Won't you be? Won't you Please, won't you please be my neighbor?

I'm starting to love craigslist! No, not because of the farm animals I can get, but because of the great people I meet. Last night I went to pick up some Polish juveniles that some one was selling, and managed to stay and talk for quite awhile. Just like the last time I went and picked up a few local chicks. (now that will get me some interesting web searches)

They live just inside the city limits, and less then a block from Monster-seto. They are concern about what that company is spraying out in the fields. So am I. They have a great urban set up. Her garden was wonderful! They gave me some of their squashes. It was a great visit. Her and I are both anti-social, but we seemed to get along. It would be nice to have some friends in the area, we will see.

After I arrived home last night, the neighbor across the way was in the garage with my husband, tinkering with the bike we have had on the lift forever. He informed me that their house was going up for sale. It is 5.1 acres, unfenced, with a double wide mobile home on it. 1 garage and an out building. The beginnings of a large chicken coop, and a chick nursery and hatchery. They do have the same problem as I, with the land being stripped, but they have more sand/loam type soil, not the clay. Yes, yes I am hoping to make a future homesteader land connection here. Personally I would love for one of you guys to buy the place. Of course this is for purely selfish reasons, I don't want to have to explain myself to someone that buys that land without looking at the neighborhood. Kansas is a great place to live, just ignore the month of August. Email me if you might be interested, and I will keep you update on price and all of that.

And this morning, this morning I woke up with a swollen and painful hand. Clenching fist in my sleep? The only thing I can think of. I haven't been out to milk the cows yet because of this. I can't grasp my coffee cup, let alone a teat.

Electrifying Bantam Milk

As I mentioned, we moved the bannies into a larger enclosure with tall grass and cockroaches. Technically this is in our backyard. We are hoping that with dog patrol, theft will drop. So far, so good.

We lined the top of the fence with hot wire. My middle child decided to test it out for us. He claims he fell.

We were in the house, just finishing up supper when the youngest ran back in the house yelling that his brother's hand was stuck. I looked out and there was our middle son screaming for help. My husband flew out the door and pulled him away from the fence. Now that fence isn't too hot, but he had managed to grab it just right so that the muscles in his hand convulsed and he was unable to let go. We loved on him and told him if this should happen in the future, to fall, it will pull his hands away fro the wire. Then my husband thanked him for testing the wire out for us.

He didn't have any damage to his hand, it was numb then tingled for awhile. Guess I am not the only one that has a thing with electricity.

Today I have some jam to make, and onions to pull, beans to pick and maturing carrots to watch carefully. oh, and I have too much milk! We are not going through it fast enough. Right now I have 5 gallons of milk in my fridge. I am making cheese without rennet right now. I should know by tomorrow how that turns out. But I think I might can some milk for winter. I still need to go out and milk this morning.

Do you have any recipes that take a lot of milk?

I Know an Ol' Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

It was in my coffee, I don't know why. I guess I'll die. ( I got it out before it ended up in my mouth)

Speaking of food,

For those of you watching my sidebar carefully, you might have noticed that some more canning was done yesterday.

2 pints of Green Beans
wash, snapped and processed at 10 pounds for 25 minutes.

1/2 pint of Dragon tongue
(same as the green beans)

and 5 pints of baby carrots.
peeled sliced and processed in a raw pack then in the pressure canner for 30 minutes.

I have also done some more research. I have been told for a long as I can remember that you can not have pigs in this county. With a little digging, I found that you can, only that the pigs have to be 500 feet from the neighbors house. In this county there are very few properties left that you have that much distance between homes, but we do. hmmm. . .

It's Only Tuesday.

Because of the abnormal amount of rain we are having so late into the summer, I have discovered that some of my carrots are rotting in the ground. I pulled 2 lbs of baby carrots yesterday. I am also experimenting with making my own feeder creep. You will have to stay tuned to see how that works out.

We moved the bannies into larger enclosure, one with trees and tall grass. While watching them fly up into the tree to roost we noticed a few huge bugs running around it. t first we thought it was spiders, but on loser inspection we discovered a colony of cockroaches. I am hoping that the chickens will handle this problem before they get into my house.

A Holiday in review

Hope everyone had a fine time setting off fireworks. We walk to the neighbor across the ways house and had dinner, and set off our fireworks. The area was filled with them, so there was no need to go far from home.

My 10 year old turns 11 today. For his birthday we took him to Exploration Place, and saw the Our Body: The Universe Within, exhibit. We took all our boys. The youngest made the staff a little nervous, he was the youngest walker in there. But he did well. Only had to tell him not to touch the bodies twice. The third time I had to move him away from where he was standing, as something was spinning and he was trying to stand just right so it would touch him. After that we took the rest of the museum by storm. Ran up and down the castle, stood inside of a real bubble, saw prairie dogs, and spider. Stood inside of a man made tornado, tried to fly airplanes and lost our oldest child. We found him a while later, he had sneaked off to the store to buy something for himself.

After that we found ourselves at my mother house. We discussed more about the farmstead. Looks like it will be after my garden harvest before I will be able to spend much time out there.