Corn and ducks and tomatoes and more.

It's been a very hot summer here but the heat has broken somewhat. In the 80's to low 90's right now so it is more bearable. My husband has been working his tail off in this weather too. It is easy to let the heat take you down, literally!
 We finally got some corn in July and have been able to harvest more for the freezer this past week. The earworms are in full force so we are loosing part of many ears. Also running into smut with this batch. All in all we have had a good crop though. The tomatoes are just starting to produce due to the wet spring. We just couldn't get them in the ground. Will be making salsa this weekend.
 We have watermelon coming in now too. The pumpkins have been great although we are in a major battle with squash bugs as I type! MAJOR invasion! We will not be defeated though.
 Finally have some baby Muscovy ducks. Mail order eggs just don't remain very viable but hopefully the few we got to hatch will supply us next year.
 We do have 15 young guineas running around the place. The are pretty funny because as you go down the hill the run right up to you. Guineas are suppose to be semi domesticated. Hmm these guys are pretty mellow.
Another typical summer too hot and too short.

Vacation time!! I think??

Well here it is, vacation time. Time to get ready for a week of doing absolutely nothing! The girls are going to take care of the farm while we are away. They don't even have to mow because with the heat it has stopped growing. We will be going to a far away land to be waited on by those happy go lucky high school and college kids just wanting to make a few extra spending dollars. Ahhhh................. I can feel the cool breeze now. Smell the fresh air..............what a great time....................... 
Screechhhhh.......... whoa............. wake up! 
Vacation time. The hottest most humid week of the year. It doesn't matter what week it is on the calendar from May through October it will either be oppressively hot (115 heat index this week) or raining. We got the heat.
That's OK though, we have still been able to get some things done around here. The garden weeds always seem to get ahead of us so they are always on the to do list.

OK, so that was LAST WEEK! We accomplished a lot but it went by way too fast and I didn't finish this. Garden looks really good thanks to my husband and his crazy work ethic. He doesn't sit still just goes till he drops. We built some really cool looking pyramid sprinklers for the garden. The corn is going to ready this weekend finally. We have gotten some cucumbers and zucchini. The pumpkins, watermelons and cantaloupe are going crazy! 
We have moved the baby goats from Michigan in with the others and so far so good. I thought we had lost all of our Guinea keets because they were coming up whenever I went to the barn. I couldn't find them anywhere but my husband found them when he came home. Something must have tried to get them though because momma wont let them out of the tall grass.
 We lost all of our Muscovy eggs so we are trying again. I candled them and most look good so far. Hopefully this batch will hatch! It's the first time we have ever had a complete loss.
 My son in law and grand kids saw the doe and fawn the other day so they are doing fine . The heat is crazy but there is still plenty of water available for them.
 The icing in the cake so to speak was staining the deck we had built. That went up this spring to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. It looks awesome!

 Any way my vacation may not be what most people envision but I enjoyed it. Too bad it had to end.

Happy July 4th!

First off I want to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!

Things around here have been pretty busy. I have been watching the grand kids and had some extra work commitments so it's time to catch up.

The garden is finally starting to come in pretty good, pumpkins, watermelons and cantaloupe are doing really good should have some flowering before too long. We had some fried zucchini last Monday, it was good! First veggie this year. We had a good soaking rain this week so it all got watered well. The heat has been crazy though. ( I can't comment on it anymore because it is now officially the HOT time of the year!)

Our additions to the implements for the tractor have been amazing so far. The rows were so much easier to plant and the weeds have been much easier to "control", wish we had come to our senses years ago but it just proves that you can teach old dogs new tricks!

For the first time ever we have had a total loss at hatching something. The Muscovy duck eggs we purchased have failed to hatch. We have had a number of power outages but I really don't think that is the cause. The letter that came with some of the eggs said to incubate at 85% humidity our incubator said 50%. We have hatched many varieties of foul and never had to go as high as 85%. Not sure what caused it yet.

The goat kids got to move into their new pen. Much more room but they got to meet the electric fence for the first time. There is a learning curve for them.

Babies babies and more babies

Haven't been on here for a few days so I will catch up on things. First off the fawn. Haven't seen momma or baby since last week but I'm sure they are ok. The day after the momma chased the dog I was in the house and the dog started barking. My grandson (5 year old) said he would look and see what was going on. He opened the back door and didn't see a thing so, just the dog being noisy. Then I went in and checked the video for the driveway. I see momma and fawn behind the truck in the middle of the driveway looking toward the house. The doe proceeds to lay down in the drive trying to become as flat as possible. My guess is she heard the door and knew the fawn couldn't keep up with her if she ran so she was trying not to be seen. Just hadn't ever seen that before especially out in the open.
 Remember the baby geese that were eating the corn as it was coming up? A  couple of days ago they disappeared along with their mother. No feathers no signs of anything! Dunno what happened there.
 We are now the proud "parents" of about 20 baby guineas though. Momma won't keep them still enough to get an accurate count. They are tiny compared to the geese when they hatch!
  Our final batch of birds for now are some Muscovy ducks that we have in an incubator. They should be hatching this week so.... until next time....... as Jimmy Durante would say,"Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."  

Deer? Chasing the dog?

Every morning I get up before my husband goes to work to spend some time with him. Every morning we let the dog (our boxer Buddy) out as we head to the car. Every morning Buddy goes down the driveway or into the woods, rarely does he go very far but he is out of sight. Of course it is still very dark at that time. We do occasionally have neighbors dogs intrude the territory.

We have a camera outside so we can see the gardens etc. This morning we happened to see a doe very close to the house.

This morning wasn't "every morning". We go out to the car as usual. I'm standing talking to my husband as usual. Buddy takes off as usual.........then..........Buddy comes back running at full tilt *not* as usual. Something is chasing him. I am thinking it is another dog and I yell out as I see them approach. Then as Buddy zips between the car and truck the pursuer stops! I see to my astonishment that my dog was being run down by a deer! If I wasn't full awake before I was then. We have deer around here all the time and there hadn't been any problems. He doesn't chase them and they don't chase him. Until today. This animal just stood there after she stopped and stared him down. He wasn't going anywhere near that deer. She then turned lifted that white tail and walked off.

End of story?  Not quite.

As my husband is headed down the driveway this deer is having an attitude with his car she is not wanting to let him pass. Slowly he maneuvers the car around her and is on his way. I return into the house wondering what the heck was that all about?

End of story now? Not quite..............

My husband called me a couple of minutes after he left to update me on the situation................
 If you read my last blog you know we spent part of this past weekend installing a new water hydrant about halfway up the driveway. It seems that this particular doe chose that particular spot at very close to the particular time my husband leaves for work to deliver a new fawn and Buddy wasn't a welcome visitor at such early hours. Neither was my husband or his car!
All is well, momma and baby have moved on and Buddy doesn't seem too traumatized.

End of story? Yes for now.

Weekend fun!?!

Once again we had a pretty busy weekend. This spring we have gone from constant rain for close to a month to extreme heat and no rain. Everything is drying out so....... bring on the irrigation (hoses and sprinklers). Problem is that it's not just  hose or two, some areas we have to have 200+ feet of hose. THAT is a pain to move so........... we decided it was time to install a water hydrant closer to the pumpkin/ watermelon patch. Not a big deal right??!  Except we weren't real sure where the water line was. We had a general idea but digging 16"+ inches deep to locate a 1" line is pretty much a crap shoot. After about an hour of digging and producing a really nice trench we went in and had breakfast to rethink our strategy. The conclusion was it's time for the big guns....... here comes the tractor. Digging with the front end loader was so much easier, within 10 minutes I had found the waterline........... fortunately we had already turned off the water so when I broke the line there weren't gallons upon gallons of water gushing just a constant stream ...... well kinda like a bubbling brook.
After we baled the water out of the hole so we could see the pipe we plumbed the hydrant and shutoff valve to the main water line turned on the water and HOLY COW  no leaks!  So we got the hole filled in and turned on the sprinkler using only 1 hose. Mission complete!
  On to the new cultivator for the garden. It adjusts up and down and side to side and will eliminat a lot of weeding. I 'll let you know how well it works.

 Did I mention it was pushing 100 degrees on Saturday?
 Good thing we got that water hydrant in it's been so dry........

 Did I mention WE had  a thunderstorm with wind gusts up to 60 mph.
( It moved the satellite dish so we aren't getting full reception...ugh.)

I woke up Sunday and my husband was already out running the weed eater around the pasture. The electric fence wasn't working as well as it should. After breakfast we went out to find where the gate was catching the fence charge. It's not supposed to shock you. We made some adjustments to the gate and changed some insulators solving that problem.
Along with the regular "stuff" we do around here it was another hot, busy and productive weekend.
 Thanks to our oldest daughter and her fiancee for the help with the water and lunch on Saturday.

Well no more rain anyway!!

Ok so we have been WATERING the garden and strawberries! I knew this would happen, torrential rain for weeks then *POOF* rain is gone heat is here almost 100 degrees. We had to replant some of the corn again. Baby geese didn't eat the entire plant but enough that they didn't survive (I'm talking about the corn here although the geese had better watch out!). Oh well now we will have two harvests of the corn. Blueberry bushes are doing ok (if we can only keep someone from running over them). We transplanted some large bushes a couple of years ago but the drought took its toll last year. Running water buckets out to water the new plants.
 This weekend we plan on installing a frostproof faucet by the punkin patch so we won't have to pull so many hoses to get water there.
 The rabbits, poultry and goats are all pretty much set up with automatic waterers so that helps and they get a cooler supply of water consistantly.
 We are trying to sell off some of our goats that don't meet our criteria for our newest endeavor. Hope fuul this will happen soon
  If you would like to see our farm just go to
www.possumridgefarms.com

See ya'll soon out in the old cotton field.