Summer

Finally - pictures.  First is my plumeria tree which is going on 12 years old and for some reason it is blooming like mad this summer.  There are at least a dozen clusters of blooms on it like this one and best of all I saw my first hummingbird of the year checking it out!  I put up a hummingbird feeder in June and haven't had any visitors yet, but now with this guy blooming I may have some more luck.

 My pumpkin patch which only a few weeks ago looked pathetic finally took off like a rocket in the last couple weeks with all the heat.  While it may not be a record breaking pumpkin crop, there is still the potential to be some very nice once (no giant ones this year though).  In the front of the picture is my attempt at trellising cucumbers.  We'll see how it works out, but so far so good.

 Also blooming are my sunflowers, they were taking their sweet time growing and are quite weedy, but they outgrow most weeds by at least a few feet and at least distract from the clutter of the weeds.

 My tomatoes look about as good as they ever had and Anna has also been growing with them!  I'm not sure how well she'll like tomatoes this year, but she likes taking a little walk through the garden, but all the big plants.

 And last but not least half of my bees seem to be doing well.  I last checked them about a week ago and the hive facing the photo had just about filled up two supers, so I put two more on.  The other hive is a little more pokey but I'm reasonably sure they'll catch up a little by the end of the summer.  When I took this picture it was about 92 and if I was more daring I could have taken an up close picture of what they were doing.  On hot days they go out and get some water and then come back and sit on the bottom entrance facing out from the front of the hive.  They then somehow spit out this water and hold on and beat their wings and create sort of a little draft up through the hive to help keep their wax from melting.  It's neat to watch, but  if you stand there for too long they usually try to shoo you away.

As long as we keep getting some rain for the next few weeks, it looks like we will have a halfway decent crop, I wish that were true for people that live south of here where rain hasn't been so abundant.  It's probably too late for a lot of farms and it will be interesting to see what happens to the prices of food this fall and winter if the drought continues.  I'll try to take some more fun pictures next week.

Working on it...

So I haven't had much time this summer to document my farm, but I have been busy.  It's been a very interesting year, we went from a historic drought to having a years worth of rain in three weeks, to a heat wave that is hopefully going to stop soon.

While this was all very interesting to watch, it hasn't helped my crops or the bees very much.  My popcorn planter had a malfunction and didn't plant very well, a good chunk of the corn drowned in the water, but my vegetables, potatoes and things like that have never looked better.  Along with this the weeds have grown very strong and I am doing my best to keep up with that, so that would somewhat explain the lack of pictures.

I am hoping to have some peppers worth taking pictures of, I have about six ghost peppers plants and three Trinidad scorpion peppers - these are suppose to be the hottest peppers in the world so maybe I'll get some ideas other than making salsa or pepper spray with them.

Projects

So I said I would add some pictures, I've kept busy in the unusual spring weather!  The first picture is of my project to save my back from some agony - I am using the concrete from the hog operation to build a raised bed for my strawberry patch.  I am almost done with it, I can only move so many chunks of concrete every - I started last fall and am almost finished.  I just have a few holes in the wall to fix up and then I have to fill it in with dirt and next year I will have strawberries!  I have been trying to think up ways to recycle the concrete and I don't know if I have the time or energy to build anymore, but this would be a nice way to make use of it.

 My other major project is this barn - as far as I can tell it was built in the early 1930s and was originally a dairy barn, then in about 1980 or so it was converted into a hog barn.  What that entails is not all that interesting, but it basically makes it difficult to put animals that are more than 6 feet tall inside (that will likely be a topic for an upcoming post).  Alex is posing to give you some reference how large of a structure it is.

 My current project involves cleaning out all the old straw and pigeon droppings that accumulated in it.  If you look closely at this photo, you can see the little spots which is all the dust in the air.  I have a few more hours of work to do and then I am going to wash everything down with water to stop at least some of the dust.  It's not a real fun place to play in yet, but as you can also see it will make a great basketball or volleyball court.  I'm sort of tempted to open the big door in the middle of the way (which you can see the outline of), but I'm afraid that I will not be able to get it closed again or it will just fall off from lack of use.

I keep hoping to find something really old and cool while moving all of this dusty crap, but so far all I have found is an old pulley and a few old doors with cool doorknobs.  No sack of gold or silver coins, but I'm not done yet!

Spring

I have been meaning to write more, but with the new baby, teaching and work I haven't had much time to do any extra things.  Hopefully with spring on the way I will find new energy to continue posting more regularly.

It has been a very mild winter in MN, I don't mind it one bit after the last three years of moving snow and hoping that my road is passable (not covered in snow or so muddy you get stuck).  Now the grass is green and the trees are budding earlier than I've ever seen them, it's hard to believe that the winter ever even happened!  I have started to get ready for spring, I was very tempted to plant something last week, just to say that I did, but I'll wait a little while longer.

The first thing I am planning on doing is planting potatoes on Good Friday - I don't know who came up with this tradition, but it's one a lot of people in this area follow and for the last 7 years I have ended up with more potatoes than my family (including my parents and brothers family) have been able to eat before spring rolls around.  So I'll try again this year unless for some reason it keeps raining.

One thing that I didn't blog about was the incredible drought we had starting last July, it snowed and snowed and then rained and rained last year and then suddenly stopped in July and the 1st real amount of moisture (more than a tenth of an inch) didn't fall until February of this year.  Now in the past few weeks we've had some good rain and hopefully it will continue and put us past this drought.  Not that I am too worried about it, if it doesn't rain, I still have my job and can buy my food.  Many of my neighbors rely on it though and if there was an extended drought, it would mean tough times for everyone.  What happens remains to be seen, but there this spring is off to a good start to another good year on the farm.

The other project I have been working on is cleaning up my barn - I haven't taken any pictures of my project yet, but I suppose I should just so I can remember the progress.  So far I have ripped out all the old wiring, mainly to make it more safe.  Taken out all the old hog fencing and equipment since it mainly was in the way and was an endless source of cursing when ever I hit my head.  The part that I am most excited about is that I am cleaning out the hay loft.  It had a foot of straw and a couple inches of pigeon droppings in it.  I told my boys I would do that so they could play basketball in the winter or whatever they want to do.  I think it will be a nice area to do thing in when it is raining or when it is snowy, but it will take a lot of work to get it done.  I guess I won't say much more about it, I'll get some pictures next week and that will make it easier to see what is all going to happen.

So begins my attempt at blogging - who ever posted that they missed my blog - thank you, I enjoy writing and am sitting here now wondering why I quit for so long!