I still don't know what happened, but the blog entries vanished over the weekend - updates, about us, list of followers, everything. 1,600+ entries, countless pictures, and the history of our Little House On The Prairie is gone. Messages left with the support team have gone unanswered.
And there's been a lot going on since the weekend - we installed a weather station that's the bees knees (pictured below is the weather station, not bees knees). We had a huge windstorm Tuesday evening/night that tore up some of the roof shingles on the turret cap roof. I spent yesterday calling around to get somebody out to take a look at it and he dropped by late this morning and should be able to make repairs (replace the lower two rows of shingles) in the next few days. (Rain in Sunday's forecast)
I gave up on this year's potatoes - in the two weeks they've been planted, we've had nary a peep by any spouts. One of last year's potatoes sprouted (in the 'wrong' bed as we rotate the crops each year). This morning we visited our friends up at the Country Greenhouse and picked up some more spuds (that are cut and hardying off out in the shed for planting early next week), Nancy put in some herbs, and picked up some flowers for the deck pots.
Had a possum out at the barn yesterday morning and it was still there in the afternoon so I dispatched it with the Walther and pitched it in the pond. Tuesday night's rain gave us .19-inch in the new gauge and that put around 150 gallons in the barn's rain barrel so the there's enough weight to connect it to the hog waterer. Huzzah, free water for the hogs! They're doing well and have grown enough to where I don't worry about them squeezing through the fence panels. This morning Patch was starting to look like she was getting ready to have her calf (due next Friday, 15 April) but as of this afternoon, nothing's happened.
I made a wooden frame with a screen over it that will allow us to grow some grass for the chickens but won't allow them to scratch it all up - sprinted some grass seed this afternoon so we'll see how that goes.
Our chicks arrived yesterday - 12 Jumbo Cornish Cross Rock broilers (they dress out around 7.5 pounds for the freezer), plus three Barred Rock layers, and they tossed in a free 'exotic bird' (meaning: a rooster). Everything is set up and working well, but one of the broilers was dead this morning and this afternoon we lost the free exotic bird. No idea what happened - they say you can expect to lose a few now and then, but I still dont' like it (I hate losing anything, I don't care if it's a game of jacks).
It's been realitively quiet on the fire department front. We had a single vehicle roll over accident late Saturday afternoon (no injuries), and another west of town that was out of my reasonable response time, and that's pretty much been it. Things are way too dry and windy (even with the recent rain) to allow burning and folks are following the 'No Burn' mandates.
One of the firefighters is a welder and he came by this afternoon to look at the old street sweeper broom I picked up over at the city dump. He's going to weld up a post that I can sink in the ground and slip the broom over to make a scratching post for the cows - should be done before the end of the month.
Tomorrow we'll finish planting the flowers. Until next time, take care of each other.
