to put her out of her misery.

The next morning upon returning from work I was amazed she was still alive. She was eating and taking water but I still assumed she was in shock and would soon expire. I was ready to cut her then changed my mind thinking that she was a pretty tough bird for having made it through one night so she deserved a chance to see if she could pull through.

She has done more than survive. She has thrived in her recovery. She has become a friendly, inquisitive and healthy egg laying turkey. Far from the normal doom and gloom of our usual poultry stories.
She is one bad mamma jamma. The new feather growth has nearly covered the area of the wound although a large scare still carries a scab.

Fresh Bacon

It's that time of year again. Katy's 4H swine project is on the ground and in the pen. I know most people don't get too excited about the prospect of caring for and preparing a hog for showing but I do. Katy is learning the ins and outs of working with and training an animal for show. She has no idea all of the lessons that she can pick up through this project.


Beyond the obvious of animal stewardship there is so much to learn in management of money. If I told her all the math she will end up doing with a well done market hog project she would opt out and play soccer.


She bought a pair of gilts and barrows that are York/Landrace cross. Nice long bodied with some pretty decent looking hams.


Compared to last years pigs this bunch are very easy going and extremely friendly. It took almost a week last year before we were scratching them behind the ears. These love lushes are ready to have their bellies scratched.

Some of our beets are beginning to sprout, as well as the asparagus.


The Garlic in the greenhouse is just blowing me away. I'm so happy that I decided to build it even though I wasn't entirely sure what I could accomplish with it. I think Theresa is afraid that I will want to expand or build another.


Katy and I decided to try our hand at making our own beef jerky. We bought the dehydrator before Christmas and have yet to give it a real work out yet. Katy is a jerky hound. She bought a bag at the feed store Friday for nearly $6. On the way home I stopped and bought some flank steak cuts for around $12 which ended up filling two gallon zip lock bags. I didn't weigh them but I'm sure there is more than five times the weight of the store bought jerky. Best part is Katy said she likes mine better. It's not as salty.

I had spent most of yesterday finishing up a reorganization/clean up of the garage. It was the kind of job that gets started the day before because I couldn't find an attachment for a blower. I start digging through the pile of tools and unused hardware from some unfinished job only to find a thermometer that I had intended to mount in the greenhouse last month. Then I rediscover the J-clips I bought and had intended to use in a fix of the deer netting around the garden.

So I head out to the greenhouse to mount the thermometer with my cordless drill only to realize after walking out to the site that I had the wrong bit. Back to the workbench to search the drawer that contains the bit tips. After digging through all the loose drill bits, paddle bits, drywall bits and all the sleeves and nice little organizer boxes that floated on top of all their loose former tenants, I found the proper tip for the quick change driver. Since I was there I started to replace all the bits into their homes. Vacuum out all the saw dust, loose staples and mouse turds from the bottom of the drawer. On to the next drawer.

About two hours later I finally made it to the greenhouse to mount the thermometer.

I divided up a bunch of anise that had overwintered in the greenhouse and dropped tons of seed. Seedlings littered one end of a bed. The bees really loved this plants clusters of purple flower heads.
This incubator was a freebie we picked up months ago. I had no idea if it worked until I started cleaning the darn garage. It had become a shelf of sorts. A platform for more crap to accumulate on.
After running the unit for 24 hours, to determine if it would hold the proper temperature to incubate eggs, I loaded it up with a dozen to see how we do.

Fixed the deer netting, placed some cedar posts to run wire between for trellis of blackberries and grapevines. Installed some screen on the greenhouse ends and replaced the disintegrating plastic on the same ends.

Finally I drilled all the birdhouse gourds that had been curing since last fall. A core saw does a great job of making a neat and clean hole that is just the right size to remove the seed and residual trash from the interior. I had bagged up some seed for Ron but we forgot them as we were digging starts from around the house.

Visitors

We were graced with a visit from my friend from the Hickory Hills yesterday. Ron and his lovely family stopped by for a visit on their way home from the frigid north.

I felt an odd sensation in meeting someone whom I have become acquainted with from reading their blog for a year and a half. It was so different in sitting down to talk with someone for the first time face to face and they knew so much about me. It was as if talking to a clairvoyant or finding myself in a dream where I forgot almost everything about my life and someone is helping me remember (which ain't too far from the way my head rattles anyway). We sat for a spell and talked about how we got where we are and a little about where we would like to go. Unfortunately my girls had to run off for riding lessons so they missed out on getting to know our new/old friends better.

We walked around and discussed our homesteads. What we were doing and wanted to do. Stories about our chickens, hogs and gardens. Why we were doing things the way we are.

We were gifted with some wonderful cookies that I'm told I can eat ALL of guilt free and a home baked loaf of bread. I tried the cookies...we will be needing the recipe!

I sent Ron home with a few sacks full of work. We walked around the house and dug up clumps of perennials. Columbine, lambs ear, day lilies, phlox, stonecrop and portulaca was what we sacked up. I also sent them an open invitation to return here anytime. Hopefully the next time we will be able to sit longer, put our feet and just be. (I know after driving for a bajillion miles I'm not in the best of visiting moods)

All work no pics

Planted: Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage
Late Flat Dutch Cabbage
2 Peach Trees
2 Pear Trees
3 Blueberry Bush (6 more coming)
Swiss Chard
3 Black Monukka Seedless Grape
6 Arapaho Thornless Blackberry

Transplanted an assortment of seedlings to larger pots and prepped a couple more of our raised beds.

Last Hurrah?

This morning we had a light snow of about an inch. My favorite type of snow that clings to the tree trunks and their branches but is gone by noon.






Taking a walk around the house I found a few plants that I didn't expect to find up yet, although the hellbourne below was no surprise.



Everything appears to have not suffered any damage from the cold.

Hopefully this will be the last of the snow and cold weather that we'll face till late fall. The dig in the dirt bug has infested our household. This is the first year with our greenhouse, so for lack of a better way to say it...I'm digging it.

Yesterday while it was raining and with temps in the upper 40's I spent most of the morning putting seedlings into larger pots, planting some in the beds and weeding. It's just so cool to listen to the rain on the plastic and feel the warmth that the structure provides.



For the most part the seedlings are doing just great. I had a few of the melons, tamdew in particular, that were a little close to the window during the last really cold nights we had and I had failed to double cover them.



The squash plants are flanked by Sherwood leeks.



Don't you just love the sight of that wonderful yellow flower on what will be the earliest tomato that I have ever had.

A bed of rocky top mix from Baker Creek in need of some serious thinning.



I ran a pvc line from the hydrant on the far side of our chicken coop to a spigot inside the greenhouse. It is also linked up with the hog spiglets in their pen. I'll have to blow the line out during the winter but for spring and summer it will be nice not to have to drag a hose around to this side of the garden.


The new fruit trees came in yesterday so I put them in a bucket of water before I plant them. Hopefully the ground will drain well enough for me to get them planted no later than Tuesday.

We ordered a couple of pear tree and a pair of peaches from Stark Brothers.


This little sprout is our favorite source for tea, lemongrass.

These little tags have become my new friend. A ballpoint pen will emboss the label so there is no fading from sun or wash out. They are from Field and Forest Products.


Red cheese, Nardello and black jalapeno peppers will be next to move to larger pots.


I've already put some of the Cherokee Purple starts in the beds. The wing doors of the greenhouse will go up this summer and some of the starts will remain inside along with some of the peppers and eggplant.


This mess is the worm bin that has been the recipient of a steady flow of five gallon buckets of coffee grounds from work in addition to our household kitchen waste.


The local population looks like they're doing what is expected of them. Although they are doing a bang up job in the greenhouse they soon will be finding a new home outside the footprint of the building. I have found that I can use the extra room for plantings instead of vermiculture.

Sprung

The last few days have been absolutely wonderful weather wise. I've taken this opportunity to get a truckload of work done here.

I started with the coop that was long overdue for a mucking and finished putting some deer netting over the top of the run. I had a thought about planting some grape vines near the corner posts of the run. I don't really care too much about the grapes as much as I thought it would look kinda cool.

Planted another twelve thornless blackberries along the west side of the garden.

Expanded the pig pen by another section of panel for this year.

Cut and plugged new shittake logs.



Here is one of the dowels after being covered with a light coat of wax to retain moisture.




Started prepping the raised beds by giving them a lift with my new broadfork and weeding. Planted another mess of beets and a bed of mixed lettuce. The parsnips are making their start towards spring.




Hauled in loads of compost. Dug and planted the potatoes. Two variety this year, Yukon Gold and Red Pontiac.

It's so nice to see the all the young green pushing through.



The strawberries have been uncovered from their straw blankets ready for this years hopeful glut of fresh berries.



Spread some straw over the asparagus bed and burned it off. This hot and fast burning little fire cleans up the bed nicely, helps cut down on some of the nasty little critters eggs hiding out in the litter and reveals some of the young weeds for easy picking before they get too far along.

Removed landscape block from the front of the house that surrounded a brick patio and beds for a small kitchen garden and replaced them with natural stone that grows so well here. I wasn't really planning on this job but it soon took over the rest of the weekend.



My grandson Collin was out this past weekend to help me find every one of the eggs in the coop with as much enthusiasm for the first found as the last.

Built a nesting box for the turkeys.





Ain't he a handsome young fella? We brought them home and to my surprise the hen laid our first turkey egg the same day. I thought it would be a week before they settled in to their new confines and resumed laying.

Cleaned up some mistakes in the greenhouse and re-potted some of my early seeding.

Now I'm so bushed I need to go back to work to get some rest...lol

Roller derby/Slumber party

Wondering how many google searches will come from this title?

This morning I'm up WAY before any of Katy's guests from her birthday slumber party.


It's so quiet.


The girls pretty much had the entire skating rink to themselves. No busted butts or flips over the walls were recorded. Theresa and I DID lace up our skates for the first time in damn near 25 years and I'm feeling it this morning. I still prefer the old wood floors of skating rinks from my childhood. They were much more forgiving on the legs than concrete with a plastic skin.

I want to get us some of that beautiful carpet for our house. There is just no way you would ever notice a stain from dropped pizza or an armed robbery with wounded on that stuff.

Double digits

Katy is now in double digits. Three years away from teens. Six from driving. Eight from voting and 25 from dating.

Straight A's

This post has to qualify as a blatant bragging on my kid getting straight A's once again on her report card.

On the cat walk...

This is what happens when 9/10 year old cousins get a hold of a camera. A late afternoon surprise visit from kin heading back to Springfield from a day at the City Museum in St. Louis turned into a photo shoot at Friscos. We decided to perch ourselves in the bar for a quick dinner because of the crush of Valentine's Day customers for the dining room.


Is that Barbara Streisand?

This car wreck of Collin's cars should be a keeper for Katy's 4H photo project.

Are we staying the night here?

Cody

Last Saturday we were at a one day basketball tournament. There is quite a bit of time between games and unfortunately the host town doesn't offer too much for dining choices or any extracurricular activity. We made the twenty mile drive to the next town that we knew had a choice of eateries for lunch. While we were there we had some time to pick up a few items from the farm and home supply. The Humane Society was having an adoption day on the sidewalk of the store.

We walked over to take a look at the dogs when this little guy grabbed my attention. He reminded me of the best dog I ever had. I knew there was no way he would ever be anything like my old buddy but I gave him a chance to prove me wrong. We took him for a short walk on a lead and promptly returned him back to his crate. We had to get moving. The next games time was quickly approaching.

We talked about how he was such an easy going dog in our short visit. We talked about how it is always such a pain in the ass to introduce and keep a new four something year old dog to our little pack of canine paradise. That we would be inviting in an unknown someones training and behavior that we wouldn't approve of. We talked about the fact that he was NOT my old dog and no matter how wonderfully he performed he would never take his place. We talked about how stupid it would be to have another dog around not knowing if he might just be some sort of psycho dog from hell.

On Monday morning after work I stopped in the shelter to see if he was still around and spend some more time with him to see if he would be a good fit for us.


Well...I have one supporter in my decision to adopt this little guy. Just like every other critter that shows up around here or that I drag home, Theresa will soon be sweet talking him and saying what a great guy he is. It might be a while but she is really the one around here with the soft heart.

So please welcome Cody to our little piece of heaven that some have called Chickenkill Hill or Euthanasia Ridge. I think we'll stick with the Rocky Ridge.

To Do

I wanted to get a little bit of a list going for this springs projects.

Re-cap the fire pit: I borrowed the capstone from the ring to use in our hearth. We had a zero clearance fireplace unit that we replaced with a soapstone stove. I needed to extend the hearth pad out another 18" in front of the new stove per fire safety/insurance requirements. The zero clearance was useless for anything but a pretty fire. A couple of years ago we were hit with an ice storm and power outage that lasted for a week. Camping in the living room in front of the fire place and closing off the rest of the house to contain the fires heat the temperature still dropped about seven degrees a day. That was with keeping a blazing fire going night and day.


Since adding the wood stove everyone is happy except the propane company and we won't be hurting for heat if the power fails.


Move the treehouse: Katy's tree that was host to her house was struck by lightening two years ago. The poor old guy was literally boiled to death. After dropping most of the tree this summer I want to move the house further back into the woods. Keeping the house on the ground I'd like to make a cool little campsite with the house and deck as its feature. Maybe another smaller fire pit too.



Add on the coop: I need the space more than the birds do. We've stored the pig feed in the coop the last few years. I'm not crazy about having to clean chicken crap off the feed sacks before handling. Plus chicken poop is so caustic that it will eat through the feed sack to the point that they will bust wide open when handled. I don't like to waste feed. The additional room will also make a nice storage area for garden tools and open up a little more room in the existing coop because I'll move their feed storage cans into the addition. Hopefully this will help in keeping everything that is poultry a little less crap covered.

Build a wood shed: A run-in type shed to keep our wood, saws and splitting tools in one spot. I spend more time getting my tools together than using them.

Plant new trees and nursery beds: We have ordered several new fruit trees from Stark Brothers and another mess of yearling trees from the Missouri Department of Conservation Nursery in Licking. The young trees from MDC will do much better if we put them in nursery beds for a year. I've planted trees straight from MDC and some that we held for a year with those held out having a much higher survival rate. The trees from MDC come in bundles of 25. Depending on what species the cost runs from $4 to $14 per bundle. At that cost the additional time in our nursery beds is well worth the effort when held in comparison to commercial nursery prices of young trees.

Keep an up to date garden journal: I just suck at keeping garden records. Sitting down to jot notes about what I'm doing while I'm in the middle of doing it just doesn't work well for me. If I try to plan ahead and chart out what and where I'm planting something I deviate from the plan, so what good is it. Then worst of all I'll forget to write down what it was I changed because my forgetter works better than my rememberer.


I hadn't posted any photos of the unfinished greenhouse. I still need to run the metal along the knee wall on the front side. For now I have plastic running along two-thirds of its length.

My favorite basketball player in the universe showed up for a pregame autograph session at our house last weekend. She plays a tenacious defense and has really improved her ball handling skills. If she keeps hard at it she will prove to be a great little point guard.


I just couldn't help myself posting this last photo in honor of Annie at Edifice Rex and her disappearing railroad related posts. This is what I have to look at when the sun comes up over my job site.

Winter stroll

I've finally gone digital. It was a pain in the arse to try and take pictures for a post in a timely matter. I would have to shoot a whole roll of film or wait till we had finished a roll with a nieces birthday or Christmas to post photos about tomatoes in an August garden.

It won't be very long before we'll be having these raised beds filled with the hopes of another bountiful garden harvest.

I had moved our raspberries down to the fence line last week. We have two varieties of raspberries and I couldn't tell you what they were if my life depended on it. They had started to intermingle the last two years so a thinning and extension of their rows was in order.


Our bean arches are poised for planting. This was the best garden idea I ever stole from Karl. We will never do pole beans without cattle panel arches.



The dogwoods are just waiting for their time to bust open. It won't be too much longer till we're enjoying their blooms.


Biscuit is my constant companion on any walk or garden work. She is a blue heeler/golden retriever mix that has been a true blessing for us. I think she is getting up around five years old hence the touch of gray tipping her muzzle.



Our chickens are laying well so I've been on guard for another massacre. I've strung deer netting over the top of the run and installed a spring to the gate on the run. Hopefully that will help to keep gates closed. I'll be happy if we can make it to spring without a bout of canine carnage. With the loss of nearly 100 birds over the last three years I'm figuring that our cost per egg is around $6. If you'd like to be the first in your county to buy a dozen eggs at $72 give me a shout and I'd be happy to deliver.

STEELDRIVERS

Last night we were treated to an outstanding evening of music from the Steeldrivers. I have a new favorite for my play list. They simply blew me outta the water. I had heard a couple of their songs on our local public radio station KMST, but the total package was more than I expected.

We are definitely looking forward to hearing them again at Wildwood Springs Lodge later this year for the Family Bluegrass Festival.

We had planned on going to this show for a couple of weeks and had purchased tickets before hand. On the way home from Katy's basketball tournament I was listening to KDHX radio out of St. Louis. They offered a pair of free tickets to me, the lucky third caller. Unfortunately someone dropped the ball because our names were not on the guest list. We had invited our friends Katie and Clyde to join us and use the freebies. To the theater staff goes kudos for making up for KDHX's screw up.

This is the second time that KDHX has screwed up on getting us on their guest list for winning tickets. Last time we drove all the way into St. Louis to see the Mississippi Allstars. Unfortunately the staff at the venue wasn't as gracious as our hosts last night. I followed up on the screw up with a call to the offices to see if they might consider us for a comp pass to another show. That call wasn't returned. I'll probably call again so the next guy doesn't look like a total schmuck to his date.

I guess our membership checks will make their way towards these guys.

A days work

This rooster was the sole survivor from the last massacre at chickenkill hill. He has a definite problem with living a care free life. This poor guy is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder as well as a touch of frostbite to his comb and wattles. We were gifted around 10 birds of a potpourri of breeds and I bought 10 New Hampshire red hens. We're getting an average of 8 eggs a day, more than enough for us and some friends.





I made a few alterations to the coop this afternoon, as well as some work in the garden. It was a fairly cold day to be twisting wire on the new location for the bean arches but I got better than half way done with the move. I also thinned, moved and pruned all the raspberries. We have two variety of raspberries that were merging into one huge mess.

The lemongrass did very well in the greenhouse. I've pulled and cut half of what we had grown for tea. I hope, but doubt that the root stock has survived. I plan on pulling some and bringing it inside to see if it is still viable.

The garlic is doing fairly well. I have no idea what I'm doing with this greenhouse. I've been reading up and searching a mess of blogs for information and ideas on best use of this space. I have ordered Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest on a strong recommendation from a friend.

I filled this stock tank with water for thermal mass. So far there has only been a paper thin layer of ice on the tank. The cabbage to the right was attached by cabbage worm and stunted in the process. I hope it will make a rebound with longer days.

Tomorrow I'm moving some grow lights into the greenhouse in preparation for seed starting this spring. A new water line into the greenhouse should be finished as well.


The worm box is the bright spot of the greenhouse report. The worms have been doing quite well since the move from the basement. They have been dining on our kitchen scrap and five gallon buckets of coffee grounds from my work. I was surprised by the increase in their reproduction rate. I would have thought the rate would drop with the temperatures.

What is she?

I'm hoping that someone can help us identify what breed of chicken this little girl is. She was gifted to us several months ago and I have not found a match so far.

Today was the last day of the youth hunt in Missouri. Katy didn't even see a deer. She did bounce back after her bout of feeling crappy Saturday morning, to hunt again in the evening and then with her Grandpa on Sunday.

She was a ton of fun in the tree stand Saturday afternoon. We talked about the forest, weather, the sounds we tried to identify and just what's up with Santa Claus. All things considered I believe that I had more fun talking to her than she had hunting.

She really surprised me that she could identify all the birds we were seeing and hearing. I guess that she IS paying attention when I don't think she gives a darn.


Next up on her hunting schedule will be spring turkey. I know she is excited more about turkey hunting than she was about deer season.

Youth Hunt

This morning I woke Katy up before sunrise to head out for her first deer hunt. She bounced out of bed and was ready before I was. Although she wasn't feeling her best the excitement overwhelmed any of the symptoms of an oncoming bout with the flu.

The normal sparkle that shines in her eyes just wasn't there this morning. Her stomach was aching as we headed down into the holler before sun up. We nestled in with our backs to a large oak and our faces in the wind. She did an excellent job of being still and quiet as we watched the forest come to light. Although we didn't hear or see any deer and she wasn't feeling very good, she hung in there until her stomach wouldn't allow her to continue.

I think her face says it all when we made it back up to the house. It wasn't long before she was stripped down to PJ's and snuggled on the couch with a touch of fever. Depending on how she feels later this afternoon we might head out to her Grandpas and Uncles farm to hunt with them.

She really was into what she was doing this morning. Following every instruction and remaining calm and patient. She quickly learned that there is more patients involved with deer hunting than fishing. Her whole attitude was great considering all.

Santa came and went

My grandson Collin's musical career got off to a blazing start Christmas morning. His first axe! The dinosaur Dr. Denton's would be good stage wear. Beats the hell outta most of the crap Devo wore. I can only imagine that the first time he sees a video of Pete Townsend that this guitar will have a target on its neck.

We survived having large portions of both sides of our families mixing for Christmas dinner. It is rare that we get the two clans in the same house. Happily there were no political debates or discussion of religious philosophies exchanged among our guests. It is easy for everyone to get along when Theresa sends out all the great dishes she had prepared. No time for talk....just eat.


Collin found a new die cast tractor from Santa. Katy found a .243/20 gauge Rossi youth model and a pellet gun. The girl wants to hunt. Her uncle John and Aunt Virginia fixed her up with a rifle case and turkey call as well as a plethora of hunting accessories. Grandma Sharon threw in some light weight camo pants and shirt.


Mom and dad hooked her up in camo bibs, jacket and bog boots.


I think she was a tad bit disappointed that Santa didn't leave a Wii.



I was plum wore out. You can see that I barely had the strength to lift the remote... I had split wood for the last couple of days and was feeling it for sure. I was rewarded after a delivery from the propane man and a check of our records to know that we have barely used 125 gallons since August. That is a huge difference from last years totals. I would truly love to reduce our use by at least fifty percent but that would be difficult with our present systems. We cook, heat our water and our furnace are all propane. Since installing our new wood stove the furnace has barely run at all.

We have discussed the installation of a solar hot water system for our next project. Hopefully the stars will align and the cash will become available to install a system that would not only supply us with our hot water but supplement our home heating. Eventually we plan on finishing our basement and a radiant floor would be a very nice start.


Our favorite seed catalog made its pre-Christmas appearance. Theresa and I actually spent an evening with our seed collection and planned a bit of this springs wish list. This is an activity that we usually reserve for February but it just felt like the thing to do. Makes me feel a little warmer inside thinking about playing in the dirt.



Spring will be here before we know it. I would like to get a planned expansion of the coop started and push the hogs pen out another section of panels. Turkeys are on the agenda for this spring too.

Merry Christmas

I pray that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and that all who are feeling a bit overwhelmed by all they feel must be done for the holiday to be just perfect to chill out and take a deep breath and remember the reason for the season.

Above all I pray for peace in ya'lls hearts. I pray that peace spreads out like warm sweet butter.

Merry Christmas

Woody

A pair of seed catalogs showed up the other day. Our first dusting of snow arrived this morning.

Chicken Kill Hill

Near the end of my drive to work a few nights ago I caught sight of a large doe in the headlights of a tractor trailer that was slightly ahead of me to my right. I was passing the truck doing a little over 75 when I saw her. She did a head fake to her left then turned towards the median. I was braking hard all the time knowing I was soon to have a large rat with hooves laying in the front seat with me.

She slipped and went down just as I went over the top of her.

I realized I had just missed out on having a nasty, possibly tragic accident (it was for the doe) as I pulled to the shoulder to see what was left of my front end. When I pulled the upholstery out of my ass to remove myself from the car I found that there was very little visible damage to the car. Some of the trim package that I already tore up when I ran over a huge chunk of a blown out truck tire was hanging loose again. I was just positive there was going to be something tore up underneath. My tires chirped when they made contact with the pavement after rolling her under the car. She actually had me off the asphalt. There was little I could do on the shoulder of the interstate at two in the morning. I made it into work and parked where I would be able to see if there was any leaks when the sun came up.

When I got back into the yard later that day I was relieved to see that there wasn't any fluids leaking or anything hanging except for some hair and blood. I felt fortunate to have not been hurt or tore up the almost new car again.

I thought about the incident all the way home. I have been making this commute for a long time dodging deer and a multitude of other wild and not so wildlife. If I were a WWII fighter pilot I would be a opossum ace. Opossum are in second place on the list of dumbest critter when it comes to blacktop survival etiquette. Only the armadillo could top the list due to their propensity of jumping up into the undercarriage of passing vehicles that would easily pass over them with room to spare.

Returning home full of gratitude in the outcome of my highway mishap I find a friggin front yard, garden and chicken run littered with victims of what must have been a hell of a feather flying fiesta killing spree by our dogs.

A little background on the history of chicken ranching here maybe appropriate to explain my utter disgust at the vista before me. We haven't had the best of luck with poultry security at the Rocky Ridge. A 110 gallon stock tank that we used for a brooder was the site of two chick massacres from leaving cover hatches unsecured and a cat that is an excellent hunter of mice, moles, squirrels and has even killed a copperhead. One batch of 25 birds were crunched by one of our mutts that chewed through the chickenwire. She had them all laid neatly in front of her as if she were posing for a hunt photo. Now this bunch.

It does little good to have a chicken coop and run that is damned near critter proof if gates are left open. So basically we have had over 100 birds killed here in the last two years and nary a one of them made it to our freezer. Trust me when I tell you that the thought of cleaning some of the last kill crossed my mind but rigor had set.

There have been not so subtle remarks made by my lovely wife that I might want to reconsider having birds here. I thought that our chicken killing dog had been put down when she came up with tetanus. I guess she passed on her skill to kill to our remaining mutts. The scene of Lieutenant Dan in the crows nest of Bubba Gumps shrimping boat during the hurricane yelling at God comes to mind when I think about giving up on chickens now. I'm sure there will be dumbass updates concerning poultry to come.

I almost forgot

We went to our favorite concert venue, Wildwood Springs Lodge, on the 10th for an evening with Michael Martin Murphy. I've posted before about shows at Wildwood. If you're ever in this neck of the woods during their concert season I would strongly recommend seeing a show there.

The lodge was built in the 20's and retains most of its original charms. The shows are awesome. The performances are done in the lobby with a small audience of under 200. It is very much like having a concert in a living room. Not to be left out of this equation is the meal that they serve up in the dining room. It is a hard to beat evening.

We have seen a number of great shows at the lodge over the last few years. The Dirt Band, Leo Kottke, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, The Grascals, Karla Bonoff, John Hammond, Tony Rice with Peter Rowan and Taj Mahal.

Tonights offering is Leon Russell...

Fall fashion

I love this time of year. When the air cools and the perfume of hardwood burning fills the hollers. When there is a subtle fight between the stove fires smoke and the morning mists twisting up the sides of the hills. Heat loving plantings from the garden are showing their intolerance of cold mornings. The frost hasn't quite taken its bite. Pumpkins are still hiding out under their still green umbrella.

The trees are turning and the nuts are falling in waves. I found myself taking a break from buttoning up the high tunnel to watch the chickens jump outta their feathers every time a hickory nut dinged off the metal roof of the hog house.

Cutting wood becomes a chore that I don't really mind doing when the air is dry and temps aren't in the 90's. There is a ton of wood to be split this year. Thankfully most of the work is close to the house so hauling isn't a daylight drain.

I have made another one of those dumb lists of jobs that I need to finish around here. I really can't figure out why I feel it is necessary to waste my time making a list of all the chores I need to do when they stare at me on a daily basis screaming for my attention. I'll rationalize this somewhat useless activity as planning. A skill that I'm not very good at unless it is in regards to procrastination. "I'm planning on getting that done...next week."

Yesterday I opened up my worm box for an inspection of what I assumed would be a neglected mess of slimy food scrap teaming with everything but worms. I hadn't really kept up with what anyone would call management of a worm farm. I have been taking a bucket or two of kitchen scrap infrequently out to the 4x4 box that I built in the greenhouse for the composting worms that we had bought last winter. They were moved from their cozy little rubbermaid bins in the basement to the box about the time we were putting the garden in. The last time I had dug into the bin their population was looking thin so I assumed that I was going to be turning the worm bin into a nifty new raised bed planter. Much to my surprise I found a writhing mass of worm. I guess the cooling temps have spurred amorous moods among Eisenia fetida.

My brother gave me a stack of old aluminum storm windows. The packrat in me said that I needed them for.....Maybe I'll add on to the chicken coop. It does get a bit cozy in there when I use the coop to store the hog feed. If I do it right I could just sorta stick a front porch on it. A coop veranda.

Garden clean up will be the focus this morning. This is when I do my best thinking about what I want to stick with or dump for next year. One of the experiments from spring was the use of some cut cattle panels that a friend had halved length ways. They used them to keep their dogs out of their flowerbeds. I guess their intended purpose was a failure because the panels ended up at my house as a gift. I used them to form hoops that we planted sweet potato slips in. We lined them with straw and a front loader scoop of compost in each. I flipped the hoops over last week to find an unexpected bounty of huge sweet potato. Some of them are so big I feared they wouldn't be very good eating. I was wrong but one wouldn't fit one my grill. We joked that a turkey and one sweet potato would make a meal for the whole family.

The hoops will return next year.

Cattle panels will not make a comeback next season as tomato trellis. Cages will make a return. The panels didn't lend themselves to a tomatoes natural and necessary bushiness. Many of the fruit found themselves with out shade resulting in scald. My knock against store bought cages is they are too small and I hate staking and tying. To remedy this I will build cages from concrete wire panels.

Bean arches of cattle panels will never be left out of our garden plans...ever.


We will plant more potatoes next year. This year only Yukon Gold were planted. They did well but we want a potato that will store better. Viking Purple is heading the list but I'm very open to suggestion.

We won't plant Tiger Melon next year. It did very well but we weren't very enthusiastic about their taste. There are some plantings that end up being pig or chicken food around here. This one is tops on the chickens menu.


I sure am thankful that I kept a garden journal this year. I always intended to keep an up to date record of our plantings. This was the first year that I actually followed through. It is becoming much more of a necessity for me to right down what I've done instead of what I need to do. Getting older is a bitch.

Painless

The anniversary of my graceful dismount from the wide and high back of Tater has come and gone. I finally went to a chiropractor on last Monday to see if he might be able to offer me some relief from the constant pain that I have been dealing with.

Since my bone crackers visit I have not had to deal with the constant migraine like pain that I thought would stay with me for the rest of my life. It's as if the sun has finally come out of a bank of dark clouds and restored me to a sense of sanity. I didn't realize just how much I had been altering everything that I do because of the pain.

Now if we could just send our congress in for an adjustment.

wow

I'm trying hard to look for the silver lining in all that has occurred in the last few years. It seems that most of the population of this great nation have become so complacent in regards to what we will accept from our leaders. On one hand I'm thrilled that enough of us screamed loud enough and long enough that some of the elected officials heard our displeasure. To think that we would be offering a bail out to a bunch of greedy losers that want to socialize their losses but privatize their gains. The other hand is clinched in a fist of nervous energy.

Well...I can't predict the future. I do know that I'm better prepared for harder times than many. That really doesn't make me feel any better. I get angry when I think back to the advice our President gave us the day after 9/11 to go on out and shop. What a missed opportunity to bring on a firestorm of positive change to our position in the world. How would our future have been different today if Bush had urged us all to begin a journey towards energy independence as a way to combat terrorism. Can you just imagine the excitement and dedication that this nation would have produced from the collective efforts of our people joined in a truly patriotic undertaking? Instead he says...Hey, go to the mall and buy something nice for yourself.

I mean people would have been ready to do just about anything had our leaders been focused on a true course of action instead of slamming us with a color coded status level of terror and telling us to get our duct tape and plastic ready. Our world would surely be so different. It makes my head swim when I think about how many ways this world and the events of our most recent history would have been transformed. I think about the efforts of our mothers and fathers during the second world war. The victory gardens, scrap metal drives and so many other drives for the procurement of needed supplies for the war effort. It was the thing to do. It was our existence and survival as a nation and a way for those at home to help protect, in some small way, those in battle.

Now we have another potential disaster looming on the near horizon. People don't know which way to turn. Our national leaders seem clueless on what an appropriate course of action is. I have a hard time placing any faith in what I'm being told by anyone other than the memory of old sermons that I recall about a bird not worrying about where it will get its next meal. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to get up in the morning, put on my britches and go to work.

I usually don't post anything political on this blog because it is really a journal and a way to keep the left coast family up to speed on our little spit of the world. As you can see the fly has spoiled the ointment and caused my head to rupture with my share of unsolicited opinion on the politicos.

You see I live in a very conservative area. The biggest concerns are firearms, abortion and anything that has to do with destruction of donkeys, except if it is hitched to a cart. I swear that there were more W stickers on vehicles around here than any place not called Crawford Texas. It is very unpopular among most of the populous in our county to be a Democrat and even more unpopular if you would have the audacity to support a black guy running for office. I'm not trying to lump everyone that leans right into the mold of a conservative bigot. I'm just saying that if I threw a water balloon into a crowd around here there wouldn't be too many wet liberals.

My only hope in regards to the positive effects that the last eight years have had on this nation is for our citizens to be more involved with the process. Not standing back and saying that it doesn't matter. Because it does. Just look at the shape we're in. We got here because we had it so good that we would overlook and even reward mediocrity and incompetence. A whole lot of people, including myself got all bent outta shape about a comment made by Phil Gramm calling us whiners. Maybe his words were very prophetic. At least now we all have something a little more substantial to whine about.

Then last night I see McCain with Sarah on the couch with Katie Couric interviewing her AGAIN. My first thought was she had come back to the principals office with her daddy to set the mean ol' school administrator on the right path. Then it really hit my like a load of bricks that if McCain can't run a campaign how in the hell could he even think of running the mess this country is in. What has this guy bought into from the advisers around him. The upside is that if Saturday Night Live needs any new writers this season they need not look to far past the McCain staff because these guys are friggin' funny.

Anyway I could keep whining but I will just add that I've already made up my mind on who I will vote for in November. I'm going for the half black/half white guy that graduated from Harvard and has the smarts to run a campaign that doesn't stutter and stammer across the country. I haven't meet anyone that I agree with on all points but this Obama guy seems to have enough on the ball to walk and chew gum. If any of the bigots have a problem with me voting for Obama I'll just tell'm I'm voting for the white half.

I almost forgot...where was McCains friggin lapel pin that all his goons made such a roar about.

Lord...save us from ourselves.

Michael Moore and the conservative right wing Republicans agree on the bail out.....

Now that is scary!

You're kidding me....

After watching the debate last night I must say that I am thoroughly underwhelmed by our presidential candidates. With the HUGE problems that face us one would like to see a debate on the issues instead of a run through of talking points.

At least with this Thursdays vice presidential debate we should enjoy some comic relief. A Palinoscopy? We will now be afforded insight into the educational system of Idaho schools and the book learning of Sarah. Biden will no doubt come off as a pompous ass because it is tough to have a battle of wit with one who is unarmed.

Sandy

Our old blonde girl was put down Tuesday. She was suffering from the effects of a tetanus infection. She was a registered mutt that was brought into our home after two and a half years at a no-kill shelter in Illinois. We don't really know how old Sandy was, but we had her for nine years. She was a very sweet lady and will be missed.

Splittin season

The mornings lately have turned cool. After the near 6 inches of rain we had from the last of Gustav, tomatoes and tiger melons are splitting and the green beans and cucumbers are getting fat in a hurry.

I've finally started to cut up the old oak that was the anchor of Katy's treehouse. It was boiled by a lightening strike which made its huge branches deadly falls in the waiting. The fire wood will be put to good use this winter. We are installing a new soapstone wood stove where our inefficient fire place now resides. It wasn't a hard decision to spend the cash on a new wood stove. After buying 150 gallons less than we used last year for almost $500.00 more over the previous years price it has become apparent that I'll have to either get another job or sell a pristine Honus Wagner baseball card. Since I won't be getting another job and I don't have a Honus Wagner card in my sock drawer I guess we will burn a chit load of wood this winter.

The many options available for wood stoves and inserts made this particular stove the one that just made the most sense for us and our long term plans for energy and home improvement projects. We wanted something that would heat the house and still look good. Our friends in Steelville have a larger model of the same type stove that I just fell for. The fire can be rolling but the radiant heat doesn't run you out of the house. It just seems to soak the whole house, not over power it. There are many times I have been in homes with old cast iron stoves where the door stood open cause of the excessive heat. It always seemed hard to regulate temperature spikes with the cast iron stoves. I do however have fond memories of crawling up in a caboose with a glowing stove to warm my near frozen feet in my early railroading career, but I don't live in a caboose.



We had an ice storm a couple of years ago that left us without power for six days during one of the coldest storms in my memory. The storm left me feeling like I was caught with my pants down. My wood pile was carelessly left uncovered so most of our wood was covered with a couple of inches of ice. Our fireplace is a pre-fab unit that is highly inefficient. We heat with propane, but with no electric...no heat. We are also on a well for our water, so there too we were without. There was just a whole lot of things that should have been done differently than I had managed at that point.

We have bought a generator that stands ready in the garage and I have installed a power transfer switch. The wood pile is covered and now we will have a much more efficient wood heat source.

We started out making changes after the storm before the real hard energy decisions were made for us. When the energy markets did their pole vaulting routine this past year it became very apparent that the changes we were making were more important than me just feeling like my pants were around my ankles. These were decisions that would have a direct and immediate effect on our bottom line.

We are making plans to add a solar hot water system to the house next year. There are some really cool products out there but I have no clue which would work best for us. The research begins with the evacuated tube systems in the lead so far.



Thankfully when we built this house we had passive solar in mind with our orientation of our homes footprint. We stay fairly cool in the summer even though there is no shade offered by the trees near the house. The air conditioner was used only twice this year more as a club against the humidity than anything. It was an unusually cool summer though.

More insulation, wrapping the pipes with foam, re-caulking and replacing worn door seals and sweeps, replacing incandescent bulbs with cfl's, and most importantly; turning off what is not being used. These are all completed or ongoing efforts. It's one step at a time here. There is only so much that we can afford to change. Although it is getting to the point that we can't afford not to change.

Skunked

Last night I was watching a little of the DNC before heading into work, when the unmistakable odor of a skunk wafted in from the direction of the front porch. It was distant but growing stronger. Then my brain kicked into replay of the last few moments before that nasty, best left behind you at 60 mph on the highway, smell came to me. Our dogs had bolted off the porch as they often do to confront the bumps of the night; coyotes, dogs, deer...you get my drift. They found themselves face to the business end of a skunk.

This isn't the first time one of our mutts has decided to play with a skunk.

A couple of years ago my old dog Woody got a hold of a skunk in our garage. Woody was probably just defending his home and feeder from an unwelcome advance of an ugly cat. His eyes weren't so good because of his advanced age and he most likely had a case of canine Alzheimer's.

Woody jumped in with all four paws and thrashed that skunk about like a rag doll. The musk marks were still visible on the drywall till I painted a year later. Theresa was lucky enough to be trying to exit the house, with Katy in tow, for work. She calls me hysterical about the dilemma. She couldn't get out of the house because of the stinking fight in the garage and the congregation of skunked dogs on the front porch who had given up their front row seats to the rumble.

The second call was that Woody had released the skunk but left its lifeless carcass in the garage.

The third call was that the skunk(now referred to as Lazarus) was not dead after all. He was stumbling around the perimeter of the house no doubt trying to find a nice hole to crawl in to. The dogs were also trying to find a place of retreat and safety so every time that Theresa made an attempt to get out of the house the dogs were wanting in.

All this was going down while I was safely 100 miles away sitting in the cab of an air conditioned locomotive with a gaseous conductor. All I could do for her was not laugh too hard on the phone.

Well I do believe that karma happens!

Biscuit got the most of a full face shot. She came back to the house in search of some compassion for the predicament she got herself in only to be greeted with a slamming of the front door.

Well... I'll just try the back door, she thought. A much longer journey for her than me. Slam!

So...I spent the day with three smelly dogs in need of a special bath. The combination of hydrogen peroxide, dawn dish soap and baking soda works miracles.

A one time application of this combination mixed to the consistency of a thin pancake batter will do the trick. It is a shampoo that does knock the smell right off the coat. That is what I get for laughing at my wife some years ago. Revenge is best served cold.

August

It is about time I posted some new garden pics. I have to admit that after a very slow and somewhat disappointing start this spring the whole effort is starting to be rewarded. Our canning has become an all week thing. Yesterday I started a five gallon crock of dill pickles while Theresa canned more green beans. I have no idea how many quarts we have put up so far but we have dug out boxes of jars that went unused last year.

Last night we ate the first of our sweet corn. I had said that as late as the corn went in we wouldn't have any till September. I wasn't too far off on that call.

The last week has been spent cleaning out spent beds, adding compost and replanting for the fall. Hopefully we can put a new skin on the greenhouse this week. I still haven't been able to convince Theresa that the clear corrugated panels would be the way to go. A little pricey but we wouldn't be wrestling with a new skin.

Elvis has left the building

Sadly this afternoon I found Elvis. He had started to get into some pretty good throwdowns with our old fat assed, one spurred mutt rooster. In their jousting Elvis suffered a few head wounds and a bad eye.

A rooster with monocular vision at a residence with three opportunistic dogs is an unlucky dude.

I only regret that I didn't get him in the pot before the canine posse got their man. He won't really be missed for his internal clock was set somewhere between time zones in the mid-Atlantic.

HOT

It's a hot one today! We got out early and pick a couple of 5 gallon buckets of green beans for canning and pulled the rest of the cosmic purple carrots. I'm truly excited about the carrots this year. I have had miserable results from previous plantings. This years is the first that I wouldn't want to toss immediately into the compost pile.

We had a great weekend in Arkansas with our friends Linda ( aka. Willie) and Rob. We spent the time at Willie's moms beautiful home on Beaver Lake bobbing like corks in the flood stage waters of the lake. Her mother, Peggy and her husband Larry are a lot of fun to hang out with and are wonderful hosts.

Larry is an Arkansas master gardener and a absolute fountain of information on gardening, especially when raised bed, square foot gardening are concerned. I have seen people that are really into their gardening.... but Larry is REALLY into his gardening. His tomato plants were well over 6 feet tall drooping over the top of concrete reinforcement wire cages. The stem bases of these plants are so stout that I couldn't touch finger to thumb around them. He has more production from his 1/100 of an acre than I get from my 1/2 acre efforts and he does it without throwing all sorts of chemical crap all over everything.

The way home we stopped at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company on the fringes of Mansfield Missouri. They had a garden show Sunday. It was unfortunately hotter than hell on Sunday. As we made our way towards Mansfield we passed to separate bank time/temperature displays broadcasting 105 wonderful southern Missouri humidity laced degrees. It made our visit a quick one to say the least.

I really felt sorry for the vendors in their period clothing sticking it out on such a miserable day. Luckily this hot streak doesn't look like it will be a long one.

Garden news and dealing with crappy stuff...

I only wish I had a digital camera so that I could provide some of the wonderful shots ya'll post on your blogs. I feel pretty dumb when I post an update on garden progress when I'm out cutting wood and leaf wrangling for the compost piles in late October. I've cheated and used a previously posted picture of this years growth. The only real difference in using the old photo is the addition of weeds. They are doing GREAT too.

We have been picking beans, peppers, tomato, squash, still getting blackberries and finishing up our peaches. Theresa has canned beets and peaches and some of the green beans with a whole lot more to come. We have put up a ton of New Zealand spinach in the freezer as well as beans, berries and squash. Eggplant, collards and all the herbs have done wonderfully with the rain we have been given. Our pumpkins, watermelon and tiger melon were all planted late but have started to set fruit and have thrown out a lot of new growth this last week. The sweet corn is only waist high, also a victim of late planting.

We have been fortunate enough to have a wonderful supply of moisture this year. The grass has stayed nice and green. It has grown and filled in many areas that have been in need of a little green. I planted timothy grass in some freshly cleared areas for pasture and it has just done great. The last few years the rain tap is shut off and everything begins to turn a nice crunchy brown. Not this year.

I wouldn't normally whine about not having to keep water on the garden or mowing grass but there has been a little problem with my little tractor. It has been at the tractor hospital for a week or better. I miss her alot. In her absence I have started to mow the grass with push mower. I thought it would be a great idea to TEMPORARILY cut and bag the grass and use the clippings for a nice nitrogen boost and mulch. The first time I mowed it damn near killed me. I have been well on the way to packing on some extra weight the last few years. When I did my one and a half gainer off the horse and broke my pelvis I packed on a couple of years worth of belly lard in five months. Now this layer of back and belly fat is starting to fade and pushing a lawn mower through lush grass on our not so level ground has really started to melt the lumpy stuff off. It has become my workout. I even have put on my unused running shoes to mow.

Now is that finding a silver lining?

I can't wait to get my little tractor back! I really miss her front loader. I miss her 60" cutting swath compared to a 21" push mower. I miss her comfy seat and cup holder.

We had a storm blow through last week. It took the greenhouse plastic off in an explosive tear. I was standing in the garage watching the trees bend when a clam shell shaped tear busted out on the west side of the house. It came apart with a loud pop. Like blowing up and slapping a paper bag. The plastic was free but I still hate to see my little projects get shreaded.

I think now I will start to look at putting the clear corrugated panels up instead off stretching another plastic skin. That was the plan; to eventually buck up for the panels and make the greenhouse a greenhouse. I took a lot of pride in putting the house up for $206.00. It was fun to find most of the material and reuse some commercial cast off crap to make something that would help to feed us. Who knows...I might find a new source of used panels.

We bought a new car this week. I broke down and finally purchased my first foreign made car (excluding the $200 rabbit that I bought when I lived in Nashville. It has to run to qualify for being a "first")

I drive 154 miles a day round trip to my work. I've happily drove an 01' Ford Focus for 264,000 miles with very few problems and it got about 34 miles to the gallon. It was a stripped down spartan version. No cruise, no power windows and an am/fm cassette stereo. Can you even buy cassettes anymore? Might as well have had an 8 track.

The little car preformed well but my lovely wife likes research and she determined that a Honda Civic would out preform the Focus. I'm not complaining here. The Honda is a great car. It has whistles and bells and even a dohicky to hook up an mp3 player. Now I guess I'll need one of those. We have decided that I will drive the Honda and Big T will drive the Focus. She has been driving a Dodge Dakota for her 50 mile round trip to work. With our fuel bill being as high as another house payment we would hope to reduce our fuel usage. It is sad when a new car payment and an increase in insurance is a wash with the savings in fuel consumption.

I also have to mention that the second day of driving the new car to work I am passing a truck on the interstate when I hit a chunk of a blown out truck tire. With no place to go but through it, the crap damn near tore off the bumper cover. Luckily the dent popped out and the only real damage is a pencil size hole on the bottom side of the cover. The break-away plastic rivets that hold the cover up did as intended preventing the entire assembly from tearing away at the front end. The black marks rubbed out and my son-in-law is bringing out his rivet gun to replace the plastic rivets. If you didn't know that I had hit something you couldn't tell.

I just have a hard time buying a car from a Japanese car maker. I have tried to buy American products for a long, long time. I have been a good "union man". I have tried to avoid buying stuff at Walmart and go with the local guy even when it is a little more expensive. I don't like the idea of many of our nations manufacturing jobs being sent to other countries. I don't like the fact that it is damn near impossible to find bib overalls made in the U.S.A. and not in USA China or assembled in Mexico with U.S. cotton.

I'm frustrated by the lack of American owned business doing business in America. There is little I can do about it. I'll just turn over my five gallon pickle bucket that is embossed with a made in the USA label and enjoy a nice ice cold Budweiser....Ahhh crap!

I've finally got a few pictures to update ya'll on Katy's fair week. She had a very successful showing with both her swine and poultry projects.

In the swine project she finished 5th over all in rate of gain and 7th in overall points. She showed second in her class being bested by her stall mate Lonnie who won Reserve Champion. Her second hog finished with 4th in its class and 27th in rate of gain.

Her poultry project she finished as Reserve Champion showing her Barred Rock cockerel Rocky. She was extremely happy with her efforts and her dad was damned proud of her too. I think she really started to click with her showing. She paid attention to what the judges offered her in advice and didn't take any of the criticism in the wrong light.

Her hog sold at auction on Saturday for $3.75 a pound. Not a bad haul on a 259 pound hog.

A very special thanks to Friscos for bidding on and winning her hog.

busy busy

It's fair week!

Katy and I spent a couple of long nights together getting her project record books finished. She is so excited about this year being her first to sell her hog in the auction. It was the one part of the fair last year that she had to watch and not participate in because she was in the pee wee class. Well this year she is in with the bigger kids and she couldn't be happier.

Her Uncle John and Aunt Jenny loaned us the use of their new camper for the week. A very generous offer in my book. There is nothing better than being able to sneak away to the camper for a break from the heat and crowds. AC, a shower and a nap keep dad happy.

I spent yesterday between the hog barn helping to install the spiglets and repairing leaks and building a cage stand for Katy's poultry entries. She made an executive decision concerning her birds Thursday night. The Black Australorp hen, previously known as Austradork, will now be named Lauren in honor of her cousin who recently returned from a trip to Australia. Lucky Lauren. Thankfully her pigs are quite happy with their names.

This morning I picked up our friends horse trailer to load the pigs. If you have read this blog for awhile you might recall my adventures with loading last years hogs.

Well this mornings attempt was absolutely amazing. I positioned the trailer off of a corner of the pen so that I could either use the slider or open the whole swing gate off the rear of the trailer. I only had to un-wire one panel and move it over to the opposite side of the trailer. I was thinking that I would just leave the trailer in position so the pigs could get used to it being there before I would have to run them in. After I had all the adjustments made to the panel and everything secured I opened the door to the trailer and BOTH of them hopped in like they were just going for a ride to the park.

That is where they will be going in the a.m. I feel that Katy has a real good chance to win rate of gain, having seen some of her competition. Ya'll wish her the best of luck.

The photo updates of fair activities will be updated with my first opportunity after the fair

Theresa will be heading to California this week due to the passing of her Uncle Joe. He fought a long battle with cancer. He was a very kind and warm hearted man that I truly feel honored to have known. He will be missed by us all.