Overdue Update

Those who return from vacation, need a vacation most of all!

Sure has felt that way since we returned from our relaxing and enjoyable pack trip.  A short ride up Little Granite Creek to a meadow filled with flowers and the cold and clear-watered creek right by our site, this was indeed, a vacation!  Here are some pictures from the trip.

We ate well.  We slept well.  We relaxed well.  Now that's what I call a vacation!

Meanwhile, on the farm, marketing the hay is going well.  Thanks to the age of social media, one ad on Facebook might be just all it takes to sell the entire first cutting!  Check out our new Facebook site:  KLazyMRanch. 

I have been dreaming of making kraut from my garden cabbages and that got done this weekend.  In a couple of weeks, delicious tart and refreshing sauerkraut will come out of this jar thanks to some good bacteria! 

 

The jar on the right is filled with a brand new batch of the ever-so-popular Kinda Kimchi!  This is a very special batch - I used some of my garlic scapes in the recipe. 

 

And in between cleaning the house, being on duty, making kraut, and posting this blog (!), check out the jams I've been stirring up in my awesome Copper Pan.  I think I'll call them Copper Pan Jams!  The best is the apricot, but the others are quite fine too!  Buy a ton of hay, and you get a jar of jam!!  Gotta love that brand!!

 



Next week - FREEDOM!!  I may just set up a Farmer's Stand by the road...…..

Summer Time Tales

With the for-real arrival of summer, Mike and I spent the weekend getting the crop of hay harvested.  It appears we have doubled our number of bales from last year.  The last bale fell to the dusty ground yesterday afternoon around 4pm as the temperature peaked 93 degrees. 

With the heat, the garden grows too.  I have been spraying a bacteria on the cabbage to keep the cabbage worms from decimating the lovely plants.  So far, it seems to be successful.  I watch a white butterfly flutter around the plants yesterday and am keeping my fingers crossed on this non-insecticide treatment. 

Working the soil in preparation for some rows of lettuce, I unearthed an ugly brown caterpillar; one that looks like it could do a number on a row of beets.  The kale leaves are pocked with insect holes.  The heat brings growth, the growth brings bugs!

Today Mike works on the bale wagon repair.  Seems like everything breaks when you need it most! 

As the hay bales pile up, I am wondering what Master Farmer Mike’s marketing plan will be!  Anyone need some nice alfalfa hay? 

The corn is loving the heat!! 

Rookies

By the end of the day, we had one really flat tire and more than two tons of baled hay that is too wet.

The excitement of the hay baler working was too much!  Thanks to friend Tom (see him sitting on the wagon in picture #1) who came down to show Mike how to work the thing and help him through some of the troubles one might expect from a rather old piece of machinery.  Soon, Mike had me baling hay and he was merrily picking up the bales with the bale wagon, with me passing by in the field, spitting out bales one row after another.

And then, he had to move some bales and noticed they were heavy. 

And then, we realized we had many, many bales of too-wet hay.  Ugh.

This haying stuff ain't for the rookies!!  It will slowly mold, or worse yet, get hot and burn.  Yikes!!  Not sure what to do with this wet hay, but it is certainly a learning moment. 

We  hang our heads.

Here are some pictures of the bale wagon - a slick device that picks up a bale, moves it, stacks it, and fills up the wagon so one then can tip the whole thing up on end and have a nice 5-pile tall stack of hay.  Slick, indeed.  And now out of service with a flat tire.  Oh, also, it has a leaky hydraulic pump - a mere $1200 bill on that repair.  Farming ain't cheap either!!

I am working this July 4th and town is jam packed with people, cars, motorcycles, and bicycles.  Not sure what will be next or where it will be but hanging out in my office seems like a good choice!  For the weekend - more hay making!  Mike is cutting the last of the field and thankfully, this is a very good year for alfalfa - our error cuts into the profits, but there is still a bunch left in the field (thank goodness!).  It is a beautiful time in the area with all the hay coming down and rows forming. 

One of the best things about our piece of property is the irrigation ditch that runs through the land giving us water for irrigation.  With it, there are mosquitoes (when the wind finally quits blowing!), but that we can live with!  We were told these are some of the oldest water rights in the valley! Very nice, indeed!

I have a new feature in my garden at work (give me bare ground and I will plant you a garden - which is how this garden came to fruition years ago!).  This is a sink pedestal from our local ReStore.  It was sinkless and $20 and I knew exactly what I wanted it to be next!!  Found the lovely blue "gazing ball" for half off during a recent shopping spree.  It glows in the dark - how cool is that???  Although, I have not witness this yet!  This garden feature is so neat, it's just a matter of time before it gets moved, thinks me!

 I have some kind of fungi in my Hoback garden.  It's on the rhubarb leaves and has gotten into the broccoli, darn it!  Anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of the stuff??   

 My perennial flower garden on the east side of the greenhouse is so pretty in the morning!  Look at these colors! 

 This is an iris which was given to me as a gift, bulbs and root only.  I had no idea how lovely a flower it would give me year after year - thank you Marcia for this beauty!

Water Feature Joy

I bet this picture made you smile!

I smile every time I see it and hear the tinkeling water!  Not only a super-cool water feature powered by the sun - but a dog water dish too!!  I found the meditating frog on sale half price and had a vision!  Amazingly, I was able to drill holes - without causing harm -  to turn him into this really cool water feature. 

Hay is on the ground.  Mike is busy farming.  Hoping to get some of that now-certified hay baled up and stacked away quickly! 

Happy 4th of July!