One Local Summer, no camera style

I put new batteries in my camera, and it still doesn't work. Guess it has been dropped one to many times. {I almost went into a rant about needing to buy American, but that's another post} I thought about making a dinner that I have made in the past and have a photo of for work, but that didn't happen, except for dessert.

We ended up having Game Hens with mushrooms, and a salad.

For dessert, we had a Peach Cobbler. The peaches are what I canned last year when we went to a local U-pick-it. Unfortunately they are no longer a u-pick-it because people were destroying the trees, now they are just a small farm stand on their property.

I'm melting! Melting!

We are under a heat advisory.

I watch the weather reports. Call me a weather junky, I don't care. I have to have my weather fix everyday. They can get it wrong at times, but they give you the gist of what is to come. Not only is it important to watch the weather reports, you also need to learn to read the weather for yourself. Surprises can be nasty.

But the best thing about watching my local news, is that they tell you the days coldest year ever, and hottest. For example "Today's high was 105F. In 1962 it was 53F. And in 1944 it was 110F"

I am odd, never said I wasn't. But I get a kick out of knowing what the weather was like so many years ago, and see that it cycles in the way it does.

It snowed here in Kansas, in July, back in the late 1980's. It didn't stick, but the flakes were huge.

The Ol' Man is Snoring

We were not suppose to get any rain this week. 100F+ temps, 90%+ humidity all week, but what did I see about 10pm last night while I was in the Riverside Area of Wichita? A massive electrical storm. My mother and I stood on her porch, staring at it, wondering what it was. It was similar to a strobe light, as often and quickly it was lighting up the sky. It took us a moment, because we weren't expecting anything. "News" I blurted as we ran into the house. The storm was north of Wichita, in the direction of my house, I needed to know what was going on.

The 60 MPH winds were no biggy. You live in Kansas long enough, you get use to that. It was the hail that accompanied that wind that was bothersome. I was lucky, the storm was still outside of Yoder, the Amish town I have mentioned here before. I had time to race home and secure the homestead. We beat the storm home, but as I was getting things anchored down, and put away, the straight line winds hit.

I could hear it coming up behind me and braced myself against my truck. It was a good thing I did, the winds were much faster than 60mph, and sustained. Wonderful! I made my way around the homestead as quickly as I could, making sure all the gates were latched, then made it back up to the house. The porch light was out, and as I crossed the dark deck, I was pegged by a flying flower pot, in the shin. I went down. Twisting my ankle and taking a heavy lawn chair down with me. This freaked the dogs out, inside the house, and my boys along with them. They had no idea what was going on, and have been taught not to go look. I laid on the deck for a moment to catch my breath and listen to the rain that was slowly moving up the road.

That's the one thing about living on the prairie, you can watch as rain moved along its path. No real surprises if you are outside, it doesn't sneak up on you, unless that is, it forms above you.

I got inside and called my mother to let her know I had made it home just as the down pour began. Then the hail hit the house, the wind driving it into my storm windows. Around 1 am I was woken by my oldest son. His puppy, Buttercup, had woke him. Turns out she is afraid of the dark, and the power had gone out. "Lock her in your room and sleep in the living room" I told him as I lit the candle next to my bed. With that done, I laid there for a bit, listening to the rain, then hail, then nothing, then rain again. Lightning illuminating my room, while thunder shook the house. I drifted off to sleep like that.

The power has come back on, and there is very little damage.

No rain this week? HA!

Curious, I know many of you are here because of homesteading, but would it bothered you if I talked a little bit more about life as a biker as well? I know this aspect of my life separates me from many other homesteaders, but it is as big of part of my life as homesteading.

Saturday BlogRoll call

Oh wait! It isn't Saturday, and I haven't done a blogroll call in awhile. Guess this should be called Wednesday Award shout-out. In the past month fellow bloggers have bestowed me with 3 different awards, that I have neglected to pass on. I will do this today

1. Banter Bones and Breath

2. Freerange Living

3. The Back Forty: Over-The-Hill Homesteading

4. The Evolution of a Micro-Farmstead

5. The Unusually unusual Farm Chick


Fellow Positive Global Change Award recipients, it's easy to participate in this meme. At minimum, you can proudly display the BPGC badge on your blog and bask in the glow of our collective good will. If you are sharing the kudos, however, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. The participation rules are simple:
1. When you get tagged, write a post with links to up to 5 blogs that you think are trying to change the world in a positive way.
2. In your post, make sure you link back so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Leave a comment or message for the bloggers you're tagging, so they know they're now part of the meme.
4. Optional: Proudly display the BPGC award badge with a link to the post that you wrote up



1. Living the Simple Life I want

2. Millertime

3. Momma Write about books

4. Raven's Road

5. Lilla Chinamengri Killimengri

All about this award

1. Cauldron Ridge Farm

2. Children in the Corn

3. Kentucky Hollers

4. Relationalisms

5. Slowly She Turned

A post.

I have been wondering around, reading blogs, trying to come up with something to say today. Things have been rather slow around here. With the heat index at 104F, you can only work outside for so long before it is hard to breathe. Then I have all this canning going on. Not sure how thrilled you are about hearing that. Especially since most of what I have to say about it right now, would just be complaining.

We are thinking about heading north to a local U-pick-it this weekend. If I can, I'm going to drag abbagirl74 with me. But because of that late hard frost, not sure if they will have anything for us. And they are not listed on the U-pick-it site. I really don't want to drive all the way up there for nothing.

I harvested 2 pumpkins already. Pumpkin butter shall be made! They are volunteers, none of the ones I planted survived as usually. I have The Pumpkin Patch a few miles down the road. We usually pick pumpkins there. Except for last year when the mold got a hold of the entire crop. Hopefully this year things are fine.

So many small farms are having Act of God problems these last few years. From molds, to droughts to freezes. There wasn't enough seed wheat this year, so the local farms have to bring it in from other states. Many are concerned because it isn't the same wheat that has been cultivated here for years. It might not grow as well as the normal Kansas wheat. But what else can they do? With the frost, the hail, the tornadoes and drought, so much was lost.

It makes me more comfortable with not doing the homesteading thing for money. At least for now.

The Bestest Blog of the Year results are in. I am 22 out of 105! Now that surprised me.

Gardening Kittens

It seems as though every year one of my planted food items goes uncontrollably. Last year it was pole beans, the year before that corn, this year tomatoes. And my garden journal does little to predict who will do better than the others. What it does tell me is the things I have done differently.

This year was late planting. So I am unable to say if my other crops will be doing poorly. But as it has reach triple digits here, I would guess that the others will not be fairing as well.

I have canned 19 pints of ketchup, 6 pints of salsa, 15 pints of pizza sauce, 6 pints of spaghetti sauce, and 3 1/2 pints tomato juice. And I am far from being done.

On the animal front, something happened this weekend I have never seen before. We have a kitten that is 4 1/2 months old. Usually we can tell by now {actually right after birth} if it is a male or female. We are struggling with this one. But that isn't the strange thing I am talking about. I have read that adult Toms will eat newborn kittens, though I have never had this problem. Our Tom is loving and takes great care of all the kittens that come into the house {on top of being a pervert, he will come running to love on me when I am changing clothes}. This weekend we had a litter. A few hours after they were born, I caught this kitten eating one of the newborns. The newborn was dying, and I had left it with mom to see if it would come out of it. I assumed it had died. I took the newborn from the kitten and disposed of it. Later that evening I heard mewing, and the kitten was attempting to eat one of the living newborns. The newborn survived and the kitten was promptly kicked out of the house, until my middle son let him in, and the kitten did it again. Like I said, I have never heard of a kitten doing this. It's not like it hasn't eaten in awhile. ~shiver~