Sunday Walkabout 6-1

Another week has slipped by…wait, another MONTH has slipped by…and it’s JUNE! 

Penny 2008

June is Dairy Month and it always makes me miss my Jersey girls with their beautiful, big, brown eyes.  But, life moves on and things change.  However, my dairy farmer friends are still going strong, working hard to put milk, butter, cheese and icecream on our tables…so THANK YOU to all those dairy farmers…

and cows everywhere!

Back to the news of the hill.

It was a very productive week around here.  It seems that the growing season has finally come to stay, and it feels good to be back at the work of growing things. The “to-do” list is growing incrementally…by the moment.

I keep seeing folks post lists of what they want to do this summer…lists of fun stuff, places to go, craft projects, books to read and such.  My own list would be short and sweet…and totally un-doable.  I would like to “stay caught up”.  Since that will never happen, we’ll just do the best we can and focus on the things we can accomplish. This week went a long way to making me feel like we were making some progress. Although sometimes I feel a little like this ewe...

Don't worry...she's fine!
Sheep are just slightly over-dramatic sometimes

While Blondie got the ewes ready for summer, (the shearing went well... did you read this?) the Boss worked to get the garden ready for tomato planting.

tilling

putting up trellises for tomatoes

He also planted corn and hilled the potatoes. (hilling potatoes allows for more tuber development) The potatoes are looking real good and we should have new potatoes prior to the Fourth of July.

Potatoes after cultivating and hilling

 …and look…baby corn!

We got the tomatoes planted, along with the second planting of squash and the RE-re-planting of the cucumbers.

tomatoes planted, mulched and irrigated

one bed of squash planted, mulched and irrigated

It looks like the third time WAS the charm…the cucumbers look great!  Less than two months to pickle making and a seemingly endless supply of cucumber salad.  YUM

Do you know what these are?

Okra seeds look like they have fingerprints

This is a handful of okra seeds.  The soil is finally warm enough to get them planted.  Here’s hopin’ for a better crop than last year.  We had so much rain last year that the okra drowned. Quite literally.  Here’s a little more about okra.  Read this.

The weather had gotten rather hot and dry and we found ourselves doing some serious praying for rain.

dry garden

 I always feel kind of torn praying for rain this time of year.  It really puts at odds with all those farmers trying to get the hay crop cut, raked, tedded and baled withOUT getting wet. ...and we need some hay! But, rain is so much better than irrigating. 

We missed the big rain…it went north…see the big cloud?

After we sheared the ewes, we did the annual  "flip-flop" of the flocks. This year’s changeover was done a little early.  The ewes do a better job of mowing than the lambs, and the big paddocks out front needed some serious attention. Amazingly, all went smoothly and everyone has adjusted to the changes.

ewes out front

lambs on the back hill

I guess this is "blackberry winter"

We did get a good shower on Thursday and we spent Friday feeling like we were inside a cloud.  Our hilltop location makes for some unique weather to say the least, as the surrounding area had a rather nice day. 

 By sunset, the fog and clouds were moving on out.

the farm at sunset

…and Saturday’s Market weather was beautiful.

checkin' out the hayfields on the way home

It looks like this week will be another busy one.  We’ll be hauling lambs, fighting bugs and doing the usual picking and planting routine.  …and it looks like mowing will be an ongoing battle, too.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Have a Happy Sunday!

…and come back and visit us again real soon.