Rainy Day Ramble

Well as today is a rainy day I figured it would be a good day for some random ramblings...

My girls (if I mentioned) are training/fostering some lab pups, and getting paid for it. My younger girl seems to be doing very well at it, so well that I am considering after these two get sold that we buy her a kennel and let her start a small training business. At least the beginnings and let her learn the trade as she works with pups. From my understanding a child can do such a thing, and out of the two pups hers is doing a lot better than the other is. It might do her some good to keep this up.

One of the people from the church my girls attend have asked THE QUESTION... you might be wondering what that is... well that's when the church members hint (flat out say it) “when are you and your husband going to come to church too?” What do I really say to that...? This is the church my girls attend.. they keep giving us a hand, and the one who asked is the gent who has the girls fostering the pups. Silver thinks that if I just go with my normal statement “I grew up in a Roman Catholic household”, it should be fine. What do you think...? I worry about people treating the kids badly if they find out I'm not Christian, and being we live in such a small towny area it could hurt them if it got out.

On a lighter note our garden seems to be doing well, I even have a volunteer cucumber; considering how warm it has been. It's growing where I planted my chives though.. so I don't know if that will cause a problem. Out of the six cabbages I started and transplanted it seems three have survived, and my cabbage seeds have started sprouting. I also think all my other “greens” have too, our peas are starting to take off. So fast that I'm afraid they might start reaching for people.

I have found out that the banana trees might not be edible, due to how fibrous and seeds are in them... so I will see if they can be made to be edible, and if not.. can I find another use for them? I did also place an order for some waterproof notebooks and pens from Brent and Becky's Bulbs in I think Maine. Along with that I ordered some of their “potting” mix.. which from reading what's in it sounds like a wonderful soil amendment for my clay(ey) soil. That shipment I know will arrive by Weds, my order from Stokes seeds is coming regular mail... so I have no clue when it will arrive.

One more thing... if you haven't been following the “pink slime” news then you should go and look it up. I personally am disgusted that the FDA has said that it is nutritious. Also that if the schools which can opt-out of having it next year needed to know that if they took the non-pink slime meat the meat would be more fatty. Gee... you know... if the “slime” was originally a product that was relegated for dog food... why would a human want to eat it...? A dog's dietary requirements are -VERY- different from a human's. I am going to ask our school if they are opting- out next year and if not... I am going to find a way to give my kids a lunch from home next year. I can't right now otherwise I would, as it pisses me off. We grind our own ground beef unless it is coming from a just slaughtered animal, if I wanted “beef trimmings” to eat I'd eat a hot dog.

Well, have a nice day all.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Our First Egg!

Yes I would first like to point out that our internet is momentarily on, but as the phone company said 8th at end of business day; we are guessing it will go at any time.



Now on to today's BIG news:

This is our very first egg! I found it this morning when I decided on a whim to go check out the yard, thinking that the girls aren't looking very closely and found it in the yard not the coop. Under the outdoor roost. It is a medium sized egg so we are figuring it came from the Polish Crested hen or maybe the Barred rock hens we have. So I am setting up a schedule with the kiddo's on a "chicken check" a couple times a day just to ensure that we will get all the eggs that the hens produce. ...also because I don't want them eating them, they didn't seem to notice this one when I went in to get it.



As for the root cellar... it looks like we will be waiting a bit to dig in it as it is 1/4 full of water from the rain we got and we are due more rain today... Yep, we need it... but this morning on the way to the hen house I commented to Silver that with the fog and light it looked like early spring outside. Being that it is still the "dog days" of summer that's an odd occurrance to me.

That's it for now as I want to get this in before our net does go down.

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

...and we have RAIN!

Yep you heard it RAIN! The Big "R" word! It's been raining for over forty minutes and we sat at the open door and watched it pouring down.. This is a definite "gullywasher", I wish I could send some up to Kansas for the fields and farm there, but we also needed it here.

I caught 2 pictures of the rain when it first started falling:

Yes, those are the actual rain drops as they fall. I thought it looked so cool that I got the drops as they fell. I guess *winks* I don't need a late afternoon watering on the garden(s).

Here is the other shot, it's in the same spot though:

Wonderful to see isn't it? Right now at 2:35 pm it is 75 degrees outside with a lovely breeze, and it's still raining. Not as heavy though. The rain started at about 1:40 pm and it's been so dark in the sky too. We had some close lightning, so close out power did go off briefly.

We have some standing puddles right now, the water was "running" downhill when we were at the heaviest just like in the spring. i am glad I already got the compost pile moved to the old potato plot so it's been wet-ed down by the rain.

I hope this rain helps the wild plants here are some of the prairie plants here were starting to die due to the heat and dry. MY herbs have also been suffering in this heat we have been having here and I hope this storm will help them perk up. ...I haven't been able to use any basil as it's been so droopy.

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Another comment on the Weather

The weather for the last week has sucked.. big time. I know we need the rain here, but for the last week we have gotten rain every overnight. With the heat during the day, and humidity we can't do any digging in the root cellar.

Which is annoying me greatly. We did manage to have one day I think a week ago when we managed to dig in it twice in one day. In the morning then again in the evening. Maybe we need to tarp the current hole and then we could work on and off all day. Something to think on here I guess.

While I'm annoyed with the rain my plants love it, I'll have to tie up the tomatoes on that trellis very soon as they are really getting tall. I imagine these ones will be taller than anything I have ever grown tomato wise.

I'm still waiting to see if the riot of flowers on my squashes will produce anything. As last year was my first year growing any kind of squash.. I am a tad inexperienced in it. I am use to watching cucumbers grow. Seeing many, many squash flowers form then just wither with no "fruiting body" makes me wonder the mechanics behind how they grow?

I know last year on the zucchini I grew, once in a while I could go out and look at a flower just starting and see a mini zucchini forming before it open and say yep that's one. Is that normal? Do I need those other flowers that don't form anything? If not I want to know so I can fry them up!

Any help?

Be Well and Blessed BE...

The internet downs

Well, it's been a fun last 7 days, before today anywho... we've had RAIN! Lots of it until Tuesday when the sun came out then yesterday it was dreary with a lite sprinkling of rain in the morning. Lots of beautiful sun today though and until this after noon no clouds. As for the “other” fun part back on Saturday we apparently had a lightning strike on our telephone pole (or close to our home) and it fried our internet router, and the filter for it.

Course we didn't know it was that we just thought the phone service was out, so Monday we went to our neighbor's house and called the phone company and they said they'd have it fixed by 10am Tuesday; but did we check and see if the phone box worked? ..the phone box.. well... Silver hadn't checked that, and so when we got home that is exactly what he did. The phone worked, the router would not. So he calls internet “help”; boy is that name a joke!

They we very unhelpful, we had discovered if we plug in the router at all our phone goes dead, Silver told this too the “help” person. However, the “help” person who obviously knows more than we do kept telling Silver to plug in the router. To which Silver told the person it would kill the phone and we would not be able to call him back. Tech support's response to that was we could call on our cell phone... WOW why hadn't I thought of that! Well maybe.. because we don't have one... Silver told the person we didn't have a cell phone, “you don't HAVE a cell phone sir?” was the tech support's only response to that and apparently stunned silence. Then he tells Silver yet again to plug in the router.

Eventually Silver got the idea across that it's not a -GOOD IDEA-, and the tech person told him he could order a new router; but that it would be quicker to go tot he store and buy one... GEE... again why hadn't I thought of that wonderful idea??!!!!??? Probably because we won't have money till the 29^th at the earliest and the 3^rd at the latest... and... to drive to buy one requires an hour's worth of gas which Silver told the person. Which they also had a hard time believing as well.

I guess it's just a hard concept that someone might not have a cell phone... OR tons of cash to spend on gas and trips to an electronics store to buy things that could get put in the mail and added to a bill that gets paid when you have money. Are we really so far out of that loop? I mean come on... I got irritated Monday as considering all the rain I was not sure the school buses would be running so I took the kids to the stop myself .. just in case(call school off on 4 inches of snow what will they do if the dirt roads are flooded?). I saw the boy from down the road in brand new Nike shoes and I got a tad annoyed as I recall that family was complaining about money not more that a couple of months ago... Is it just me that gets annoyed when someone who complains about money goes out and spends it frivolously?

I get annoyed with myself when I need to buy myself some new clothing, even if it's a new pair of socks because all mine have so many holes they are more hole that sock. Maybe it's just because I really don't care much about material possessions.. that said.. yes I'd love a huge pressure canner.. BUT I only want that badly as it would help my family by letting me can things that otherwise I would have to freeze. Canning only takes so much less to run things through than to have to use a constant running freezer that I could put other things in that we would prefer to eat fresh.

Again though... maybe it's just me... We did order a new router and though they said next day delivery it arrived at 14:50 Central daylight time today... nice next day delivery folks...

Anywho another “interesting” side affect of all this rain:

This is of course my potato experiment, I took this picture yesterday morning. the green plant in the for ground in the midst of the straw is a potato plant... now the day before I took this picture I had completely covered them 'taters with straw and yesterday morning they were already peeking out. Also... This morning I had to recover them, so they are growing well.

Another plant mention... out of the rhubarb crowns 2 were coming up... now due to the rain only one is growing right now.

Hope everyone fared well in all the wet.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Ugly day...

...Well...

Considering we spent half the day inside yesterday due to weather we were hoping to get out and get more work done today...

As of 11 am my outdoor thermometer is still reading 33 degrees... and its cloudy with the feel of rain in the air. while I know that here in Missouri the springs are rather rainy, I would like to get more than a couple hours of work done outside a day. silver looked at the forecast on the weather channel website and it says we might get snow on the 1st. Goodie.. at least I got my now growing potatoes covered:

This is what it looked like when I moved the straw covering a bit to check on it after the last snowfall we had a few days ago. Oh by the way... these potatoes I currently have sprouted are the ones that were from our eating bin not seed potatoes. They took a few weeks to sprout but they did and I am waiting to see the seed ones sprout still.

We bought 2 bales of straw for "just in case" when I received my tax refund, when I opened the one I started putting over the potatoes my girls asked if they could have some to play with. I told them sure have a handful... well they took more than that. My girls have a toy metal dump truck for outside that they stacked sections of the straw on and they totally took the bale apart. Well at least I now know if I need it taken apart to have my girls go at it... Oh well.

Yesterday we got a small surprise, we ordered my middle child's new glasses back on Friday and were told it would take a week for them to arrive. We got a call yesterday that they were in that was fast. So on the way back home we stopped at the farm store we got our chickens at, just to look (of course...). They didn't have many chicks left and we found out they will receive more tomorrow, so because I still want Jersey Giants we will check them out Friday before we call the Hatchery. If the store has them straight run I will buy them from the store, otherwise we will order some from Cackle. I also picked up some Rhubarb crowns while in the farm store and now I get to stare at the weather until I get a nice day so I can plant them... according to the planting instructions for this area now is the time to plant them. So I will keep an eye open for a good day and hope I can find a good spot for them.

Be Well and Blessed Be...