July 11-20, 2009 in reverse chronological order

07/20/2009 Monday: Hot, but not as hot as yesterday, I don't believe.

I gave some of the plants in the garden some water, especially the cabbage family plants because they wilt so magnificantly in the mid-day sun.

I went in to work at the Health Department but was too tired to be very effective. I left around 12:30pm to come home in case Kathy H and her travelling partner showed up.

Pat showed up as I was doing chores.

Chas tried the DSL and said it wasn't working. It doesn't appear to be working. I will try rebooting and see what happens. Didn't work. It turned out that Richard hadn't screwed down the phone wires when he put in the new cables for our DSL. Chas figured out how to fix them and we were good to go except for one thing - the dang modem's power switch wouldn't turn on. I had Chas take the modem apart and I tried plugging the cable in after talking to the CenturyTel technician.

Kathy H and Suzanne from UW showed up. I gave them the grand tour and Chas prepared a cold plate for dinner. Thank heavens as I was about pooped out.

07/19/2009 Sunday: Hot

I spent the day giving tours and weeding the vegetable garden. The garden badly needed weeding.

Before I started weeding I sharpened my swan-neck hoe. It was really dull. You need a sharp hoe to cut through the weeds.

I got everything pretty much weeded except for the onion patch. Some of the weeding I did by hand where the weeds were too close to the vegetable. I did do some hand watering but when the soil is this dry it will take a lot more time to get the ground soaked through. Still it seemed to revive them.

The garlic pretty much looks done. Even with the watering the plants are turning yellow. I guess the garlic buds are drawing down the nutrients. Some of the garlic are trying to flower; some are setting bulblets. I imagine I should have taken off the flower/bulbs but I just didn't seem to be able to find the time even for such a mundane task. I guess you can plant the bulblets but it takes some time to get them large enough to eat.

I gave two tours to some friends of Susan J, the emu owner (former owner) and their kids and also to Anne and Mike and their kids. Anne and Mike are the folks that sold me the two St. Croix sheep. I wish I could remember the names of the first couple. I should remember their names but cannot.

I talked to Anne and Mike about possibly selling them Wendy. I believe she's bred. I told them I would sell her for $650 and they could make payments. They seemed interested. They had a lot of hospital bills this past year with their kids and with Anne's broken arm which is why I said I would let them pay on time. Works for me, especially if they don't get the cow till they're nearly done paying me.

Richard fixed the broken slitted 4" pipe and moved the light in the lean-to so that I could change the bulb. His helper put it right in the middle of the lean-to which made it about 14 feet off the ground. No way I was going to be able to replace that bulb. He also installed a double fixture on the wall to the right of the back door to the barn as you're facing it from the outside. Unlike the fixture in the front the light at the back door is not motion sensitive. It comes on when all the other lights come on, when you turn on the switch. Very convenient if I need to chase goats.

He installed a new electric panel and light switches in the Tack Room. I labeled the lights on the switch plate so that I would know which switch turns on which light. So, that room is done. It looks as if all the wiring is done in all the outbuildings. I'll get another bill from him when he gets back from Alaska where he's going fishing. It would be nice to pay the bill later.

I think I will have Richard install my greenhouse when the time comes instead of Pat. I can't always trust Pat to get things done in a timely manner - not that there's a hurry to get the greenhouse done, but I do like to have a project completed within a reasonable time once it's started.

Dinner tonight was a large pork roast, home-made rosemary potatoes and peas. The roast was large and quite delicious. It was the hind leg of last year's piglet that I butchered because it had a prolapsed rectum. I gave Enrique the mate to the hind leg and some turkey sausages to help out with the food bill.

07/18/2009 Saturday: Hot.

Richard showed up around 11:00am and worked till nearly 8:30pm. He got the frames for the hydrants made and then went to town to pick up the concrete. He brought his concrete mixer over and poured concrete into each of the 5 hydrants. He also wired the potting shed and the chicken coop. Now I will be able to turn on the light in the coop when the chickens start faltering in their egg production.

Enrique and Oskar came to work with me on various projects. Chas had them fill in part of the trench by the house and lay in four inches of dirt then a single layer of Tripar with four inches of gravel on top to protect the Satellite cable. After that they dug out the dirt from the well house flower bed and dumped the extra alongside the south end of the Tack Room where I hope someday to plant table grapes.

Later they dug a trench for the satellite cable. I had them make a flower bed by laying in river rocks and bringing a load of compost from the Hereford compost pile and shoveling it into the bed. Now it needs watering and the addition of some more dirt and I can plant succulents in the area around the dish which I surrounded with small rocks to protect the pole. The compost from one scoop totally covered the bed. I also have some flowers to plant.

After a break I asked Enrique and Oskar to move about 30 hay bales into the goat barn. They moved more like 44 but that's ok. We moved bales from the first batch of hay that Ty delivered which I think is better than the second and third batches. Then they brought in 3 pallet loads of alfalfa. Each pallet holds about 6 bales so they brought over 18 or so bales. I plan to save the alfalfa till late winter and early spring when it's cold and when they need the additional energy/protein.

After lunch I asked Enrique to weed whack the thistles in the Dexter pastures. Oskar helped me by pruning the growth that has come up since the trees were cut (copising) while I weeded the cottage garden.

I was happy when the guys left. I just can't keep up with 21 and 22 year olds but I sure appreciate them helping me out.

?? had a Black Baldy (really brown) sometime that morning but I was too busy working to notice. I think it was (name of cow).

07/17/2009 Friday: Hot again today but around dinner time wispy clouds rolled in and the ocean wind picked up and cooled things off.

In to work at LCHD. Picked up articles for Rachel from a search I did.

Sandy will be setting up a phone for me at the Health Department.

Before I got to work I picked up 4 bags of All purpose livestock. I forgot to take out the chicken crumble and the guys loading my feed teased me about charging double for feed because I had Del's feed in my car.

After work I went to the library to pick up two books for Chas and to drop off the Smiley video we borrowed. Then I went grocery shopping at Shop n Kart. I picked up lots of vegetables and cherries which were on sale for $.99/lb, plus milk and breakfast cereal. I complimented the manager on what a great store he has. Chas brought some of the bags in but he was working with the tractor.

Charles filled in some of the trenches alongside the house. We got rid of the carpet pieces that Lois and Bob had put down to keep weeds from growing up alongside the narrow sidewalk. I plan to lay down Tripar with gravel laid on top. We already removed the 12 inch sidewalk from the driveway to the deck as well as part of the sidewalk that runs along the west side of the house.

Dinner was leftover chicken, baked French fried potatoes, and a simple salad made of tomatoes and cucumbers. I also served cherries. Nice to be able to eat fruit in season.

Yesterday I put Marcy's two cross-bred wethers up for sale for $40.00 each. My goal is to get rid of them. They're 3 months of age and need to be out of my hair. I want to be able to milk out Marcy and use the milk for the pigs. There probably won't be much milk but there will be some. I got an email from a guy who may want them. I replied, now the ball is in his court. We'll see if he's really interested.

07/16/2009 Thursday: Another scorcher.

Richard came by and did the final installation of the new phone cables. We got the phones working, then plugged in the splitter and phone line into the wall outlet after Richard made sure all the wires were working correctly. Chas and I were very happy when DSL worked like a champ.

We took out all the phone line that was snaking from the master bedroom along the exterior wall, along the dividing wall, around the wall, across the entrance to my study and around the edge of the room to the phone. Nice not to have so much cable running around.

Richard still has to finish up the cementing of the hydrants and installing the lights in the chicken coop. I will have to try out the light in the potting shed. Hope he put in a plug. I'll have to check to see if there's one installed.

We'll put in a 2'x2' square pad around each of the hydrants to stabilize them. I asked Richard about insulating the hydrants. He said that if they're installed correctly the water should go to the bottom of the pipe which is underground, and it should not freeze. He did recommend unscrewing the hoses so that all the water won't get sucked from the water tubs back into the ground. He said that could happen.

We went over to Mike and Marys in the afternoon to ask some questions. Chas needed to ask Mike about sharpening the blades on our brush hog. He downloaded the expanded plan for taking it apart but wanted advice on the best way to sharpen the blades.

Mike says that he has the right kind of steel to make a hay sticker attachment for my tractor bucket. He asked the scrap recycler place to save a couple of ram pump innards from which he was able to get the steel bar. Mike is such a sweetie. I'll just slip him $75.00, or rather Mary for his work unless there was a cost for the steel bar.

The county tractor that cuts the strip along each side of the highway showed up just at the time we were heading for Mike and Mary's. Chas stopped to talk to the guy driving the tractor to ask him how much he should cut along the highway. The guy told him two passes and that he could do the rest with his mowers. The tractor has two mowers each of which seems to work independently. They can be raised or lowered as necessary. The place looks much better now.

At dark I went to the green barn to check out the motion activated light and to throw the Dexters some more hay. They've been acting like they're starving even though they got alfalfa in the morning and local grass hay during evening chores. I just hate having to feed hay so early in the year but there's nothing left in the grass. It's burned to a crisp.

We'll need to put in a round bale of hay this evening with a spare stacked nearby.

Anyhow the right-hand light of the pair on the motion sensitive light was out. I'll have to tell Richard about that. It may just not be screwed in far enough. Anyhow it didn't work.

I was astounded at how bright the lights were. I had Richard wire all the lights so that they'd turn on when I turned on the switch. So, now I have lights on both sides of the barn, in the lean to and up in the loft, along with the motion-sensitive light.

Having lights in the chicken coop will extend the egg laying a little longer. Richard gave me the bill. He'll still have some billable hours but it shouldn't be too much. He'll be here on Saturday to finish up the various jobs.

I did not take the chicken feed out of the car so will have to do that tomorrow morning before I go to work.

When we were at M&Ms Mary gave me some salmon filets. I defrosted them and we ate them for dinner. Talk about good. Boy, were they ever delicious. What a treat. It was so nice of Mary to share her bounty with me.

07/15/2009 Wednesday: Hot

Richard finished up electrifying the green barn and the equipment shed. I still have to test the motion-activated light when it's dark out.

Worked at LCHD today. Not very productive, I'm afraid. I just couldn't get into work.

Myrtle had a bull calf late today. She was just dropping the placenta when I checked out the baby and finished eating it about an hour later. The baby has a totally white face with very little black around the eyes. Cute little bugger. A bull calf. I could tell immediately just by looking at him, even before I checked out his privates.

Victor, a neighbor who sells hay and who lives on Spooner Rd brought by 3 truckloads of alfalfa hay - 64 bales of 100lb hay and 13 bales of 120lb hay. I paid him $750 for the lot and was thrilled to do so. Maybe I won't have to buy so much grain for the cows to keep flesh on them this winter if I can feed them alfalfa. Victor also sells local grass hay and really nice horse-type hay. The good hay is $6.00/bale but he said he'd give me a deal if I'd buy in bulk, say 100 bales at a time (which is generally what I do anyway). It's really nice to have someone else who can provide hay to me.

At my age about all I can do is roll the bales into place. Fortunately Victor is strong enough that he could stacj the bales. We didn't go very high - only four bales stacked one on top of another. We set up the alfalfa on the south side of the barn but left enough space for us to get the tractor in to put round bales into the collapsible feeder. I do have to move one 120lb bale about a foot to the right because it's blocking my entrance to the feed bins.

I spent a few minutes at work designing my Bud box. Lots of 12 and 14 foot gates. I may actually need more gates such as 6 foot or 16 feet. A Bud box is 14' wide by 20' long, but it could also be 12' x 20' just as easily. It has a long opening that is 6 feet at one end so that more than one cow can go in and on the other has a 30 inch gap so that we can get the animal in to put it through the head gate. I could also use the run to load selected cattle into a trailer for taking to someone else's farm or to the sale barn. Here's a picture of what I want, more or less.

07/14/2009 Tuesday: Sunny but not really hot. I missed the afternoon breeze we usually get.

After chores I hauled two bags of chicken feed and two bags of pig feed out to their respective storage places, on the lower deck for the chicken feed and in the "milk room" for the pig feed.

Richard, our electrician, showed up today. I'm having him put in a light outside each door. The light outside the main entrance to the green barn will be motion activated. There will be one light up in the loft, two in the lower section of the two storage section of the barn and two in the one story section. There will also be a light in the lean-to section and the off-on switch will activate all the lights. It will be to the left of the gate. There will also be a plug-in just in case I need to run a corded power drill.

The equipment shed will also have four lights total one in each bay, an off-on switch on the south-west post and a plug-in.

The chicken coop will have one light as will the potting shed. We'll probably add a light or two in the lean-to greenhouse when we get it built.

I let Chas in to finish brush hogging the north-west-most pasture. Then I ran around for about a half hour pulling up binding twine out of the ground where Bob Johnson had dropped it. I had to cut off quite a bit when I couldn't pull the twine out of the ground. I hate pulling one string of binding twine. You generally end up with a basketball sized ball by the time you're done.

Dinner was baked chicken, potatoes O'Brian and peas. I'm trying to get the big chunks out of the freezer before the two beef cows get put in there.

Richard has most of the boxes put in for the new lights. He says he should be done installing them by noon tomorrow.

Victor is coming by with 64 bales of alfalfa and 13 bales of compressed alfalfa around 3pm. He'll bring half the load and go back and get the rest. I'm going to pay him in cash - $750. The alfalfa is for the cows and goats who need a higher protein feed. The cows get thin in the winter and the alfalfa will help keep their weight up.

07/13/2009 Monday: Overcast and drizzly. Not a bad day, just overcast.

I got up at 5:30am so that I could get chores done before 8:00am. I wanted to get to the Board of Health meeting that started at 9am. Staff from the Health Department were discussing some of the indicators that I'd been working on since January. I will continue on with the project and will add interesting bits about the health status of the people in the county.

It looks as if the cow with the yellow ear tag got bred by Huck today. She's black but has reddish hair, bleached by the sun, no doubt. I think it is Pixie. When most are all black it gets really hard to tell. Brie is short-legged but Pixie is long legged and I believe has a yellow tag in her ear. Brie is supposed to have a green tag like Emma's but I think she must have lost it.

07/12/2009 Sunday: Big thunder storm this morning with lots of lightning flashes and thunder but not a lot of real rain. It was a storm with lots of sound and fury but no product.

After feeding the ducks and the chickens in the chicken tractor I dashed back upstairs to help Chas put a couple of round hay bales in the Hereford barn feeder. I went back 10 minutes later and they'd already bent the rebar that was holding the collapsible feeder open. That idea didn't work. I wonder how we're going to get the rebar out since it's bent on the bottom. Oh well, Mike will know. We'll probably have to cut it out.

Anyhow they got their hay.

Gary and Mary came by to visit. Gary has caught up the heifer he's going to trade for the bull calf. Now all I have to do is catch up the bull calf. That's a task easier said than done.

While Gary and Mary were here Marie brought by some egg cartons. I gave her a dozen eggs. We all had a nice visit but it made dinner late.

I cooked stir fries made from chicken, onions, dried mushrooms and green peppers. Chas did most of the prep work to speed things up. Thank you Chas.

07/11/2009 Saturday: Sunny and nice but maybe a little hot for us Northwesterners.

Oskar and Enrique showed up to help out. We had a fairly busy day. I started them off by having them fill in the trenches where we hadn't gotten them filled in with the ditch witch. We had to move dirt from one area to another to fill in some of the areas. For some reason the area between the northwest corner of the house and the tool shed didn't have enough dirt so we took some from elsewhere and used it to fill in the 4 inch dip.

After that I sent them out to the furthest northwest pastures to pull out the t-posts. It turned out the there was also a post that needed removing so they brought that in, too. Chas was going to have Enrique cut up a small dead tree but Enrique flooded the chain saw and it wasn't worth them hanging around especially since I needed them to help take hay off Ty's trailer and put it into the equipment shed.

When they got back from pulling t-posts we carefully removed the hay from the trailer. The hay was quite dry when it was baled so the hay bales were quite fragile. They'd fall apart if you looked at them the wrong way. It took us quite a bit of time to move and stack them and we did break a number of bales. Still, I'm thrilled to have the bales for my animals.

We just put the broken bales to one side and made a great pile of loose hay in front of the solid bales. I'll use my pitch fork to fork it into the back of the ATV and from there will feed it to the critters. Essentially I now have two piles of loose hay, one that Ty pushed off his pickup and one from the broken bales we made when we tried to move the hay. It won't take long to use up that hay.

Ty came over later in the afternoon with a load of hay (100 bales). He backed it into the equipment shed's bay where we usually park the trailer. He says this hay is really nice. I can hardly refuse to purchase $3.00/bale hay especially when he delivers it to the equipment shed. If I don't get that alfalfa, I'll move the trailer into the barn and feed hay from it until it's gone. Or, if I have help I can unload it and stack it so that someone else can use the trailer if they need it.

Ed and Wendy stopped by to see Huck. They want to rent him for breeding their girls. I will be charging them $200 each for the breeding. They have two cows and don't want to keep a bull. (Later: they decided to buy a bull).

I'm still waiting till Myrtle has her calf. She's enormous.