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!!!

New Faucet

 On Saturday my darling husband bought us a

new kitchen faucet and installed it while

I was "double dipping". (teaching both

the morning and evening classes...)

It's BEAUTIFUL!

And now I have a fancy faucet like my sisters!

And my goodness, the water pressure is awesome!

He had it half installed when he discovered

one of the parts was broken,

so he had to take it back and get another 

one, so it ended up being a much bigger project

than he had originally planned,

but isn't that always the way?

I am so grateful he takes such good care of me!

Thank you dear!

I love it.

And I love YOU!

Chicken Pot Pie

 In between all the other stuff I'm doing these days

I made a (from scratch!) chicken pot pie.

Well, not the pie crust - I used a Pillsbury one...

But still.

(Before it was baked)

And I also cleaned the freeze dryer 

(the last load had raw eggs so its a good

idea to clean it with some rubbing alcohol)

and then re-loaded it with 5 trays of

mixed veggies.

(They are SO yummy! The corn and

carrots are really sweet like candy!)

(Quite yummy!)

And then I cooked up 5 pounds of ground 

beef (in the pressure cooker to get as much

of the fat off as I could...) and some chicken

and that went into the freezer for 24 hours

and then it will be the next load.

Plus I taught BOTH the morning and evening 

classes (5 hours each with admin time)

and worked on an admin problem with the other

zoom instructors

and washed the sheets on the bed.

I think that's enough.

And now?

BED!

Eggs, Blood and Busy-Ness.

 Well, we have LOTS of eggs.

We are taking a break from making our

own dog food - they are taking a break

from eating it!

So we bought a bag of dry.

But, since we aren't making our own

AND its spring, a time when the chickens

are in FULL production,

we have a LOT of eggs.

We took 2 dozen over to a member's house

yesterday - they invited us over for dinner

along with another family and a gazillion

young men. (They have 6 kids, 1 away at

college, 3 teens and a couple younger ones.)

(And I'm pretty sure it was also the entire

Priest's quorum as well...)

Anyhow.

I figure they eat a LOT of eggs and

I have a LOT of eggs... so... voila!

Then we also put 3 dozen into the freeze dryer.

Along with a couple of trays of apple sauce.

I want to do 5 trays of already cooked chicken,

but I didn't have enough to fill 5 trays

so I did the other instead.

We are doing a "pantry challenge" this week.

Eating out of the pantry / fridge / freezer.

I made Rhodes rolls (from the freezer),

salad (from the fridge)

cheesecake with blueberry topping

(from the fridge and freezer) 

to take to dinner last night.

It was very satisfying!

Meanwhile...

The new girls are loving their new coop.

I just pulled 2 eggs out.

There are only 4 girls in there right now

because that was all we could catch

the other evening before the roosters

got all riled up and I was worried about

getting attacked.

It doesn't take much to make me bleed.

 

This is a "scratch" from Kyle's new dog, Bear.

I've been putting Bountiful Balm on it

and it was looking really good yesterday.

But it was getting itchy as it was healing

and I guess while I wasn't paying attention,

I rubbed it.

And broke it open.

More salve and it was looking really good

this morning.

And then Kyle and I went to Tractor Supply

and got 100# of Buddy's feed and 40# of

rice bran to help him with gaining weight.

While dumping one of the bags into the 

garbage can, I must have popped it open again.

Sheesh.

Anyhow.

I'll clean it up (again) and cover it in salve (again)

and it will look really good tomorrow.

Maybe a bandaid would be in order????

grin

Anyhow.

I now have an officially called Secretary.

That's all.

I have submitted names for Counselors

and teachers but no final word on them yet.

And this week I am "double dipping".

Both of my instructors needed this week off,

so I'm teaching both the morning AND the evening

zoom classes this week.

Plus working at the town on Tues & Thurs.

Plus I'll probably teach the RS lesson this week

since I don't know who all has been called to

do what this week and don't want to rock that boat...

So... long story short (ish) there may NOT be

a ton of blog posts this week.

OH!

And I need to run over to the eye glasses place

and have them do something about my new glasses.

I have to squint to see out of them.

They are better than nothing, but not $235 worth of better.

Everything is still blurry and out of focus.

So... tweaking is necessary.

Anyhow.

Hope you are having a good week!

We went out on the patio last night and

watched the lunar eclipse until the mosquitoes

discovered we were out there and tried

to drink my (readily available) blood.

It was really pretty!