Time for talking

It's one of those blog entries with few pics and lots of words...ahhhh..you know you love it :)

Seriously, poison ivy is impossible to kill.  I have cut and pulled by hand in Knoxville vines over an inch thick that ran for several yards, but here I have used a multi-insane strength Round up.  All plant known to man around the ivy falls over dead while the ivy might lose it's luster.  So I spray, and spray

and spray

sigh and spray

every day for a week until....tuh duh.. we have lost the ivy's luster.  Another week passes and it finally curls up and turns brown although I am not too sure it's completely gone.  It most certainly isn't gone like it's neighbors were a week ago.

We have potato beetles and now cabbage worms and I'm sick of it.  Is it not enough that I plant, hoe, weed by hand, harvest and spend hours a day every day out there to torment me with more pests!!??  How did the ancestors survive?  Some say guinea hens, but they're originally from Africa.  So, I find it hard to believe that my ancestors fought the Colorado potato beetle on a plant originally from South America with a bird from Africa.  Btw, Sevin does not work on them, and has in fact been banned in almost every major country except the US.  It also killed thousands in one of it's third world country factories when there was an explosion several years ago.  So I spend hours a day picking the blasted things by hand.  Unfortunately, I got sunburned on my back doing so, even though I was being extremely careful, and the burn is getting worse, not better, so I haven't worked outside in two days.  The weeds have overtaken it all, and I feel horribly behind and lazy. 

sigh

But, we have gotten something done.  The root cellar has been put off even longer for various reasons, and we have bought an old fridge that we turn down to use until then.  It is on the back porch with the deep freeze and....OUR NEW ROOF!!!

We finally got our back porch roof put on.  It's cleaned up quite a bit, but there's still a bit more to go as you can see.  We still have to put the rest of the metal over the end of the trailer and tie it in to everything.

We'll store our cheese in it too as it ages.  I'm waiting for the end product to post, but I have made two kinds of cheddar and several mozzarella batches.  The mozz of course doesn't age, and, in fact, still requires some perfecting.  Once that is done I can edit my original post and it will be very handy for those not wanting to use cultures or any other additives but raw milk and rennet.  Nice huh!

Our diet has become pretty meatless of late.  With the lettuce going to seed I harvest a new plant every few days.  We munch on lettuce, homemade cheese sticks/balls, and cheese pizzas, milk, eggs, etc.  We eat actual meat about twice a week maybe.  We'll make up for it later I'm sure.

Got my first tomato today!  Yellow.  The potatoes are also humping up quite a bit and will be ready for harvest with the onions soon.  Now, I must ask an old friend for a recipe as I must harvest my beets tomorrow.

Garden update

Thought I would update the garden.  As usual, these are all a bit out of date.  They SAY they were taken on the 30th, but I'm not sure they're that recent.  If so, it's been even busier than I thought!

Our crow deterrent.  It worked rather well.  It's down now as the corn is tall enough they are no longer interested in it.  We have just enough time in the year, in fact, to plant another bit of corn, so the net will be placed in a new location with more corn.

My peas were REALLY good this year, but the trellis needed to be better, and it has gotten too hot for them.  The peas are dying off now, so I have forgone any harvesting in order to utilize the rest for seed by letting them dry on the plant.

 Marcus just isn't very good at some things, so I have given him the chore of weeding my flower beds since I just can't do it anymore-not enough time.  I think he's doing really well so far, don't you?

 One day's harvest of potato beetles.  Potato beetles are not only resilient to Sevin now, but I also discovered that Sevin is banned in every major country but the US, AND it caused thousands to die in the factory it has in a third world country overseas.  Hmmm...

 The koles are doing very well.

 Red cabbage

 Regular cabbage

 Buttercrunch

 Romaine-the lettuces really went wild recently.  We have stopped the outer leaf harvesting and are pulling up entire plants as they are going to seed.  I'm leaving one or two to use for seed for next year.

 Red lettuce

 Red romaine

 I have zucchini growing now-won't be long!

The dying peas

 The onions are going to seed.  The onions I grew from seed this year are doing so well, that I will save some seed from these for next year.

 If you're really good, you can see my onions here.  These are the ones from seed.  Suffice it to say, I am the only one able to weed the carrots and onions without pulling up actual plants.

 Leeks

 The cabbage we grew from seed.  Don't appear to have much difference between these and the transplants!

 Left to right-beets, beets(different kind) carrots.  Again, you can see why I'm the only weeder of the carrots

 Pole beans and melons

 Potatoes, lots and lots of potatoes.  It takes me 3-4 hours to bug these.

 Some of the corn that made it

 Our tomatoes are doing well

Gone fishing

 There are some really big fish below, the pic just didn't capture them.

 That's a big grub!  It bit Arlis when he reached in the bucket.

 Our compost was just full of goodies for bait!

Wool today, Schnauzers tomorrow

We bought a flock of 7 sheep:

One ewe-"Momma"

 One yearling ram

 One lamb-boy (he's fine, just looks dead)

 One ram-Buck

 One lamb-girl (two pics, one lamb)

 One white ram

 One yearling ewe

We did not plan on shearing this year.  They were past due.  We had to learn everything quickly.  We also had to buy more.  Suffice it to say, I did NOT learn quickly or easily, or quite frankly too well.  We shopped online and bought a clipper at Tractor Supply.
This is the brand everyone said to get.

 Oh what a nice little box

 Oh my-ummmm....

 These were "sheep blades" according to the salesman there (that we are quite familiar with by now) of the same brand.  Now, here's where it gets complicated-GASP:
They sold us Lister Star-clippers of about 80 Watts for clipping horse manes and cattle for shows.  The blades are for shears-specifically made for sheep and wool.

We took it all back and bought actual shears online from a US Lister dealer.  Furthermore, EVERYTHING sheep comes from the UK...period.  The company called us to tell us we don't want shears, we want clippers b/c shears are for people who know what they're doing.....BUT, the clippers they were selling us are the Lister Laser 2.  A significantly more powerful machine (about 140 watts or so).

 And bigger

And heavier...

 And...more complicated...

 They also convinced us to purchase an extra set of blades as one pair will only do so many b4 you have to sharpen them.

 So, yesterday morning, we set out, scared sheepless to have to shear these things.  My main fear being of them getting hurt, or getting scared and hurting us.  Marcus stayed in, but came out later around sheep #5 to watch.  The first sheep took probably 30 minutes or more.  You have to oil, oil, oil, and it's good we bought them b/c I tried to roo more and they wouldn't.  Only that one ewe, only on her neck area...hmm..  SO, We did "Momma" first b/c we wanted to start with an easy one, but not a lamb.  I got to her poopy rear and literally fought back wads of vomit and tears as I noticed maggots crawling out of her flanks.  Blowflies.  We have opted to shave all sheep all year around the rear to prevent this and to dock all lambs not intended for slaughter as well.  Trust me, I love animals, and docking is far preferable to this.  Look it up, I couldn't bring myself to take pictures. Momma is a nursing mother, and we couldn't eat an animal in that condition.  We were worried.

I did a horrendous job.  I got better and managed to trim up some of the first ones when I got done.  I was truly grateful for the extra set of blades, and not having shears.  I still have to clean them.  I then found treatment for the blowflies and sped to get it and hoof clippers (the tin snips would not cut them) along with treatment for foot rot.  I ran back and we treated Momma (who actually appeared grateful), and clipped all but Buck's hooves as Buck will soon be ground lamb burgers.  They have foot rot.  I trimmed what I could and plan to trim again when I retreat Momma after 7 days and treat them for it.  They were so overgrown, and I am so inexperienced, that I wanted to trim more later if that makes since.

The after pictures-no laughing please, I did my best.  And I might add my entire arm from the neck down hurts like I ran the marathon on one arm-that thing is HEAVY!  I give you my little Schnauzers.