Watermelon

 We had HIGH hopes this year.

There are THREE watermelons growing in

the volunteer watermelon patch this season.

This is the largest.

There are 2 smaller ones coming up a little further down.

Thank you to Tropical Storm Alex,

we got a BUNCH of rain on Friday and Saturday.

And the ONLY damage was this poor watermelon.

It split right down the middle.

It was just barely getting a tint of pink.

It smelled AWESOME!

But there was no flavor at all.

So we tossed it over the fence to the horses.

(The cows turned their noses up at it...)

Fingers crossed for the other two!

Mrs. Farmer

 Today I tilled the pasture!

No, seriously.

I did!

Kyle hooked up the new tiller to the tractor

and drove it into the "middle pasture".

Nice looking piece of equipment, eh?

Notice the lousy grass.

In the pasture BEHIND this pasture,

we put down some grass seed earlier this year

and it is coming in nicely.

FIRST PASS!

He has done this before.

SHOW OFF!

(It has cruise control, a comfy seat, A/C and a good sound system...)

Then he got out, I got in.

He got in with me and showed me how to get started

and then he let me run a pass.

Then he moved over and sat under a tree and watched

while I did another pass...

Kyle, supervising from the 4-wheeler under the tree - top right)

And then he headed up to the garage to 

finish building a chicken coop for a 

sister in the ward.

We swapped for a minute while I went to find the

seed spreader and get a drink..

(It has a cup holder, but I forgot mine...)

And then I finished 'er up.

Two passes in each direction.

Looking good!

Next we will put down the sunn hemp seed,

run the tractor with the drag behind it to cover

the seed so the stupid crows don't eat it all...

and then TA DA!

Plan to have it all in the ground and ready

to go before the Tropical Storm hits tomorrow.

Should get a couple of inches of rain.

And that's ALWAYS good on a newly seeded pasture.

(We are also going to till up a small section by

the chicken / duck yard and put in more moringas...)

They are growing like mad and would

be good supplemental feed for the cows.

(Now that we put that extra panel up

so they can't reach over the fence and eat

the tops off! Silly boys!)

Heading Home?

 Mom and Dad have been enjoying a wonderful

stay up in the cool mountains.

But they might be heading south in the morning...

Meanwhile,

Kyle and I went....

TO THE BEACH!

First time in quite awhile.

This is an old picture.

I didn't take one today,

because it was windy, cloudy, and

we even got a little rain.

But we were both desperate for 

a little ocean fix.

It has been a VERY busy couple of days.

And there isn't likely to be much of a

respite in the coming weeks / months...

So...

Beach it was!

We packed up and were heading back up to

the boardwalk when the rain stopped,

so we went back to the sand and sat in

our chairs for another hour.

And it was wonderful.

The temp rose by about 10 degrees,

the wind turned into a lovely breeze.

The sun never came out... but that's ok.

We are both (ok, I AM) pasty white...

so probably that was a good thing.

But boy it felt good.

Just finished teaching my night class.

Heading out to the living room to see

my darling husband.

NIGHT ALL!

Travel safely!

Watermelon

 Happy Memorial Day!

This post would make more sense if I did it right.

But I didn't.

But whatever.... lol.

I found a neat graphic online on how

to pick a good watermellon.

So today at the grocery store,

I bought one.

(Since they were $4.48 instead of $6.52!)

However, the guys were upstate doing a 

job all day and then by the time they

got home I was teaching.

So I haven't cut it open.

So I don't know if I did well.

But I tried.

Yet ANOTHER Tool!

 I guess if we are going to be serious

about this farming thing, we are

going to need the correct tools.

In the past we have borrowed the neighbor's,

but never a borrower nor a lender be.....

So.....

Last week Kyle and I took his big truck 

over to a town called Lake Wales in the center

of the state to my favorite farm store.

It's called Rural King and beats the socks 

off of our local (or any) Tractor Supply.

Anyhow.

We went to pick up a new tiller!

He will hook it up behind the tractor and

we will be able to till up the pastures and

re-seed them with... whatever.

The back back pasture is already re-seeded in

a good grass seed - but it will take a year for it

to be ready for grazing.

Kyle did a couple of his pastures at the ranch

and they looked awful.

Until the next season when there was grass

up to your knees!!!

Finger crossed!

So that pasture is closed until then.

OH! and on that trip his odometer turned over to 5000 miles!

It's really hard to get a picture of that when you

are driving on country highways.

Anyhow...

The middle back pasture right now is just some

nasty grass and weeds.

Once our new seed order arrives, we will be tilling

it and putting it in sunn hemp.

That was such a fun crop and it grows SO FAST!

It's high protein, so we will grow it for 5-6 weeks,

put the cows on it for a few hours every day for

a couple of weeks, and then mulch and till it back 

under and do the whole process over again.

It also does a great job of reconditioning the soil.

Always a good idea.

Fingers crossed!!!

I'm also thinking about tilling the little section

next to the duck pen, fencing it off (with coral

panels so it is moveable) and planting it

in moringa trees. A little orchard.

The cows LOVE it and it is also a high

protein, fast growing plant.

It froze back in February, grew as tall

as the fence by the end of march but then

kind of stopped growing.

Until I realized the cows were reaching over

the top of the fence and EATING IT!

(which is why it never got taller than the fence!)

We put a panel up so they couldn't get to it

and in the next month it grew nearly 4 more feet!

I "think" I still have a bunch of seeds,

but if I don't I can order some.

Moringa is a "superfood" so we might also

dry some of the leaves and grind them up

for us - but we'll see. Right now I'm buying

a supplement that has a bunch of stuff including

moringa - but maybe one day when I have 

some extra time.

HA!

Bye Bye Bear

 Unfortunately, Bear didn't make the cut.

She is a sweet dog, but spent all her time

looking AWAY from the humans.

(And chasing the chickens and ducks... a NO NO!)

She was sweet as could be,

but just wasn't interested in humans unless

there was seriously NOTHING else going on.

We were absolutely LAST on her list.

And the idea was for her to be a companion dog

for Kyle and for him to be able to take her

on walks out in the woods, hopefully off leash.

That was NEVER going to happen.

She just didn't really like people all that much

and would kind of prefer you didn't pet her.

She was happy to be with you.

Her favorite place to lay was under your chair

or on your feet.

But if she wasn't laying down, then don't bug her.

Don't touch her, don't expect anything from her

and certainly don't get in her way if she

was after something.

She ran over the other dogs on a regular basis

and knocked Kyle right on his behind when she

was chasing a chicken.

Didn't even register he was standing there.

Anyhow.

When you adopt from the pound, you have only

30 days trial period.

After that, there's nothing you can do.

They do NOT take animals any more since they

are a no-kill shelter.

Once (if) there is an opening then there is a wait

list for pets that people want to give up.

But the wait list is longer than your pet's life.

And we were coming up on the 30 day limit.

So this morning we made the hard decision

to give her back and hope she could find another

family she would fit better with.

I wrote a long email telling them all the ways she had

improved in the time we had her and all the ways

she might be an asset to another family

and exactly why she didn't fit our's.

They didn't ask when we turned her in - they came,

got her paperwork and said, so what's wrong... I said

we have to turn her back because she can't stop chasing

the chickens, the lady said ok and walked away.

I assumed she would come back for us to complete some

paperwork and tell her exactly what the situation was

but we never saw her again.

Instead a grumpy young man came into the room,

said nothing, just took off her leash and collar,

put a rope around her neck, tossed a "have a nice day"

in our general direction and left with the dog.

So THAT was part of why I sent the email.

Pretty much unacceptable... you would think they would

want to know more about the dog to help them

place her with the right forever family going forward.

Or maybe not.

Anyhow.

She was a nice dog.

But she's gone.

(Notice the trailer in the background?)

Bottom right corner.....

We made that sticker!!!

(And a hundred billion just like it...)

Those little dust puffs are a pain in the neck!

(grin)

Sweet Things

 This morning for breakfast I made Rod

some scrambled eggs and some 

hamburger bun toast with some of the

yummy raw honey Mom sent for Christmas.

And yesterday morning when Kyle and I went out

to the garden to harvest the onions,

look what we found???

Baby bunnies!

Kyle caught one and we relocated it to

the front yard under the bougainvillea.

But I didn't have my phone in my pocket.

Then we headed back out there and low and

behold, there were TWO MORE!

So we each caught one.

They were also relocated to the front yard.

There is quite a colony of bunnies out there,

so hopefully they will be happy.

But let it be known.

Farmer McGregor does NOT welcome Peter or

any of his brothers or sisters in his garden!!!