If I Had a Garden

I would be gritching about the heat. 100F+ for several days now. 

Tomatoes will not set fruit in temperatures higher than 85F, some 90F degrees. Pollen becomes unviable. If it's super humid, pollen because too dense, heavy, to do much good. Keep the plants healthy by side dressing them with fertilizer. You can also try shading them with your awesome bed sheets, and have a light mister going during peak heat hours. They will fruit once the temperatures come back down.  And when Fall sets in, don't forget that you can make all kinds of yummy dishes with unripened tomatoes.

The heat, as you know, kills the cool weather plants, but it also has detrimental effects on your cowpeas, common beans, corn and sorghum. ( cotton, rice and wheat as well, FYI). If your overnight temps are reaching above 75F, good luck getting any of the above to do much of anything. 

If you are entering drought, or in a constant one, flooding the garden a few times a week, in the evening, will help the chances of your plants producing for you. Do not flood them every night, 3x a week, or when the soil at root level starts to dry, is all you need. Be sure to side dress with fertilizers! When watering, you need to remember that evaporation is a huge factor. You are losing more moisture than you think. 

Do not flood your orchards, it causes the soil to lose the oxygen for the roots to survive. A good soaking is fine. 

Well, that's what I would do if I had a garden.

Small harvesting potatoes last fall. The tire tower worked better in drought than the lazy bed method.

 

I am envious

First, welcome to the new readers. Glad you found your way to my little world.

I don't get to start a garden this year. I keep reading your posts about seed starting and spouting, and all the wonderful things you are doing to get ready for spring. I should be putting potatoes in the ground. Technically on the ground as I adore the lazy bed method. I should have my cabbage type plants ready to go, tomato plants growing rapidly in my seedling box. But I am not, instead I am practicing crawling across my bed. Wow is that difficult! Hurts a bit as well.

I am planning a quickie garden in my head. One that can come together, with the help of Small Farm Girl showing me around my new area, with little effort on my part. I haven't even seen the soil yet, but my Kentucky friends keep telling me the soil is fantabulous! I hope so.

I have put a lot of faith in people and land that I have never seen. This is huge for us, and a bit worrisome at times. Husband heads that way in two weeks time. Our farm hand has decided to stay with us, and move as well. I think we will need his help.

Some days it feels like everything is falling into place, other days falling apart. However the drought is worsening here. The winter wheat is a failure, farmers are turning cattle out onto it, if anything had grown on the land at all. There is no way we can survive another year here. That is unless we give up farming and homesteading.

Husband was offered a job locally. The guy called us when he heard Husband was a free agent. He offered over double the wage that Husband was making before. He really wants us to stay in Kansas. Husband will be working for this shop for the spring only. Made that clear, and this guy was ok with it. Wow! No hissy fits like the other guy. How refreshing!

We have sold off so much of our stuff, reduced items that aren't really needed, and are going through 11 years worth of accumulated homestead equipment. Most of it we never really use. We should arrive in Kentucky with only our we will die without this stuff.

My seeds are sitting in a treasure chest, yearning to be free.

No foolin today

It's early evening as I write this to you. I am exhausted, sunburnt, and there could possibly be blood dried somewhere under the caked on mud. I am sitting under a rapidly leafing maple, trying to cool off from this absurdly summer day visiting us so early in April. I hear it told that we will see 60's in a day. An actual spring would be most welcome as I am tired of living in a famine time.

The farmers around me say they too are done with this struggled survival we have had to live in for a year now. Many will lose everything if more rain doesn't arrive soon.

Winston ( bull ) put on a show for good neighbor, enough to scare the scream out of him. I see good neighbor running through the field, yelling and Winston trying to get him to play. I told good neighbor not to chase him like that, and I got a scowl in return. Winston is by no means out to get you. He wants to play, he gets all excited and kicks his heels up in the air. His head swing is because they have a blind spot directly in front of them, he has to, to be able to see where someone is. I had to save good neighbor. Winston, my spoiled baby, bellowed as good neighbor walked away, then licked my face and waited to be scratched. I think he really hoped that good neighbor would have been his new playmate, but it was not to be.

I spent several hours yesterday, hot fencing the field. A quarter of a mile worth of wire later, I have a very upset Urth (cow) and a sun burn. Urth walked right up to the wire. She has seen it before, but not this shinny, brand new wire, and zapped her. She has stopped talking to me, for now.

Before I forget, Yart, your namesake (calf) has warmed up well to us. And now follows us around, bellowing, wanting to fist bump. ( her nose to our fist. She bumps we wait) no scratching yet however.

I sit here and begin to drift off. I have to stay awake however as I have more work to do before darkness swallows the yard.

We planted several trees, and propagated several apricot trees. Strawberry beds are done, and the garden is ready to be sowed. The onions were replanted and fenced in to keep the free rangers from pulling them up yet again.

I have dug, and fenced, been stuck in the mud and lost a shoe, I have tended to delicate plants, and been bitten by a chicken. Been rabbit kicked, and bum rushed, sunburned and calloused. Bee buzzed, tangled, smoked out, and pooped on. And I couldn't be happier that it's spring.

Win it Before You Can Buy it! The Beekeeping Handbook by Vivian Head

Fox Chapel Publishing has graciously offered to give away Vivian Head's soon to be released book, The Beekeeping Handbook to one of my readers. You can find my review of it here>>>;

What do I want from you? Good question. How about you tell me how great I am. No? Well you're no fun! Fine than, just leave me a comment, anything you want to say. And I will put you in the drawing for The Beekeeping Handbook.

This will stay open until my next post, Monday morning.

and don't forget to check out my review of The Chicken Handbook by Vivian Head below this post.

I'm not complaining, merely chatting

I have never had second degree burns before, so this was a nice change. Once it heals, it is amazingly like having super glue stuck to your skin, or at least that's how your nerves start working in your fingertips after such an episode. Oh, you want the story do you? It does involve a bit of sailor blushing from my part. But let's just say I had a disagreement with some brush burning, a hollowed out metal pipe and condensation. Yet another one of my incidents. Maybe some day I'll get it right.

We are finally seeing rain here. Over the winter we managed to get enough rain, little snow, but enough rain to go from extreme drought to severe drought conditions. Yesterday it managed to rain all day, granting us over an inch of the wet stuff. Cool, wonderful, glorious, large white rain fell from the darkened skies and we still had to move a bale out to the fields for the cattle. I discovered that my face is like the incredible hulk, though husband says it's my second chin. But in the heavy rain we managed to get that bale rolled off the trailor into the back of the truck, with nary an accident. My face can lift 400 lbs by itself. Of course everything was flooding.

Husband has been working on the zombie moat, as the children and I have taken up calling it. Some of you remember my chatting about how we get everyone's flood waters on our land.




I know, the picture is a bit dark. But that's about an acre of land waist high under water. Husband and his new best friend the box blade, have been digging the zombie moat, and it seems to be working



We already caught two zombies in it, a medium sized and a small one. ( pic is of the same general area in both photos)

I digress, turns out all the displacement of the missing soil causes the barn area to flood now. We still have a lot of work to do, figuring out how to displace all that water.

Speaking of cattle, we spent the summer feeding the cows a supplement to keep them from going off their feed in the extreme heat, then kept them on it through the winter to help with the warmth as the bales we had been finding were below par, until we found the milo. Now they are all spoiled brats and feel they are entitled to a treat every freakin time they see me. Urth and all the calves are really bad about it. So I have to retrain everyone. Treats are only for milking! Until they understand that, the neighbors are going to have to put up with the demanding mooing that can be heard 3 states over.

White Trash at their finest (pic heavy)

The Hay Spike Trailer will be hence forth known as The Husbands Bale Spear Dolly

This is the core of the project. It is not finished, but it is at it's primitive yet functioning level. To get to this point you will need

a detached truck bed trailer
Hay spike
Pipe
couple pieces of angle iron
Harley Davidson front axle 3/4 inch (any solid of that size will work)
piece of chain
3/8 inch bolts to hold chain together
BFH (Big Frickin' Hammer)
Saws all
welder
come-along

A torch if you got em' other wise heat up the corners and whack it with the BFH

First remove the bed from the frame of the truck bed. Make sure that it is below freezing outside and it is only you and your wife. Yell at her when she complains that the bed just fell on her hand, tell her to suck it up and ask her if she's a PIONEER WOMAN!?!

Place the hay spike on the frame, calculate the approximate center of your bales (5 foot bale, theoretically 2 1/2 feet from the ground) The lower it is the better leverage you could have. You might have to lower your rails on the frame. Our frame has zero suspension, all the springs have been removed, so it is sitting on it's bump stops. Blink bars have been welded to the sides of the frame then down to the axle in a V shape to stabilize the axle to the frame, welded directly to the bump stops.

Take two 3 inches of 1 inch steel pipe, heavy gauge, we used the HD axle spacer, cut 4 pieces 2 1/2 inches long out of 3 inch angle iron. Weld the pipe using two pieces of angle iron, opposing in an S or lightening shape, welding it square and flush to one end of the top outside of the angle iron. When done it will look like a P with a tail. Stand it up , clamp it down and weld top and bottom. Take the other piece of iron and box in the P to make it look like inverted T with a dot on top, creating a pivot point with two flanges going forwards and back. Clamp to another piece of angle iron for alignment, weld the top side, cool, flip and weld the bottom side. Now you have an assembly that can be mounted to a flat rail of the frame. Do that twice, to create pivots for both sides.







Calculate your height at plum, make sure your frame tongue is level with the scars on your knees, to get that height. (level to your hitch). Slide your spear lower to points or the pivot pins into your newly made pivots. Clamp down your pivots and weld them onto your frame at the predetermined spear height. Use corner gussets that were cut scraps, 3"x4". Put vertical gussets in the center of the angle iron pivots, weld them.

Ladies, go out and take a photo, while it is snowing and he is welding. Call him silly and run away.


Next, measure for a 4x4 "kick stand" up to the bottom side of the top mount to a frame structure to buck it, wrap a chain around the cross member and link the top mount, come-along to the chain. From there, double check measurements for the 4x4. Measure twice cut once, give yourself a little room to cut again. Then cut the wood, put under the mount wedge in the cross member, then pull everything tight with the come-along. Spear should be relatively horizontal, come-along tight, board wedged in place. At that point you are ready for application.



On the weld, turn it up and burn it in.

Now for the photo part of our show, because the above is all Greek to me (more like very bad English). This is why Husband doesn't run this blog, but he said you should understand. If not, he is here for you.

Get your Good Neighbor's truck to try it out on first (This should hook up to our tractor as well)



Line it up and . . .


Shove it in



Start ratcheting it up











oops, it's sitting on the tires. But it took less then 30 seconds to get it there.




Place the "kick stand" under the spike. Re-bar should fix this.



Now put your Good Neighbor to work, that is after all why he lives next to you.

Growing Indoors

I was asked what to start seeds in. I have cats too, and boy can they be a problem when it comes to your seedlings.

We utilize different spaces in our home, under the sink, counter tops and even the corners.

You can buy pre-made corner shelves or, build one or two. Rod's Wood Working Shop as free plans on building your own corner shelf. What he is lacking in his plans is how to turn it into a planter.


You need white paint, reflective white paint. You do not need to cover the entire shelf in white, only the underside of the shelves, this is where you will mount your lights. You can use specialty lights, like gro bulbs, or a mix of fluorescent and iridescent lighting. Keep your lighting at least 8 inches from your plants, and use a timer to give them the correct amount of light.



Use whatever wood you have on hand.

We also use a box, or closet that we built and have stashed out of the way. You can find all the information about it here at a post we call Phelan's Box

Light is super important and I do have a post all about light; What's Light Got to Do With It. A must read. . .

And I also have a post on converting an unused bathroom into a little green house, cats included in this one called Next step for the starters.

I hope those articles help you. Any questions, please feel free to ask.

Repost: How to Shear a Goat

I was asked about my masthead, so I thought now would be a good time to post about shearing. This post first appeared on my blog on 5/13/08.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meet Delilah

She is an Angora goat, and our host for today. You will need a goat for today's experiment. You will also need to wonder through your local farm store purchasing items such as bleed stop, sprayable iodine and bandages. Try not to look frighten as you give these items to the cashier, she/he might think you are up to something. And a nervous giggle is something you should avoid as well boys and girls. Cashier's are able to give you the evil eye without lifting their heads, it's spooky.

Now that you have your wound care, and your goat, you need a pair of shears. For educational purposes only, we have gone the route of manual shears.

Purchasing a goat wrangler comes in handy as well. Look around, it is worth it to find one to your specific likings.

The floor of your barn should be clean, no mud of straw to get into the wool. But for this experiment, we will forgo the sterile room.

Many people and books tell you the once they are on their backs, they are passive. This is not true. Goats will spit and buck while on their backs. Just a gentle holding down of the horns to keep their heads from moving seems to be much better then some of the other techniques I have read and seen.

Starting on the front right shoulder, you cut as close as is comfortable for you. The book I have said to flip the animals back and forth, going from right to left and back again. This however, boys and girls, doesn't seem to work for these goats, for as soon as you attempt to roll them, they attempt to get up on their feet and run away.

Just curious. But, does this goat make my butt look big?

Sometimes your Angora wrangler is done for the day, even if the job isn't. It then falls on you to do the rest of the shearing. Not to worry boys and girls. The goat isn't being sat on, merely straddled into compliance. (I wonder what kind of google hits I will get from that statement)

When your goat is down, now is the time to trim hooves and look for any problems. This goat shows signs of neglect from previous owners. We are in the process of fixing that.
This goat is also pregnant, that or she has an alien about ready to burst from her stomach.

I know, I know, this was horrible. We did a bad job with the shearing, but it is our first time. We will hopefully get better as time goes on.

NO goats were hurt in the making of this post. just our pride.

Manic Monday

We were having an issue with the tractor Sunday. Turns out that there was something in the gas tank besides gas, and it was clogging everything up. My husband did some modifications to it, and now is running like a beauty. Tractor pictures here.

The author of Melissa's Ramblings came out yesterday. I showed her around a bit and she handed over two roosters. Yes, that is the admittance to see my homestead. They were some hefty birds. After she left, my husband and I took a look at them. They are some gorgeous specimens. We granted the two a stay of execution. We have hens of the same breeds, these guys should make some good looking babies.

Remember I said yesterday that I was going out to pay some bills? Well, I started the car, put it into reverse and nothing happened. I wasn't moving. The transmission is on a permanent slip. We just had paid to get it rebuilt a little over a year ago! We had to pay bills, we took the bike. It wasn't so bad on the way into the city, unfortunately we live North of the city and had to ride straight into the wind on the way home, the temperature dropping rapidly and we had to cross a river. My eyes were watering, tears freezing mid cheek. Yep, that was the most painful bike ride I have ever been on.

Goat hide update: it has been so cold that it isn't drying like it should. I have just been reapplying salt. I will let you know when more happens. One thing about the cold, as it keeps the skin from rotting (of course if it was warmer it would dry before rotting). I was hoping to do some more things to it yesterday, but only ended up salting it again. Brush off the old, and add the new.

Other than thaat, what to tell ya.

~shakes head~

I warned you guys that there would be tests, and I worry about your scores. Some of you get credit for creativity, some get credit for sarcasm, and some of you need a tutor. ha! The answer to yesterday's pop quiz was C: Going to milk a cow.

Now those of you that said going for a motorcycle ride, this could have been true, but there was a single clue that could have tipped you off if you had been paying attention. I was wearing a red fluffy coat. If I was going on a bike ride, I would have been in leather. (just givin' a hard time)

The mask is great, not only for cold and/or wet bike rides, but a wonderful aid for working out in the elements. I use to wear those do-rags, hop along cassidy, whatever the cool kids call them now a days, we have always and still call them skull caps, like a cowboy. But we bought this mask when we went to the Sparks America bike rally a year ago, because of all the rain we encountered. (if you haven't read that story yet, I highly suggest it, it's a good one) The mask is warm and waterproof, and it is something that I consider a homesteading aid.

So run out to your nearest mom and pop bike shop and buy one this winter. No one is paying me to say any of this, if they were I would have posted a brand name, but I will give a shout out to one of our own local shops. Those of you in the Wichita area can get them in Haysville, Broadway Street Bike. Go! GO NOW! I am feeling rather ornery this morning.

I would have to guess that the point to all of that is, you can find many tools for the winter homestead in unconventional places. It isn't like there is a store dedicated to the homesteading life. Ok, you got me, there are a few online, but not all of us go online for supplies. I shop as local as possible, and sometimes you can stumble upon things that's main purpose has nothing to do with this life.

What unconventional homesteading tool do you use to make this life easier?

Winter Project #2

I have some rooms to paint. ~gasp~ But it is winter Phelan! You have to open windows so you don't die from the fumes! And you have migraines, how on earth. . .

Well, we are not going to go out and buy the paint. Nope, winter project #2 is making your own natural paint. I have 3 different recipes that we can use.

#1
1 Quart skim milk (room temperature)
1 Once of hydrated lime by weight ( Do not use quick lime)
1 to 2 1/2 pounds of chalk may also be added as a filler.

Stir together milk and lime to form a smooth paste. Add color pigment of your choice and apply with bristle brush. Allow first coat to dry before applying another.

#2
One Gallon Skim Milk
Two Cups Builders Lime (Do NOT use Quick Lime)
One Quart Linseed Oil (the boiled type)
1/2 Cup of Salt
Dye (Color) add in as needed

Mix all ingredients together and strain through a cheesecloth. Use within a day or two.

#3
Powdered Skim Milk
Water
Food Coloring

Mix just enough powder and water to create the consistency of paint. Add food coloring of your choice or make it various herbs and vegetables. Strain through a cheesecloth.

I will be doing #3, because all I have to purchase is the powdered milk. I think I will be doing a sage green for the living room, it should go well with the mobile home fake wood panels.

Pictures to follow.

We Are Trailer Trash

The tittle sums up nicely about our experience with the bank.



We live in a mobile home, there for do not fall under any program that would help us. We are not deserving of refinancing because there is 0 equity in our home, doesn't matter that the land is worth at least $25,000 more (even in this time of junk money) than we paid for the place, there is no equity in land, apparently. Have you ever tried to sell a mobile home in the winter, even in a good economy? In the winter time, people remember why they don't like these things. We bought the place with plans to build a house, but that was side tracked.



Well, we are to try to sell this place before the 24th or pay the total amount due to avoid foreclosure. Sorry guys, I really tried to do it without using the money.



Let us find a moment of happiness

This is the look I get from Eddie when milking on a cold day. I giggle every time she does it. I do try to warm my hand up for her.

I think it was Rebbecca that left a reply over on WNDN, about how expensive milk buckets are. You don't need that bucket. All you need is food grade plastic or stainless steel, like those cheap pot sets they sell at the farm stores.

Good Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Above is Urth's Umbra. She's getting big!


Now to finally introduce you to the newest member of our Dexter Family. . .

Unexpected Delight

We call him Undies for short


Everybody Thank Cassandra for my Christmas present! Thank you! I love the ornaments as well.

Barn Raisin'!

Not really, but boy how I wish it was. Instead it was a garage raisin'.

Our garage has two wood swing doors. Very large, and hard to deal with on windy days. So much so that one of the doors has been pried open by the wind, and beaten up so much that it split in two, and fell. Not a big problem in the summer. But now here we are in the beginning of winter, and we have a motorcycle on the lift. Too cold to really do much work. Yesterday, my husband torn down the other door and built a wall, with only a 4 foot entry way. We do not keep cars in the garage, so the door only has to be able to allow for motorcycles to pass.

It was a tad heavy. But we got it up, and screwed into place. Today he will be building the door part of it.

Tomorrow I will have another winter project to talk about. Hope you all had a good weekend.

Winter Project #1

By now most of you already know about the Phelan Box, if not, you must be new and I welcome you to my little part of the world. Those that aren't new and have no idea what I am talking about, where have you been? You are missing the coolest craze evah! Ok, no more about the box, I am going to lecture you today on modual planting. Yes lecture, now sit down and keep quiet, I will take questions at the end, and take notes, there will be a quiz on this later.

Modular planting 101

Welcome, I am your proffesor, Phelan. Don't care how you spell it as long as you pronounce it correctly. (sorry having flashbacks).


What is modular planting, it's a lot like bookshelf plants, but cusotmized for your pleasure. Take a moment and look around the room you are sitting in, notice something?



You in the back with the green hair.



Did you catch that? She was right, what you should be noticing is that the corners of the rooms are not being utilized correctly. Here my dear students is where you will be placing your modules.



Most people do not use their squared or in my case, rectangular homes efficiently when it comes to stuffing as much junk, I mean stuff, into them. There are a lot of hard corners that can be used, ones that get natural light, and those that don't. Building selves into these poorly used corners will help you find a place inside your tiny apartment or lavish home where you thought none existed.



You can buy premade corner shelves or, join me in Winter project #1 and build one or two. Rod's Wood Working Shop as free plans on building your own corner shelf. What he is lacking in his plans is how to turn it into a planter.


You need white paint, reflective white paint. You do not need to cover the entire shelf in white, only the underside of the shelves, this is where you will mount your lights. You can use specialty lights, like gro bulbs, or a mix of fluorescent and iridescent lighting. Keep your lighting at least 8 inches from your plants, and use a timer to give them the correct amount of light.



Use whatever wood you have on hand.






There you have your first winter project. Now go out and make me proud.

Today on Cribs

Bear with me here.

Yesterday was my husband's day off. There is a few things that need to get done here on the homestead. First was the nasty leak under the kitchen sink. We took the bike to the farm store and found nothing we needed, so off to the local hardware store. Luckily they had everything and we didn't have to ride into the city. We had to replace 1 foot of pipe and some fittings. Now that that has been replace, we have to replace were the floor rotted out.

Second on the list was building a new banny coop. No photo, so here is an artist rendition.

As you can clearly see, it is an old garage shelving unit. Rather stout. We removed the middle shelf, and placed a thin roost down the back side. We made 3 nesting boxes as well. Next was to secure a front to the box. We cut the removed shelf in half and screwed it to the top front. The other half of the shelf was cut so that there is a banny friendly size opening on the lower bottom. This piece was secured with screws and an old cloth tie down. The tie down is used in lieu of hinges, now it can be accessed through this lower panel for cleaning and egg gathering. Next we attached some old 2x4's to act as legs, then re-enforced those by making another skeleton of a box. Had the boys fill in with straw, and then gave them a flashlight to find the roosting bannies.

We spent $0 on it, as all the materials were things that people gave to use. And trust me, it is oh so much better then that quickly box a made a few months back.

Do you remember the last time I tried to electrocute myself? Good, because I have another one to add to the list. (maybe I should start keeping count on the sidebar)

Yesterday the neighbor from across the way borrowed our trailer to go pick up a mower. When he gets back, he unloads it in our driveway. He needs to jump it and has a flat. As he used our equipment to charge it, I went to plug the compressor in. Nothing happened when I plugged it in. Usually it makes a horrible racket as it fills itself with air, this time silence. So I went over to it, leaned over the back side, and touched the metal backing with both hands. The charge went through me so hard it took a few moments to get my hands away from it.

I stood there in the drive staring at my throbbing hands. My neighbor looked at me oddly and asked if I was ok. I told him what happened. Now here would be where my husband would giggle, but the neighbor was concerned. He asked again if I was ok.

I replied,

I'm a girl, I want to cry.

How to Shear a Goat

Meet Delilah

She is an Angora goat, and our host for today. You will need a goat for today's experiment. You will also need to wonder through your local farm store purchasing items such as bleed stop, sprayable iodine and bandages. Try not to look frighten as you give these items to the cashier, she/he might think you are up to something. And a nervous giggle is something you should avoid as well boys and girls. Cashier's are able to give you the evil eye without lifting their heads, it's spooky.

Now that you have your wound care, and your goat, you need a pair of shears. For educational purposes only, we have gone the route of manual shears.

Purchasing a goat wrangler comes in handy as well. Look around, it is worth it to find one to your specific likings.

The floor of your barn should be clean, no mud of straw to get into the wool. But for this experiment, we will forgo the sterile room.

Many people and books tell you the once they are on their backs, they are passive. This is not true. Goats will spit and buck while on their backs. Just a gentle holding down of the horns to keep their heads from moving seems to be much better then some of the other techniques I have read and seen.

Starting on the front right shoulder, you cut as close as is comfortable for you. The book I have said to flip the animals back and forth, going from right to left and back again. This however, boys and girls, doesn't seem to work for these goats, for as soon as you attempt to roll them, they attempt to get up on their feet and run away.

Just curious. But, does this goat make my butt look big?

Sometimes your Angora wrangler is done for the day, even if the job isn't. It then falls on you to do the rest of the shearing. Not to worry boys and girls. The goat isn't being sat on, merely straddled into compliance. (I wonder what kind of google hits I will get from that statement)

When your goat is down, now is the time to trim hooves and look for any problems. This goat shows signs of neglect from previous owners. We are in the process of fixing that.
This goat is also pregnant, that or she has an alien about ready to burst from her stomach.

I know, I know, this was horrible. We did a bad job with the shearing, but it is our first time. We will hopefully get better as time goes on.

NO goats were hurt in the making of this post. just our pride.

Windy Day!

Congratulations to the State of Illinios!

State feels the heat, drops ID requirement for livestock exhibitors -- for now
by Brian Boyer
Apr 15, 2008

Feeling pressure from farmers groups and the Illinois legislature, the state Department of Agriculture will not enforce a new rule requiring livestock exhibitors, including youth showing animals in 4-H fairs, to register with the state. Continues>>>>

but . . .

USDA IMPLEMENTS KEY STRATEGY FROM NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM BUSINESS PLAN


WASHINGTON, April 15, 2008--The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced that it has implemented a key strategy from its Business Plan to Advance Animal Disease Traceability by providing National Animal Identification System (NAIS) compliant "840" radio frequency (RF) eartags to animal health officials for use in the bovine tuberculosis (TB) control program.

Continues>>>


The first snake of the season was caught yesterday.

My husband did the cultivating in our field and the good neighbors.

But because of the 49mph winds, he got something in his eye and it scratched up his lens and inner/upper eye lid. He was not feeling to well. The neighbor across the way is a nurse. So I called her and my husband went over there for her to look at it. She had some antibiotics and an eye patch. Did him up right, and he feels a lot better today.

Because of the winds it was hard to get too much done, so that short, but tiresome list I gave you yesterday was not fully completed. But I did promise pictures.

This is my real quickly banny box.

Feel free to compliment me.

Here are the Colombians. (yes Columbine was a sleepy typo)

Today I use the tiller. Please wish me luck and that I don't lose a limb.