Nice Day For A Visit And Sitting Outside

Good day! We woke to a frost condition (the lone potato sprout from last year had a little frost burn), but it warmed nicely to a fine spring day.

It was a Carhartt morning (with watch caps) out at the barn. Everybody's fine, although Starr continues to be UA, and the cows loved their hay. Patch looks like she could pop any second, and Royal was in season today.

Nancy's office mate, Randi, and her husband Steve, came up for a visit today. We met them on the square and spent a few hours walking around visiting the various shops, and finished with lunch at the Fifth Street Sandwich Shoppe.

Back home to water the gardens after the freeze lifted, and a quiet day after that. Chores went well - hogs are happy, cats are happy, cows are happy, chickens are happy, and everybody likes their chow.

We sat out on the deck watching the Pelicans fly around - I can't believe how high they fly (the Pelicans in Florida seem to stay around 10 feet off the water while these guys fly a thousand feet high).

The dogs lounged out in the yard and enjoyed the evening. What a great day. Tomorrow I need to get the corn seed for the patch and I'd like to set up the cucumber fence and get them planted next to the onions. Our friends Katie and Josh hope to come by for dinner so we'll have some steaks for the adults and hamburger for the kids. Until next time, take care of each other.

 

Eventide Pelicans; Tilling The Corn Patch; Kyzer to Vet

Woke early to find we were in frost warning conditions - thank goodness it never dipped down that cold. But it was a brisk morning with clouds that looked like they could dump either rain or snow (we got neither).

Things went well out at the barn. Our neighbor's cat, John Wayne, has been over at our barn socializing with the crew, and he's becoming very comfortable there it seems. He won't come to us, or stick around, but he doesn't run off. I'm sure it's a cat thing.

The hogs have noticeably grown since arriving three weeks ago. I can scratch them when they're in range and they seem okay with that. This gal was really getting in to her breakfast and had both forefeet in the flap feeder.

Patch continues to look like she's ready to calf any day. I'd sure like to see that. We busted a new bale for them and she and Royal really enjoyed it.

And on our traditional morning walkabout, we saw a lot of white Pelicans out on the pond. I'm still amazed at how sea birds make their way to Kansas... I mean, really? We also saw a mature Bald Eagle fly over the house and out around the pond, accompanied by what we're guessing was an immature eagle flying along with it. I took a few snaps, but they were too far away to come out clearly. The Pelicans remained there all day (most unusual).

After breakfast, I headed out and shoveled the piles left from last evening's 2045 delivery of peat moss at the corn patch. I was able to spread it around so when Dennis comes today to till it all in, it will go quickly. Starting to get the itch to get come sweet corn in the ground!

Kyzer's ear has become infected with what we think is a yeast infection, so Nancy made an appointment for him and ran him in to the vet at 1145. Dennis came back to finish the corn patch as we were leaving so I stayed home to take care of that. It turned out well, and I hope to get the corn in before too long.

It turns out Kyzer has bacterial and yeast infection in his ears so he's on some drops. Karma's meds have her running around like normal, but doc says if (when?) it happens again, we'll need to get some more definitive diagnosis done at K-State.

The hens were busy - four eggs today. Another was smashed and eaten. They're funny birds and they sure have their preferences for particular boxes.

We planted the beets this afternoon - leaving room in the bed for the pepper plants that are due in next week. The dogs helped as you can see.

Afterwards, Nancy worked on her project while I worked on some recruiting posters for the fire department. It was a good afternoon. Things went well out at the barn - Patch still looks like she could pop at any second. The piggies came out for some brocolli scraps and enjoyed the sun. They're too funny.

We headed in to town for a 1730 meeting to talk about the fall 'Jazz on the Square' event. It seems all the folks who put it together last year have bailed (so we're told). There's a new event coordinator to put it together but she didn't make the meeting. Afterwards we had dinner at Milagros and it was yummy. We have another frost warning tonight so we put the new plantlings under cover and the day ended with this sunset.

Until next time, take care of each other.

 

Busy, Full Day

It's been a good day. We were up early - chores went well with the cats hungry, the hogs enjoying some of the potato sections that didn't have eyes, and Patch looking like she's ready to have her calf at any moment. We had a pair of Canadien geese out on our tiny Eventide Pond - a first - but they flew off as we drove up. Still, they're beautiful birds.

We had a treat of rain in the forecast all day, but up to now (1900), it's been dry. Dennis thought he'd come back to finish tilling the corn patch today if it wasn't so damp, but with the overcast, it hasn't dried out much at all so he didn't come by. Nancy worked on her project and it's really coming together.

I ran in to the fire station around 1300 to lend a hand to Lt John, our new Treasurer, and we painted the new walls in the dining room. Of course, no sooner do we start than we're toned out to a two car injury accident just at the intersection of US75 and 4th Street (the traffic light). It was a classic t-bone collision and both cars looked to be totaled. EMS had the drivers out so all we did was cut the battery cables to cut the chance of sparking a fire.

Back to the station and John's wife Joi dropped by to help, along with their son Seth. The four of us painted the room with two coats (five gallons) and it looked pretty darn good when we were finished.

Back home, Nancy had some pulled BBQ beef in the crock pot and made some awesome buns and some Southwest Pasta Salad. What a wonderful dinner!

Tomorrow we'll need to take Kyzer in to the vet - he has a raging yeast infection in his right ear that's flared up last night and today. And we hope Dennis can come back to finish tilling the corn bed. I'd like to plant the beets and cucumbers. That should make for a good day. Until next time, take care of each other.

 

Busy Day Inside And Outside

It's been a good, busy day outside. It got off to an early start when I took the dogs out at 0430 - they took care of business and we checked on the chicks. All's well and the tiny ones were noisily running around their pen and munching their feed. Their feathers are really coming in now and everybody looks healthy.

Mini and Starr were missing from the barn this morning - no idea where they were, and they were also missing from the afternoon feeding. The hogs and cows were fine and Patch no longer looks like she's ready to have her calf. She's not due until Friday so that's cool, but as you can imagine, I'm worried that the AI didn't take and she's been teasing us all this time.
Winston found yet another new place to snooze - for the first time, he's in between the dog beds. I think he likes the small confined spaces best.

After a waffle breakfast (totally yummo!) we got busy with the day. Nancy worked on her quilting project and is making excellent progress. After completing all the 'tubes', she's cut them into the 41 strips for the main pattern (plus more for the trim) and started sewing them in pairs. She has five pairs sewn together and is joining them into one large block of squares. I continue to be amazed and impressed by the logic of how to quickly assemble 1,599 2 1/2-inch squares into a single piece.

While she was doing that, I was out at the raised beds busting up the dirt/manure. In years past, I bought some finely ground store manure to spread on top to give a fine layer of soil to hold the tiny seeds such as carrots. I tried to grind the clods between two paver stones, but that was just too cumbersome. So I wound up turning the bed deeply with the potato fork, and then getting down on my hands and knees and grabbing a handful of clods and rubbing them between my gloves to grind them into dirt. It sounds like a lot, but it really went quickly.
I redid the potato bed (found only five of the spuds I planted two weeks ago - two had sprouted) and planted the new potatoes in five rows of nine. They sure looked better than the first bunch and I'm hoping for a good harvest.
I worked a third of the second bed and planted the carrots. Nancy took a break from sewing and we worked the rest of that bed and planted the green beans. After a short break, we decided to go ahead and dig up and finish crunching the last bed. Tomorrow we'll plant the beets in 2/3 of the bed and save the last 1/3 for the pepper plants (due in a few weeks). In the picture below, there are onions in the furthest of the three beds in the foreground, potatoes in the middle bed, carrots and green beans in the bed in the foreground (the lone pat plant marks the boundary between the two), and the far bed in the background is worked and ready for beets when we get a minute and peppers when they arrive. The long thin bed in the left rear has the lettuce, radishes, and turnips growing now, and will hold the tomatoes when they arrive.

By late afternoon the winds backed to the south so the loose flap on the turret roof started flapping around and pounding the ceiling like someone was beating a heavy rug against the roof. I sure hope the guy is able to come fix it soon.

Tomorrow should be another busy day. We need to move several buckets of manure from the barn to the corn patch and crush five or six large bags of leaves that have been stored in the shop all winter. Sometime tomorrow afternoon Dennis should return to finish tilling the corn patch and then he'll deliver a trailer load of peat moss and till that in before tilling in the manure and leaves - should make for a most totally excellent corn patch!
And at 1400, I need to head in to the fire station to help a few of the guys paint the new walls in the dining room area.

If possible, I'd like to plant the beets, but that might slide to Monday. Until next time, take care of each other.

Good Day Outside

Good and busy day - up early and stayed busy most of the day. Had dinner at Boomers and called it a day.

Morning chores went well - no calf yet - and the gardens look well. We noticed this independent-minded potato plant sprouting in last year's potato bed (will be green beans and carrots this year.) Everything got a good soaking.

The chicks are doing well and running all around their pen. Their feathers are really coming along.

Outside in the 'big girl' yard, the grass screen is coming along too. We watered it again and hope the grass sprouts.

After last spring's rains washed out the bean patch, the grass grew in thick and lush before we had a chance to hoe it up. As a result, it spent all summer developing roots to where my hand tiller couldn't bust it up. But thanks to Facebook, we saw that our local greenhouse offers a tilling service so we had them come out this morning and till it up.

Dennis made a few passes, but the rains of a few days ago left our clay dirt too wet to really bust up. So we left it as is, and he'll come back in a few days after its had time to dry out. I asked them to put down some peat moss as well, and we'll pile up some cow manure too - that should really bust up the clay and enrich the soil. Next up: Peaches and Cream sweet corn!

Nancy spent the afternoon working on her project - it's coming along nicely! She's cut the 'tubes' of cloth squares into strips and opened the strips one square offset so the colors trickle down from strip to strip. Nice, eh?

When she has them all cut, she'll start sewing them together and the blanket will really take shape.

We have a frost warning tonight (actually tomorrow morning) so we brought the newly potted plants in to the garage and put boxes over the new herbs with paver stones to weight them down.

Tomorrow should be a good and busy day. In the afternoon we hope to head in to town for our 'Second Saturday' event - western art around the square. Until next time, take care of each other.

 

Busy Days To Restart The Blog

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)

Nancy worked her magic and had 18 yards of mulch delivered - we spent an afternoon spreading half and finished the next morning. It looks good and should help keep the weeds down.

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.