Yay June

Well we've finally had some nice warm weather! Three days of 80's, but it's supposed to cool down for the next few days.

The dandelions have come and gone.  I picked over the lawn for two days and collected enough blossoms for a batch of dandelion wine.  That burbled right away for some days.  Things have been quiet for a few days and I need to rack it (siphon it off the sediment) and let it settle for a few weeks so I can get it in the bottles.

The lilac put on a good show this year, but the blossoms are fading now.  The columbine are in full bloom, singles and double, blue, white, pink.  The rocket is in full bloom, and the first bearded iris opened today.

Hit and miss with the veggies.  Older green bean seed failed again, but the purple podded which I saved seed from last year has come up nicely.  Peas are up.  Older lettuce seed was rather a bomb, with just a few random lettuces and a lot of weeds.

We had a moose walk up the driveway and through the lettuce bed and then up on the lawn-I didn't see it, but I wondered what dug the big hole in the freshly planted lettuce patch and then realized it was a moose track.  I back-tracked it up the driveway and it was headed towards the lawn. Just took a short cut through the garden and mis-stepped off the path, lol.

Turnip greens overwintered and are in blossom.  It also blossomed last fall and volunteers are coming up all through the bed.  The collard green didn't overwinter or set seed this year.

Garlic planted last fall is looking good.  Onion sets have sprouted.  Older beet seed sprouted well.  Older dill, basil, parsley, marigold showed poor or no germination.  Older zuccini and summer squash seed appear to have failed, but older acorn squash sprouted at least 20% and have a few nice seedlings in several mounds.

Older pumpkin seed has a few seedlings coming per mound.  Sunflower seed germinated.  Zinnias have failed, but cosmos and impatiens are coming.

old cherry tomato seed has sprouted.  I have 5 out of ten, two year old asparagus crowns have thrown up one stalk each.  The largest one was snapped by Jenny the goat, who discovered the electric fence was off and after stuffing herself in the woods walked through the asparagus bed on her way to the gate.

I broke down and bought a six pack each of early girl and roma tomatoes, and one of cayenne peppers @ $2.50 per 6 plants. 

I had a bunch of potatoes left from three 50 pound sacks I bought last fall.  I also had started digging out the eyes of the ones we were eating late winter and wrapping them in a bit of paper toweling and sticking them in a plastic grocery sack.

I planted the sprouted eyes  a week or so before I planted the well sprouted leftover potatoes. I really wondered about saving the eyes, but those came up very well!! And it has taken a couple weeks for those long sprouted whole potatoes to start showing green, but it has finally happened.  I just have to keep hilling them, and then we shall see how they turn out.

I am really looking forward to some new red potatoes! Too bad the parsely didn't germinate, nothing like new reds steamed and served with butter and parsley! YUM!

I usually don't bother with potatoes because they take a lot of space, and I bought those 50 pound bags for $6 a bag last fall.  But, if I get any potatoes they will be basically free.  And I had fun trying some different techniques and making new space for them, so at least the ground is getting worked.

We are all starving for potatoes here.  Funny, Maine is potato country, too. But the supermarkets are only carrying California potatoes!!! I have been boycotting CA produce because of concerns about things drifting across the Pacific.  I won't say any of the key words.  But I have to wonder why CA potatoes are getting shipped to Maine.

I know Maine still has potatoes available because a truck carrying 40,000 + pounds rolled and dumped potatoes all over the place.

I guess they're shipping the Maine potatoes to California.

Long weekend in Paradise

I am finally getting around to posting the rest of the pics from a couple weeks ago.
But first a quick update on my own goats:

I thought it was time to put Jenny's Mom in with Jenny. They immediately got into a knock down, drag-out head-banger. Daphne is half Jenny's size, but she has been herd queen for years and she kept taking the high ground. Jenny wouldn't give up even though she fell down. I broke them up and took Daph out where she stood breathing hard for some minutes.

That means I probably will have to put one of the lesser does in with Jenny, but there is only one house and I don't think Jenny ever bunks with either one of the lesser does. And any of the wethers will most likely be able to beat Jenny up.

My other option is to start taking them on walks and letting her mix with everyone and see how that goes. She is not 100 percent yet as I could see in her bout with Daphne, but I don't like having to keep a goat separate.

Here are some more pics of Willow at the farm:

Willow and little Lori, her momma Lois behind, Maya mare in back.


Willow with Lori's "big Legs"


Willow and Jackson, the biggest goat at the farm.

Friday

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Jenny the goat is much improved and the wayward hen has been staying put.

The ten days of gray wet weather caused a good slug crop, and they in turn have decimated many of my tender seedlings, including two rows of lettuce mix.

We had two glorious days of sun which was a cue for the mosquitoes hordes to come forth.

Now we're back to slug weather, fogged in since sundown last night.

Ah paradise!

gotta love May Showers

But heating all month, too? We have had a very cool wet grey month of May! The slugs are loving it. The sun came out for about 5 minutes yesterday and the temps skyrocketed and the moisture filled the air from the saturated ground. I felt like a mole coming out of hibernation. Then the clouds returned.

The sun did come out for about 10 seconds this morning.

One of my goats ran into some trouble this weekend. She was a bit stiff in the rear on Thursday evening, but I had visitors at feeding time and didn't pay much attention. I was rushed Friday morning and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Friday night I had an unexpected guest right at grain time and Jenny was hiding in a house sitting on her rear like a dog. Her hind end buckled under her when I pulled her out of the house. I finally realized there was a problem.

I got rid of the visitor, secured and fed the rest of the herd, and made Jenny as comfortable as I could, and then ran an emergency divider between the house she was in and the rest of the paddock. My three children helped. One sat with Jenny's head in her lap, one ran insulators under my direction, and one stood ready to chase the other goats off when they came back from their hay.

Jenny seemed very disoriented and weak, and we ran watches on her falling down and getting stuck for two days. A goat friend was sure it was trouble with the hind leg. I thought perhaps a bigger goat had cornered her in the house and beat her up. Or rabies. Or brainworm. Or selenium deficiency. Or CAE.

She seemed slightly improved the second day, and finally I located some nutridrench for goats this morning and gave her 30cc orally. This afternoon she seemed much more aware of her surroundings and even managed to squat to urinate without falling down. She picked at her grain tonight and also her hay, and then I drenched her again. I also bought enough wormer for the whole herd and two selenium mineral blocks.

I'll check on her a few more times before bed tonight to make sure she hasn't fallen and hung up awkwardly against some of the big rocks in the pen. That was a real concern the first night as once I found her laying head downhill and unable to rise on her own.

She was obviously in pain the first 24 hours, so a goat may have been beating on her if she wasn't feeling well. Or just the stress of perhaps getting a leg hung up and then someone beating on her. Not really sure, and I don't feel out of the woods with her yet.

Her mother, Daphne, has seemed a bit upset and Jenny has seemed down. They usually bed down together and I had some thoughts tonight about putting her mom in with her. Jenny is still with the herd, just sectioned off alone. I think I will wait until Jenny is getting around pretty well and then put her mom in with her.

All this talking has made me want to go out and check on her. Prayers welcomed!

Tuesday

Busy couple of days. Put a big push on to get the rest of the wood order stacked. That early dusting of snow, now pretty much gone, worried me. Hard to stack wood that has an ice glaze, and I hate to dig it out of the snow cave that happens if I leave it in a pile under a tarp.

I was sure that I was shorted on the order, but I was wrong. Looks like it was about right. 2.7 cords on that last order, about 2/3 cord left of S's order, 1/3 cord left of last year's, plus a small pile of goat wood. Hopefully it will be enough.

Oh, yeah, it's all stacked. I was shooting for four days of stacking and did it in three-2 days worth of stacking today just to get it finished.

Jenny (Genevieve) had her hooves trimmed today. She has major pockets between both front clews. I tried to flatten them out as much as possible, but one was quite bad and it would have required taking an awful lot off. Boss would have gone further, I am sure. I hoof and heeled it and will try and keep a good eye on them. Maybe go in for another touch up in a week or so.

Caesar, Jenny, Moonshadow all are showing loss of pink in the inner eyelid. Everyone is due for a worming, but I think I will use up the last of the wormer on those three and then hit them all again as soon as I get some more wormer.

Peko had a bath.

Missed a phone call tonight, no message, so I hit *69 to get the number. Was an out of state area code, sounded familiar, so I reverse directoried it. Was given a name an address, right down to the street address. Well, that didn't sound familiar, so I googled a bit tonight.

No kidding, within 15 minutes I was on a family blog with pictures of a young couple and their kids. Plus I had their phone number and home address. Isn't that scary? That just creeped me out!!!! Don't they ever watch those crime shows? Ack.