July 9, 2022

Weather/Nature

And the rains came. After two modest rains earlier in the week of 1/4 and 1/2 an inch, yesterday and overnight last night we got a total of 3 inches. It poured. The ground had been so dry that when it was light enough to see this morning, there wasn’t a puddle on the ground; it all soaked right in to the eager soil. The leading edge of the thunder storm brought high winds, so corn was my concern in the night. Most of it now being over 8′ tall, if it lodged at this point, I’m not sure it would be able to stand itself back up. Thankfully it was strong and hung in there.

Down On The Farm

More cucumbers, okra, cabbage, zucchini and kale are entering the house daily. We’ve put up enough cucumber pickles to have a quart per week for the next year. We filled a three gallon stone crock with sauerkraut that will now ferment for a few weeks. We’ve got to either freeze or pickle cabbage now, since we only have the one crock for sauerkraut. Riley has started seeds for the fall garden which will include things for winter storage in the cellar. These will be ready to plant later this month and will be in the ground until the first frost. John and Quinn also worked on the strawberry patch this week to weed it and mulch with old hay.

The pigs are benefitting from lots of garden scraps, which lowers our feed bill. They are growing nicely and haven’t caused any trouble – yet. The three chicks that hatched are doing well, and we are incubating another eight in an electric incubator.

Best Thing We Ate

Pizza Hut with friends!

From Family Worship

Our friends, the Samilian’s, joined us last night for family worship, which was a delight. We read John 14 together and had a very encouraging group discussion on some of the highlights of the chapter. The slowness of the disciples to believe, the instruction of Christ to obey his commands out of love for him, the promise of Jesus to send the Holy Spirit, were themes we thought and talked about as families.

Other Happenings

Brian and Katie, along with their girls (Olivia, Charlotte and Rachel) drove up from Jacksonville on Thursday to visit us for the weekend. We’ve known the Samilian family for 16 or 17 years, all the way back to before either of us had any children, and we’ve been good friends all these years. We went to the lake yesterday and have some more fun planned.

A follow up on our newest farm addition, Presby. One evening a feral, half-starved dog showed up and killed two of our chickens (that aren’t normally out). I was out that evening, so Erica put the dog in our kennel so I could deal with it later. When John heard the standard fate of feral dogs that start killing valued livestock, he began an earnest and prolonged protest, oft repeating the lines, “He doesn’t have a family”, and “He was being careless”. We went out the next morning to get a good look at the culprit and he surely was pitiful. We let him out and decided to see what he would do, and he showed himself to be a friendly and sweet dog – maybe John was right. So the next day we started feeding him and petting him more, and it seems he’s here to stay. He stays outside and sleeps on the porch at night, and is a good companion for Anya during the day. Why Presby? Because we’re Presbyterians of course!