After 3 weeks of frenzied activities with us, Sherry is returning Remy to MN this morning (along with 13 kittens, so place your orders with Luke and Julie for one of them). It was such fun having him here with us. He got to do so much and helped us harvest hay, blackberries, peaches, walnuts, watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash and more. He got to meet and help care for all of the chickens and the feral cat family with all their new kittens. He even performed a burial ceremony for one tiny runt that didn’t survive. He got over his fear of the water and is now ready for swimming lessons.
Already looking forward to his next visit.
Here are some pics from his stay with us:
Fishing the Jacks Fork river.Filling the chicken feeders.Washing all 3 cars with his own brush – just like papa.Cleaning off the poop trays. These sit under the chicken roosts in the coops and get quite nasty.Perfecting his swing.Feeding by hand. Who needs gloves?Picking peaches. it’s PEACHY!A huge bounty of peaches – from a single tree.Helping with the chores hauling water to the coops.Harvesting Black Walnuts.In the feral cat lair – 3 feral mamas, 2 teens and 13 kittens share this space with Gekko, a one eyed rooster.Boiling eggs to feed back to the chickens. One egg is mixed into the feed for all the birds.Digging a grave for Alex.Placing “Alex”, the feral runt who died into the freshly dug grave.No fresher than just picked.Appropriate dress for the farm (but too warm for me).Digging worms in our worm bed.Cooling off in the Current river. 11 miles up the road from the farm.The feral cousins. This is actually 3 litters worth from 3 mamas.One of 13 (surviving) furry babies.VBS performance at church.Water cannon fight?Helping out hauling hay.Fresh blackberries.A box o’ kitties. Guessing there are 14 or so in there.
Most everyone around here did their first cutting a month ago. However, it took us a while to line up someone to complete ours (since we lack the machinery). He started cutting on Monday and finished about 1/3 of the area we wanted harvested before the PTO broke on his tractor. Then he raked and baled that area before moving on to the rest of it.
The results of that initial cutting below.
Last year, our field (about 8 or 9 acres) produced 221 bales but it was an exceedingly dry summer and the farmer said we should expect double that in a normal year. Well this year, that 1/3 initial area that was cut produced 300bales!
With minimal drying time, I was leery of storing it in the barn so is under a huge tarp out below the shop. With rain forecast, it is now wrapped pretty tight. If it doesn’t spontaneously combust before then, we’ll uncover for more drying when the forecast clears.
Luckily, I had help with Remy staying with us for a few weeks. Here we are hauling the final load to the hay pile. I have a dozen bales in the big trailer with Remy pitching in with his tractor and trailer.
The “next batch” was cut on Wednesday and then raked and baled on Thursday late into the afternoon. Also, after asking the farmer to tighten up the bales a bit, we ended up with ONLY an additional 252 (heavier) bales to add to the 300 already under the tarp. We had no choice but to leave it in the field overnight (with a 40% chance of rain).
Thankfully, it stayed dry and we set out to get it under cover this morning. We finished moving all of the new bales into the shop by 1PM. We stacked it loose with plenty of airflow so it can dry out more in there.
We’ll let it settle in there for a week before moving it under the barn lean-tos. Now, nearing 4PM, the skies are rumbling and rain is approaching. So, we are extremely glad to be done with that fiasco.
God is good!!! Anyone need any hay? Our total of 540 is about 400 bales more than we needed.
You could see this coming a mile away. It was their only remaining option. Not to mention after repeatedly disparaging more than half the country and wailing about the impending threat to democracy, it’s no wonder we ended up here.
Just about what you would expect from those that have been gaslighting everyone for years. Who still believes what they spew out?
Now, we await the identity of the (now) dead shooter, as well as their affiliations. For those dependent on the MSM, if it is negative, you will NOT hear anything more. If it is positive, they will amplify it to no end. Just another day in the life.
In the hours since, we learn that NOW we need to tamp down talk of retaliatory violence. But up to now, that’s been fair game with Mumbles declaring the need to “put Trump in the crosshairs”.
But for months, we’ve been told half that the country are MAGA terrorists, and that Trump is a psychopath worse than Hitler, who must be stopped at all costs to save our democracy – while his supporters are imprisoned at every opportunity.
The fact that that this young woman would get on a public platform and say what she said proves that point. The Left has done a good job in demonizing President Trump and his supporters and now we clearly see the results.
They called him an illegitimate president. They said he was a threat to democracy and had to be stopped. They unleashed a legion of agents to investigate him, searched his home and broke historic barriers by indicting him. Then they rigged a trial in a bid to put him in prison. They called him un-American and worse. Their lawyers and activists fought to keep him off the fall ballots in a dozen blue states as a way — get this — to defend democracy. They are still trying to bankrupt him and confiscate his businesses. And now they have shot him.
With the core of (what’s left of) Beryl passing overhead now, the rain is relentless. I had to empty our rain gauge (at 5″) before it overflowed. That’s after I emptied it yesterday after 2″ so we are at 7″ total in this storm so far.
We’ve been under a flood watch for a few days that are now turning to warnings for the rivers in the area. Luckily, we are situated pretty high but travel is quite interesting. Even being at a higher elevation, the standing water pooling in the yard is a pain but thankful that is all we have to worry about.
This is so typical of the gaslighting that has been painfully obvious to many the past several years. But are automatically labelled as MAGA-Extremists if they dare to bring it up.
Instead, we are schooled that Mumbles McGoo is a sharp and focused dynamo behind the scenes working late into the evening solving the world’s problems. They just seem incapable of demonstrating that vigor in any public appearance. As each public event approaches, we hear it is a make or break opportunity and just need to watch him astound us all. Then, he reliably falls on his face and we learn it was a cold, his schedule, jet lag, the sun was in his eyes, the dog ate his homework, wasn’t his fault, Trump did it or whatever other feeble excuse appears in his fogged brain.
In the most recent ABC interview, he was asked if he’s had a full neurological exam since the debate, Biden retorted, “I get a full neurological test every day with me.” It was clearly a scripted line and he repeated it twice more in the interview.
“Have you had the specific cognitive tests?” “No. No one said I had to,” Biden said.
Well, his mental health has been in question since before the 2020 contest and now EVERYONE is calling for such a test. To any sane person, that would be a trigger to complete such a test to alleviate those concerns. But not to this self-absorbed mental titan living in his own dream world though. We are all expected to shut up and go along with it or we are threats to democracy.
As to Dr. Jackson’s original post above, the “apology would be nice” line stands out. How many have heard any such admission or realization that they’ve been constantly fed a line of BS, and those contradicting that BS have been right all along. Now, it has all blown up in their faces.
When they trashed Trump while in office, they are “saving Democracy”. When they trash Biden, they are a “threat to democracy.
And then, they will effortlessly slide into denying the election and interfering in the transfer of power. You know, the thing Trump was accused of and all of those J6 protestors were imprisoned for.
My favorite in these marching orders: “Trump said that the pro-Trump Nazi march in Charlottesville was made up”. Did he? I seem to remember he said the QUOTE of him saying the Nazi’s were fine people was made up (or, selectively edited removing the context where he specifically condemned those idiots) and that fine people comment was meant for those opposing removing of statues from our storied past. In that line of thinking, do we progress to tearing down the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington monument?
I’ve said it all so many times before, I’ll let her sum it up for you.
Anyone who committed the sin of using their own eyes on the 46th president was accused, variously, of being Trumpers; MAGA cult members who don’t want American democracy to survive; ageists; or just dummies easily duped by “disinformation,” “misinformation,” “fake news,” and, most recently, “cheapfakes.”
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove any doubt”.
That’s been replaced with (paraphrasing):
“All it takes for evil to take root in this world, is for the good man to stand by and remain silent”.
Since it is calling me out by name, it strikes a chord but also explains how we got here. Way too many have been sitting on the sidelines, not wishing to make any waves to keep the peace and accepting the constant gaslighting that’s been happening nonstop for 8 years now. Well, how has that worked out for you?
You’ll keep hearing from those that refuse to face reality that Trump is only in it to serve his interests. Well, I’ll let this meme speak to that thought.
I realize many are dealing with monsoon rains and major flooding these days. I just saw the video of the white home toppling into the river at the Rapidan dam in southern MN. That is tragic and my heart bleeds for that family’s loss. It very much reminds me of 1993, when a similar scenario hit the upper Midwest – only to see Missouri succumb to the same flooding later on as both the Mississippi and Missouri river watersheds channel that water downstream.
However, down where we are in the southern part of the state, it’s been stinking hot and we haven’t seen rain in 3 weeks now. It’s supposed to happen overnight tonight and into tomorrow. But the closest we’ve come is a storm that formed overhead, but then moved east and is now “severe” in the bootheel/Memphis area. I am still praying we get something tomorrow though to green things back up.
As for the heat, we are dealing as best we can. Today topped out at 108 (feels like) degrees. 90 degrees is our threshold for running the AC and it’s been on for about 5 days now. I hate AC and having a sealed up house but would rather have it than not. Unfortunately, many of our neighbors (Amish and off grid homesteaders) have no such refuge and are suffering right now.
We also take care to make the critters as comfortable as possible. Jack enjoys the AC (and his personal fan) indoors. The younger dogs are out all day but have plenty of shade on the porch and also enjoy the fans we have set up at the doors to keep the flies away. Lydia acts like a fashion diva laying directly in front of one of them with her hair flying in the breeze. They get plenty of water and today we set up a small wading pool that they jump in to cool down. We also bring them to the river up the road where they get to swim in the cool water.
Incidentally, our pool is now getting much too warm for my liking but has been a godsend that gets used around 4pm each day. I am hoping for some rain to cool it off.
The chickens are uncomfortable but hanging in there. Today, we only had 4 eggs – a record low for the 15 hens. I’ve made canopies for each of the 3 runs and they get plenty of water – both in their waterers and via a sprinkler that they all enjoy. They also have fans in each of the 3 coops.
As of now, the major storm activity is up in the Omaha area but seems to be slowly sliding east and south so we appear to be still lined up for some action later this morning. Let’s hope so.
I wrote most of this post at 1am, when the weather alarm blared for a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. Now at 7:45am, the front of the storm has finally reached us and everything has dropped below the severe level so looking forward to a good ol’ fashioned soaking. No wind. No hail. Just RAIN. Bring it on!!!
I realize we need to get used to the comings and goings of the critters but it’s always hard when a loved and trusted pet departs. With that, we gave Lola a proper send off on Friday evening.
Wouldn’t you know, the very next morning we just got done with the morning feeding and discovered 7 (count them 7) new kitties born overnight in the feral cat lair. The other 2 feral cats are ALSO pregnant so we’ll soon be overrun with them.
All appear to be healthy and have the preferred darker coloring – meaning no Donald clones. “Donald” is the brother of the 3 hyper-fertile mommas that populate our barn cat enclosure and is the one continually impregnating them. Thankfully, we haven’t seen him in weeks and he will be chased off if he shows up again.
Did you know a majority of orange cats turn out to be male? Something like 85% turn out to be male. Now that “Donna” (one of an earlier litter) has grown a bit we checked and sure enough has now been renamed to Don Jr.
These (and the upcoming litters will all be looking for new homes when they are ready. Actually, they are pretty easy to get rid of as others are always looking for barn cats. All it takes is a trip to the Walmart parking lot, or in our case the Dollar General in Summersville and they are claimed within 20 minutes.
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