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     There are mountains beyond those trees in both directions, so unless we are in Oz, I think we are socked in.  At least it is not raining.

     Like so many parts of the country, we have had a series of years that have had some level of drought.  Not so this year, it is again raining.  Normally by the time the hay is mowed, the rains stop and the yard and fields get a parched look to them.  Mowing is reduced to every two or three weeks and the fields are slow to grow to a height that requires a late summer/fall mowing, if it weren’t for the invasive stickweed.  Our mowing of as much of the land as possible and then allowing haying in the spring for the past 2 years has reduced this pest, but as we can’t mow all of the acreage, there are patches of it that persist and it comes up in the hayfields by fall.  This spring and summer have produced many inches of rain above normal.  Hardly a week goes by that the region doesn’t get a flood watch for the creeks and rivers.  The grass continues to grow, thick and tall and it seems we have to pick a semi dry day each week to mow at least around the house and garden.
     I know farm work isn’t always pleasant, but dealing with morning chores in the rain is an unpleasant start to the day.  Today we are looking at 100% chance of rain.  The chickens barreled out of their coop this morning and looked at me like I was responsible for it again being wet.  Some returned immediately to the inside of the coop, others huddled underneath.
     In the past couple of days between storms, I did get the upper hand on the nut and wire grass in the garden beds, put down weed mat and a heavy mulch of hay on the grape bed, mulched the beds of squash, cukes, okra, peppers and tomatoes.  On the positive side, I’m not having to water.

     On the next semi dry day, I still have a section of path that never got a layer of newspaper, weed mat or plastic that needs some work and I have a free source of year old wood chips that I am going to haul to the garden to put in the paths and hope to win the battle of wire grass there too. 

     The mountain laurel is blooming in Pandapas Pond park, hubby’s knee has healed enough for the pups to get a walk and they were happy about it.  The hayfields are mowed, the hay baled, making the property look neat for a month or so, the garden is thriving, and I added two tomato plants from the farmer’s market to replace two that didn’t survive.  The pullets and cockrells are growing, getting close to time to start seeing eggs and time to harvest the rest of the culls.  We have had a great week, survived the summer storm with only a few hours without power, the start of produce from the garden and  good weather for the most part.

     Today was a beautiful day following yesterday’s devasting storms.  Again, we were lucky, suffering no damage and this time only losing power for about 6 1/2 or 7 hours.  That meant dinner out, but that wasn’t a big deal either.

     A beautiful day on the farm means work, for us and for the neighbor haying our fields.   I started off early, moving the compost from the area where we removed the bin structure into one of the existing bins, after raking the area where the temporary chicken pen had been to get the wood shavings and chicken provided fertilizer into a bin.  When my back could take no more of the shoveling for the day (only a small amount of the compost actually moved), I took a break.  After lunch, we took a walk to help strengthen hubby’s knee, then moved hay around the fruit trees in a thick layer for mulch.

Hopefully, this will keep the weeds down, hold the moisture and help the 10 young trees to thrive.  Using some of the hay that was dragged out beyond the baling area, the tomatoes and peppers were also mulched and while working in the garden, the nut and wire grass that has been taking over the grape bed was removed.  Tomorrow, I will put down weed mat and cover it thickly with more hay.

While I was working in the garden, the neighbor was busy with his help, raking and baling the hay he had been mowing for the past few days.  Two of the bales were put within our orchard area to be used for chicken coop maintenance during the winter, 22 more were lined up in the upper field for loading and removal.

Two trailers of 22 bales being hauled away.  The low field and the western most field have been mowed, but not yet raked and baled.  The low field is the largest and where most of the hay will be baled. 
 
The day ended with Jalapeno slaw with the first jalapeno from the garden, garlic beef with mushroom gravy, the garlic provided by a few of the dozens of garlic scapes that have emerged in the past couple of days, and a pot of Farro, my new favorite grain product, washed down with a bottle of Porter, brewed and bottled in Hampton, VA, near my hometown.

A good day, life is good!

     When I bought my new spinning wheel, to get used to it without “wasting” good fiber, I took all the ends and samples that I had around and started spinning, adding the next bit when the bit I was working on was gone.  This had me spinning Merino and Merino/silk blend that I had used before, but also got me to try an assortment of other fibers such as Llama, Llama/Mohair, Corriedale wool, Blue Faced Leicester/silk blend, Alpaca, Shetland/Llama, Pendleton/Angora, Llama/wool, Cottswold Tunis cross wool, and Shetland/Mohair blend.  Some of the samples were neutral colors, some bright and vivid.  When they were all spun into a lightweight single ply, I spun an equal amount of Blue Faced Leicester that was undyed into another lightweight single ply.  I worked on this at the weekly spinning group to which I belong, The Spunsters, and when we arrived home after the wicked summer storm that hit and discovered that the power was out, I finished that bobbin and plied the two singles together to produce this

a delightful funky 320 yards of fingering weight yarn.
     For years, I have wanted to knit a blanket or throw for cold mountain nights and this this might be the start of it, a bit of color, a bit of natural, all handspun.  Since I have other handspun left from other projects or never designated to a project, perhaps I will use it too and make my blanket, not only one I knit, but one I spun first.
     As for the power outage, it got our neighbor out here to finish mowing the hay, since they had no power either, and just as he finished and darkness was falling, the lights came back on, only 6 1/2 hours this time.  Not bad considering every household in our entire county was without.

     These are some of the accoutrements of farming currently parked on our acreage.  There are two huge tractors, one with a baler, one pulling a monstrous gooseneck trailer.  Three smaller tractors, one with a trailer, one with a hay tether and one with a rake.  Another with a rake went home and yesterday there were two sickle bar mowers attached to two tractors, maybe two of these, maybe different ones and none of them are ours.  I guess it is too much trouble to trade out the attachments on these beasts, I know our brush hog is a bear to put on and take off, so they just keep adding tractors to put all of the attachments on.  Not all of these tractors belong to the neighbor who is doing our haying, the one pulling the baler belongs to his neighbor, but he maintains it and gets to use it.  One or two belong to his uncle who raised him and lives on the same farm.
     Our little tractor and brush hog mowed the 5 or 6 acres we keep groomed as a lawn today, hauled a load of scrapwood to the burn pile, moved a load of compost to a different area of the garden to start 2 half barrels of potato starts and made this work much easier on me than if I had to do it all with a push mower and wheelbarrow.
    

     It has been a few days since there was a post on this blog.  We have been waterlogged and I just couldn’t bring up enough creative energy to blog, but today the skies finally cleared.  We went into town to stock up on chicken and dog foods and to get lunch.  It was still somewhat overcast, but no real rain expected.  When we got home, the neighbor who hays for us for the bulk of our hay was here and they got the upper parts of the yard mowed and turned in preparation for baling it tomorrow.  The big hayfield, the lowest part of our land is still too wet, but hopefully will be dry enough for haying this weekend.  We hope this will reduce the tick load, they have been terrible this spring.

     For past readers, you know we have two pups.  One, a German Shepherd, about 14 months old and still puppy hyper and unfortunately shedding horribly and doesn’t like to be brushed.  The other, an English Mastiff about a year and a half old and nearly 200 pounds, a true gentle giant, but like others of his breed, selectively deaf.  Last evening, just before dark, I took them out one at a time, hubby is still healing from his surgery on his knee and I am trying to limit his climbing the stairs more than necessary.  Ranger, the beast spotted some critter in the tall hay on the edge of the property and took off barking.  Not to be disuaded from this pursuit, he ignored my calls and I couldn’t see him in the tall hay from the ground.  Eventually, he came back, but seemed to be having some digestive issues, finally came in the house.
     Also, for new readers, eldest son (ES) and I built a chicken ark/tractor, a moveable pen for the cull birds and it is lined on the lower half and ends with hardware cloth. The structure is A frame and it is a struggle for me to reach in to get the waterer in and out and in doing so, I scratched my inner forearm the first day and cut the side of my pinky finger, probably enough to need stitches (didn’t happen) two days ago on the edge of the hardware cloth.
     This morning in the wee hours, around 4:45, I was awakened by the sound of heavy rain falling on the metal roof and by a smell.  Mastiff’s can clear a room when they fart and I assumed that was the case, but it didn’t go away, it got worse.  Finally we turned on lights and it wasn’t farts.  Cleaning up after a 200 pound dog, sick at both ends, at 5 in the morning is not my idea of a good start to the day.  Doing it while trying not to involve the badly injured finger, to keep it clean and dry made it less fun.  Once that was done, sleep seemed elusive at best, but I got back in bed.  Less than 30 minutes later he was whining and nosing me to get up and let him out (I’m the morning caregiver) and he went out into the pouring rain, spotted something to bark at and chase and wouldn’t come back in.  That meant dressing, finding shoes and going after him in the rain.  Finally back in, we all settled for an hour until both dogs wanted out.  I gave up on sleep at this point, dressed again and turned them out in the pouring rain.  Shadow returned after doing her business, wet but came in for breakfast.  Ranger would not come in and I refused to chase him down again.  Generally, once she is in, he returns on his own and he did, looking like a 200 pound drowned rat.  Towel dried and fed, breakfast fixed for me, I awaiting a lull in the driving rain to go deal with the chickens.  The culls go through their food container and their water container daily.  To access the inside of the chicken tractor, one 100 inch long side lifts and can be propped up, but any birds up on the perches when you do this can escape.  I managed to chase all but one down into the bottom, but she escaped.  After they were fed and watered, the top closed, she had to be caught, single handedly.  There are places if she would go that would make it easier to do, but she wanted back in with her buds and just circled the tractor trying to find a way in.  Meanwhile, in spite of my GoreTex jacket, I am getting soaked.  She is finally back in the pen, the girls came out of the coop, discovered it was not to their liking and scooted under it.  I am back inside, jeans and socks wet, rain jacket hanging in the shower and dreaming of moving to Australia.
     Ranger is getting the sleep he denied me.

     Yesterday, the missing parts ordered for my new wheel arrived and the wheel assembly was finished.  Over the year that I have been spinning, I have accumulated a few small bunches of roving of various fiber, some from just not finishing roving I was spinning, some the wee giftees from the friend from whom I purchased my first wheel, and a few left from when I was drop spindle spinning.  I pulled out some Merino, an easy to spin fiber and tried out the new wheel.
     It is a learning curve to change wheels, I don’t know how people with multiple wheels manage it.  The first few tries resulted in the roving getting too thin and disappearing onto the bobbin while I still had the rest in my hands.  After a number of false starts, I got the hang of it, I thought, and spun the remaining few yards of Merino, switching to a Merino/Silk blend and feeling pretty good about the wheel when the roving broke and I lost the end on the bobbin.  After trying to find it for a while, I gave up.  Today I resumed looking for the lost end to no avail and cut the single near where the end should be and worked backward until I had a solid single to begin on again.
     This afternoon has been a fun experiment, using Corriedale in vivid colors, Blue Faced Leicester/Silk blend and pure Alpaca to create a funky bobbin of single that I am going to ply with a neutral and use to knit blanket squares.  Maybe someday, there will be a blanket or throw to warm us on a cold evening and it will be made entirely of homespun yarn.

     I am in love with my new wheel and still adore the spinning process.

     I am a consumate hippy.  Recycling and using cloth reuseable shopping bags have been my habits long before it was popular.  But nut butter jars, especially the square one and oil bottles with a neck too small for a bottle brush are almost enough to want me to just toss them in the trash.


Seriously, how do they expect you to clean those corners?

It is going in the dishwasher and then it gets recycled, hopefully cleaner than this.