Late August farm update

Our young Dexter heifer "Sandie" went into heat Friday, so we had a second and last shot this year to get her artificially inseminated. K8 lured her into the trailer with sweet grain, and she spent the night in the Vet's corral for an early Saturday morning AI. Used semen from a red, polled Dexter bull from Georgia. We hope she becomes pregnant and then calf in May. If not, we'll have to try again in late February for a late Fall calving. I don't like calving in the summer heat with all the flies.

We had to take down part of Mom's garden fence and her gate, because her greenhouse arrived yesterday.

K2 won't be happy that we had to bust the post holding the gate...too much cement anchoring it in the ground. 

But it had to be done because of the large size of greenhouse.

The Mesimer boys are all strong and manhandled it into position. They'll be back in a few months to show Mom how to cover it and hook-up the wood heating stove and electric blower. We plan on eating fresh tomatoes year round from now on!

Need more weight!

After putting in new gates on brother's farm, we hauled away the old stuff to recycling.

But we had a problem. The old gates were 16' long and our truck bed is only 8". We needed to weigh down the part in the truck, so we added sand bags, big rock and a little guy. Not quite enough, so...

...we added a medium guy with an iPhone. Seemed to work just fine on the short drive to recycle center.

Arrived safely and dumped our load. Doing our part to keep the environment clean.

An usually cool, wet, and green August on the farm

Now that the heavy rain storms have ended, and the stream is down to a normal size and flow...

...the cattle are back across the stream eating lots of fresh grass.

They also eat leaves off of bushes and trees.

We had the Fencing Crew back to repair some of our fence lines, and install two new gates at my brother-in-law's place. K7 is throwing a lighted match at the bottom of the fence, because work was halted when they discovered several yellow jacket nests in the ground along the fence line.

The new gates make it so much easier to get in and out. 

New driveway

Our three year old driveway has been beaten down by many rain storms, and encroached by grass.

We had a mini "grand canyon" created at the front gate by the heavy rains a month ago.

And we have always had a major rut on the side of house leading to the back yard and corral.

I ordered several loads of chat (small gravel) from a friend, and then he spread it with his back hoe.

Looks good...until the first major rain storm (hopefully not until Spring).

Bat woman?

Stopped by health food grocery while in the "big city", and spotted this bat taking a nap. Doubt if it is healthy if hanging out in well lighted public place.

Honda's new face?

We had some time to kill while KT's Ridgeline was in the Honda shop, so we checked out the new Accord. Wiley liked it.

We all liked the leather seats.

But we couldn't figure out how to flip down the back seats. Why was Wiley looking for an escape route?

Because of the snapping Momma turtle.

Look who's going to public school...

At least part time. They started Wednesday morning at 0800, and attend the first two periods at the local high school. K7 is taking Algebra II and English. K8 is taking Marine Junior ROTC and English. They both begin early morning Seminary class at Church this Monday at 0600. 

K8 came home from school today and was excited about being issued his uniform, complete with foul weather jacket and boots. Says he wants to join the Drill team which practices before school.

What do Marine cadets eat? Chocolate chip pancakes that they prepare themselves.

He also wants to try out for the MJROTC rifle team.


UPDATE on K7 job search. He has an interview Monday afternoon with the biggest and most popular restaurant in town. Can you guess? They specialize in multiple types of chopped beef sandwiches and always ask, "...do you want fries with that?"

New pup name change - she is now "Daisy"

K8 once overheard KT and Danny talking about girl names they liked - for future daughters - and Ruby was one of them. 

After naming his pup Ruby, I heard from KT.

I agreed with her that, as cute as the pup is, it would be much better to change her name than to have a grand daughter and pup both named Ruby.

After a few days of pondering and family discussion, K8 vetoed names suggested by his older brothers and sisters. 

I won't bother listing the various suggested names.

K8 finally settled on "Daisy" as her new name. Cute name for a cute pup. She is going to be big and solid, with great big teeth and a deep growl. Daisy will be an awesome farm dog. I can't wait!

The boys took her out one day last week and wore her out. I met up with them in town since they were headed to play practice. She slept all the way home.

Money matters

Since K7 turned 16 last month, he is determined to get a job and make money. He had a good job interview at Subway, but he didn't get hired because he is not willing to work on Sundays. The owner liked him and said she would keep his application in case she hires someone for the Sunday opening. He then submitted an application to the other fast food place you see in the background - MacDonald's.

K7 is making money in other ways. He sold two of his ewes, and K8 and I each sold one last Friday evening.  Here is a pic of some of our girls eating their mineral of choice - sea kelp mixed with Redmon salt. The animal in the right foreground is not a girl or a sheep. That's Percy, our Saanen wether who roams around the pastures.

I was driving the back roads on my way home Sunday afternoon when a flock of wild turkey flew over the road in front of me. I only had my iPhone, and I was in a hurry, but I got a quick photo.

The Big Musical

The boys spent the last month and a half rehearsing for a musical (which can not be named because the head mouse might send a lawyer). K7 and K8 had singing roles on stage while K2 was the chauffeur, stage crew and spot light guy.  They came dragging in very late most nights after a full day of practice. 

K7 and K8 are middle row on the right. Opening night was Thursday, followed by two shows on Friday night, and three shows on Saturday. There were about 15 youth from our Church in the play. I attended the last show on Saturday, and it was fantastic! 

After a very successful, but grueling week, these guys were ready for a good night's sleep. K8 had two or three roles, as did several other actors.

"Hey, I heard auditions for the next play, Wizard of Oz, are next weekend. I can't wait!" No kidding. K7 is already dreaming of playing the Scarecrow. K8 can't decide between playing a monkey or a monkey. And school starts this Wednesday as well. It's going to remain busy around here.

Last two weeks

Our bull with his little herd, plus a ram and buck. We have three more cows in a separate paddock.

Daughter K5 arrived for a week's visit. We stopped by Baker Creek on our way home from the airport to buy some heirloom vegetable seeds.

                 

K5 used her iPhone to take these great pics. You can see the pollen sacks on the bumblebee's leg!

And you can see the butterfly's "tongue"!

We hosted a Scout campout on the farm the last weekend in July. K2 camped out with them.

A cold front brought rain earlier that day and the temperature dropped into the 60's - didn't have to worry about ticks with it that chilly. 

We were able to trim a few trees of their leaning branches before a series of rain storms arrived. We have since received over 14 inches of rain. The fields have been flooded repeatedly, and some fences are down. Just waiting for the rain to stop long enough for the ground to dry and allow us to get the tractor out in the fields and pull the fences back up.