Let's just look at some sunflowers

I had a different post planned for today - but if you're like me you woke up to the shocking news of the shooting in Colorado. So instead of a farm-y post, lets just look at some sunflowers.

I think we should all go and hug everyone we love today.  And lets remember that we're all in this together.

It's Hot. Real Hot. And Dry.

The Relentless Summer of 2012 continues. Mostly its just hot hot hot and more hot with additional heat on the side. And no rain. The lucky people got rain yesterday but we got nary a drop. Sure we saw the dark clouds and heard the thunder and... nothing.

The sunflowers are happy - winkin' and blinkin' in the hot summer of 2012.

At this point we are just scrambling to do what we can to keep everyone calm, cool, and fed. Its kind of a tough go. There is nothing in the goat yard for them to eat so I've been letting them graze on the hill. However this requires me to sit there with them. You can imagine how I feel about this. More on this later.

The hennies and ducks all just hang around where I run the sprinkler. The water attracts bugs and worms and stuff so the poultry are happy. The pigz are fine but have either trampled or eaten off every single leaf in their pen. We'll be working on a project to move them deeper into the woods like we did last year.

Potatoes destined for salad (thanks for all the great recipes!) and jalapenos to become goat cheese filled poppers.  Batter dipped and deep fried in lard, these are a taste sensation!

The garden is hanging in there but only because of constant watering. The problem is that once the soil gets this dry it can take hundred of gallons to rehydrate - so I'll be closing down some of the sections until we get some relief. But we continue to take up what's ripe and ready.

That's the update here, hope everyone is getting more rain than we are... but just to make sure, everyone get out there and do a rain dance - we can use a little relief!

Happy Thursday!

Taking Up The Taters

We've been taking up the 'taters!  Nothing compares to fresh, new potatoes right from your garden. Whether its from the heat, or my early planting, the potatoes are ready to be harvested. Sure I could keep them in the ground a bit longer to cure.. but nah..... I just love the tender, thin skins and the fresh and delicious taste.

Mashed, fried, roasted, or in classic potato salad... my paleo is taking a powder as I'm partaking of all these potatoes. Of course, my pal Freemotion will remind me to make sure I have a lot of fat (butter, cream, bacon) in my potato portion to counteract the blood sugar spike I'll get from all these carby, lovely potatoes. But that's OK - my Germanic roots cry out for that anyway.

Harvest is easy - as soon as the tops die back go and get your pitchfork, rake off the clean straw you've heavily mulched the potatoes with when you planted them, and then dig in.

Sometimes you can find the potatoes on the surface! No digging required... but lift the soil anyway just to catch any that are hiding beneath the surface.

And sometimes they get kind of off course so be sure to dig around that nice straight row that you originally planted them in... I love seeing how far away they can get.

These are Yukon Gold but those Irish Cobblers are ready also. 

Remember that the best thing about harvesting potatoes is that it preps your bed for fall gardening. All that straw is a bit composted down and all that digging helps loosen the soil. I'll do a quick pass with the tiller, rake off any weeds, and then plant carrots, beets, and turnips in these beds.

And now, I need to head outside. We have heat warnings again and are look at another 100*+ heat index. But first I'm going to fry up some of our bacon until its crispy, dice up some of our purple onions, mix with mayo and mustard, and stir in some of the taters I boiled until tender. That, friends, is how you make potato salad OFG style.

How about you - what's your favorite potato salad style?

Just some cute little ducks...

Just some cute little ducks... doin' cute little duck things.

These are my little milking buddies. They love it when I fill up the drainage ditch to make a little puddle for them. This momma ducks loves to brood and raise her babies in the garage - right near where the goat milking happens. She knows that if she comes over to me peeping and stomping her little ducky feet that I'll give her some sips out of the milking pail.

I can't help it - I just love little ducks.

Another scorcher today but the humidity has come on us so its worse than before. I need to keep these little guys cool so they will be playing in the water again.

Any body else got little quackers splashing around in puddles today?

Happy Monday everyone! Keep cool and think adorable little ducky thoughts!

The "D" Word. How Dry Is It?

Dry. Its real dry. Last nite on the news they finally said the "D" word - oh its a drought alright. All you really need to do is drive around in farm country and see the curled up corn and the inch high alfalfa and the dead-in-the-field soybeans.

One of the gardens I've been watering. Note the corn on the left of the sunflowers. (Bucket for scale)

Its about time to get nervous. Food prices - for people and livestock - are going to start going up. Expect high prices for just about everything. I don't think there will be shortages... heaven knows there could be blood in the streets if they actually start rationing out soda and "Itos" for sure. If you don't think that corn and soybeans affects you, just remember that the majority of processed foods in the store are made out of corn or soybeans or both. That goes for livestock and pet food also.

At our place we can see the effects of this rainless summer everywhere. The grass is mostly gone, everything growing outside the fence is drying up, and the pond is really low. I might be imagining it but the water from our well is starting to taste funny also.

I've been watering everyday trying to keep the garden going. Unfortunately the weeds are going like gangbusters while everything else is suffering.  I'm actually considering shutting down part of the garden until later in the fall. The only upside is that I don't have to mow.

And this is where I watered by the bucketful yesterday. What a difference! (Same bucket)

Yesterday I finally broke down and bucket watered the corn and sorghum outside the fence. The soil snapped, crackled, and popped when I poured the buckets of water on it. I can't get to it with the water trolley so it was a lot of my tromping back and forth with buckets of water. It was a lot of work and I don't even know if it will work.

But its not just us. We saw our friends who own the orchard nearby recently - and we had a good laugh that he's doing the same thing. Only he's getting water out of his pond, filling 50 gallon drums in the back of his truck, and watering the fruit trees that way.

My poor alfalfa. I should be around ready for a second cutting but this hasn't even been cut once. (Still the same bucket)

This could be an interesting season, folks. I know that some of our friends are drowning in rain and here we are baking in the drought. Interesting times indeed. But chin up, we are all in this together, right?

One of my favorite scenes... a busy bee on a sunflower. At least he's happy!

What about you - are you baking or drowning?

Happy Friday (the 13th) everyone!

Angry Bird

Lookin' bad, baby... lookin' real bad.

Hope everyone is having a better day then my poor little, molting hennie.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Giving little pigz brain freeze

Just like little kids with slurpees......

The other day I gave the little pigz a bunch of frozen hard boiled eggs. They gave themselves brain freeze, that's what all the squealing is about.

Hey you pigz! Just don't eat them so fast!

For heavens sakes.

Happy Wednesday everyone! Are you giving your pigz brain freeze? Ha!