Soooo Itchy!!!!

Well, all that snow we had this winter, melted into many areas of standing water, has really increased the mosquito population this year.  And they are HUNGRY!!!  Not too bad for people, but much worse for the animals.  Our horse, Quincy, was covered with them.  Poor guy.  But luckily we have some special spray for horses as well, and it works for a couple of days.

Can't really see them here in the picture, but his neck, shoulders, and rump were grey with the little blood suckers.  He could hardly stand still they were bugging him so much.  He wanted to get scratched so bad. 



Here you can see all his bites.



After he go sprayed, he felt much better. 



So where ever you may be, make sure you are protected against mosquitos!

15 Years Together!

Mark, Every Year

Every year that I'm with you
Has been better than before;
It's hard for me to even think
How I could love you more.

Every year you've graced my life
Has been full of happiness;
I love your caring face, your voice,
Your tender, sweet caress.

Every year when this day comes,
I'm filled with love and pleasure;
Happy Anniversary, Love,
My joy, my delight, my treasure. Love always, Chris

Straw Bale Garden

     I have a HUGE garden spot here on the farm.  Most people say 'WOW', but I say 'YIKES!'.  This is the reason.  Sometimes in the country, you have low water pressure due to the type of system you have.  All our water comes from a well system, so the only pressure is from the tank in the house.  This tank is about a zillion years old.  (Carbon dating is still not in yet) So low pressure.  I have one outside tap on the house on the north side.  The garden spot in about 200 feet south of my house.  I think you are getting the idea.  By the time I connect various lengths of hose, the water coming out the end is a slow trickle.  So, no sprinklers, no watering with the hose, no nothin'!  I even tried a soaker hose in hopes of success.  It worked no too bad at the start of the hose, but at the end, again nothin'.
     In the past I have tried to use water from rain barrels and hand watering cans.  That gets old REAL fast!  So I have just been letting nature take it's course.  If something grows, then it grows.  If not, then it was never ment to be, right?   This has been successful in two ways.  First, weeds grow no matter how dry and hot, or cool and wet the summer gets, and second, I have had very poor harvests.  Sigh.
     That being said, earlier this year I was searching the web looking for plans and info on raised garden beds when I came across something strange.  People were planting in old straw bales. 
     'What a bunch of nut cakes!'  I said to myself. 
     'What's wrong with dirt?'  But being from the country it intrigued me and I started reading up on it.  Needless to say, I wanted to try it.
     I won't go into here how you get started.  You just have to search  'straw bale gardening' and you will find plenty to keep your reading for a while. 
     I used the straw bale that we had for our winter dog house.  They were already starting to decompose.


The winter dog house.

     Now I just had to get them from here over to the house.  They have to be close to a water source, as you have to water them twice a day, every day.

Good thing I have lots of help!



All ready

Then you have to water twice a day for 2 weeks

After two weeks of watering, they are ready to plant in.  Small plants can be put directly in the bales.

Here I have planted pumpkins.

     To plant seeds, you need to put some topsoil or potting soil on the bale first.  This is just to help hold the seeds in place.

I planted green beans in these bales

    So, that is basically it.  I will post more pictures as things start growing.  You can even plant things in the sides of the bales.  I might put some flowers in the sides.  First I want to see how it goes with the top.  Here is all the stuff I want to plant this year.  I think the cat is satisfied with my choices.

Also planted pumpkins and cucumbers.

Getting ready for the Week

     Every Sunday I spend an hour or so getting all our school stuff ready for the week a head.  I home school all four of my children and have been doing so for about 2 1/2 years now. 
     I enjoy looking back over the past week any seeing what they have accomplished.  They are pretty hard workers!  Our school work is slowing down now a bit that spring is here, and that makes everyone happy.  Our schedule is Mon-Thurs.  We have every Friday off.  We do this for three weeks, and then take a whole week off.  As with all home school things, this will most likely change, but for now this works pretty well.  Next week I hope to post a review of what we did during our week, so stay tuned!

Sheep Shearing

Every spring comes the shearing of the sheep.  We used to get someone to do it for us, but he was kind of a creepy old guy who lived in his truck, and left the sheep with more cuts that we thought was necessary.  So about 3 years ago, Mark bought some shears and we have been doing it ourselves ever since.  It is not too hard to do, just hard on the back!  Mark does a great job and it's my job to hold them still while he does the cutting.  Not always easy with them jumping around.  But a rope comes in handy.  It usually takes us a whole day to do 20 sheep.  As of right now we are not keeping any wool, but that may change in the future. 



The ladies in waiting

 


getting to work



The wool from one sheep



All done for another year