Christmas is upon us

Paul and I and all the kids made our annual visit to our local Christmas tree farm where we drank hot chocolate and argued over who had found the best tree. Against our better judgement, because he is a poor winner, we picked Nathan's tree! This morning, Paul brought down boxes of decorations out of the attic. Jessie is the only one that really gets into decorating anymore, the other three are kind of tepid about it. Hopefully we will attend the first Sunday of Advent service tomorrow morning. We all have head colds too....that is another holiday tradition! Next week, Jessie and I plan to make Christmas sugar cookies.

Good day for a fire. Hard freeze tonight. 10-12 hours at 20 degrees....brrrrr

Lots of rain

Not a great pic, but about 1 3/4 of inch....and a hard, blustery wind out of the north. The man building our pond called a couple of days ago to say that he was close to coming to our place, but we have mucho standing water again and the rain has probably set that project back quite a while.

Cold calves

That is the goat barn in the background. We are waiting on the trim to come in to finish the exterior, but the walls are finished out with sheathed insulation and plywood to about four feet high. That makes it nice and cozy on the inside for the goats and the dogs. Unfortunately the cows don't have any cover. They were wet and hunched over in the snow this morning and the two poor little jersey heifers where shivering to pieces. They had gotten soaked from the heavy rainfall we had last night. I moved them in with the goats so that they would have protected shelter, and I also moved out a round bale for them and another one for the cows, gave everyone cubes, and cleared tools and scraps from the back section of the barn to make more room. My tractor had also sat out overnight and the snowy seat was very chilling to my seat! I barely made it in time for a 9am appointment with Pam (fitness trainer) at the gym, but I told her that I had already done a warm up!

Winter is here!

Jessie and I got the firewood stacked yesterday, so we were ready. Lots of rain all night long. Snow this morning after 6am. Muddy, wet and miserably cold.....that's winter in Texas! The goats are loving the newly enclosed barn, and it makes me much happier to know that they have nice shelter. That solves some of our farm problems, but not all. Lately, I have consistently seen two coyotes every morning when I go out to feed. Most certainly our chicken slayers who are looking for easy pickings. Yesterday when I spotted them near the barn, I went out to confront them and they were very bold and not easily frightened. I have been shopping around for a new 22 rifle, but the 22 250 is not cheap. We do have an older Remington 22 550-1 which I am going to take to the gunsmith and have him check it out.

Laying hens project

These are next year's layers

Heritage Homestead Thanksgiving Craft Fair

We had beautiful weather the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Nathan couldn't come with us, but Adam and Madeleine rounded out our party. We got to watch the barn go up this year, and the presentation was facinating. Mostly about northeastern barns from the 1800s. The kids had homemade fried cheese, corny dogs and huge servings of ice cream, while Paul and I had farm raised burgers and sweet potato fries. I enjoyed the craft barn the most, and was almost enticed to begin keeping sheep and learn fiber crafts. I bought a huge harvest basket to pick produce in the garden, and a soap shaver to shape my homemade soaps. Jessie and Maddy bought a pottery kit with three big blocks of clay. Although I wouldn't let the kids bring home any puppies, I did bring home 12 barred rock pullets that are now brooding in the pantry.

On top of Mt. Scott

Kind of scary driving up, but really beautiful.

Witchita Wildlife Reserve

Savannah and I visited family in Western Oklahoma the weekend before Thanksgiving. We came home through Lawton and drove through the Witchita Wildlife Reserve. Savannah wanted to see the prairie dogs, and really enjoyed the scenery. She was such good company over the weekend, I didn't mind taking the long way home to go through the park. It was very beautiful. I'd like to camp there soon, it is only a couple of hourse from home and there are many places to explore in the park.

Peter Piper

These peppers aren't the only things getting picked today. I bought Paul a box of 22 short shells and a digital coyote call to "pick" some coyotes tonight. Nate is out with him right now, and asked that his Dad not to pull a Cheney on him. We didn't latch the chicken pen last night and two coyotes raided and killed four chickens...of course they didn't get the ones I wouldn't have missed such as the extra roosters, but instead they got a couple of the special ones that I hatched and two black auracauna hens that I was waiting to see what colored eggs they laid. So bye-bye coyotes.

UPDATE:

The coyotes are safe. I don't know why you were even worried, the great white hunters came back empty handed. Turns out Nathan is not the best partner for a stake out, (something about dancing around with the spot light), and one of the 22s was dropped and broken in the barn on the way out, and the other gun jammed. Not to mention a bunch of nosy cows wanting to know why they weren't invited to the party. Hmmmm....do I hear coyote giggling?

Fall tomatoes

We are supposed to have our first real freeze tonight. Last week we had a drop down to 34, and lost the newer pumpkin vines but nothing else. Early tomorrow the low is forecasted to be 32, so it will probably be a little lower here. I got up early and picked tomatoes, peppers, sugar snap beans, some small pumpkins, and lots of kentucky wonder beans. I took all the tomato and pepper plants off their stakes and laid them down so that maybe some will survive the freeze. All of the broccoli has been maturing too, and I've had to pick five bunches already before they start to flower. It looks like I'll be blanching peas, shelling beans and making lots of broccoli soup this week.

Fall Vegetable Report:

The Porter and Viva Italia tomatoes really started to produce well, but it was impossible to gauge the taste of anything with all the cool and rainy weather we had this fall. Hardly any of the tomatoes ripened outside at all.

The Chile peppers and Jimmy Nardello sweet peppers produced well. Ditto on the ripening. The jalapenos were kind of wimpy.

The cucumbers, luffa, zuchinni, yellow crookneck, hubbard squash and tomatillos all performed miserably. The cucumbers went moldy and fungusy and petered out early.

Fairytale pumpkin was a huge (47.2 lb) success. I won't grow the Jack be Little pumpkins again because the vines are full size and take up too much of my space just to be ornamental. The cheese pumpkin was a slower performer than the fairytale, and the one good specimen rotted when I brought it in the house. Small sugar did okay, but had scanty production.

Volunteer watermelon plants grew well, but the fruit rotted in the rain.

The dill, parsley and other leafy herbs look great. The basil has even held out well.

It was TERRIFIC weather for the peas. I will definitely grow Sugar Snap Peas again. They performed amazing and tasted great. The dwarf gray sugar had a bitter taste, and Wando must be longer maturing because they are so far behind everything else.

Kentucky wonder was very prolific, but I didn't pick it early enough to use as green beans. They were too heavy to use with the woven fence that I bought. Pole beans need a cattle panel or something heavy duty. Bush Lake Beans had much lower productivity, and long maturation than the Contender beans which I would definitely grow again.

Stacked 27 bales of bermuda, each one weighing five hundred pounds a piece. Am I tired? YES. Am I going to the gym today? NO WAY!

Stuck in the goat pen, not even four wheel drive will unstick me

26 sheets of gavalume from 8 to 14 ft lengths. Oh, so undescribably hard to off load and stack.

'Fairytale' pumpkin 47.2lbs

pumpkin face

rain

Sunny day activities

Seemed like a good day to build a hedgehog house.

Erosion

It has been four or five days since it stopped raining, but we still have a considerable amount of water draining from the east and the south. I've put in a call to a guy about evaluating the site for a pond to help with erosion. We are down to rock in places, and its a minimum of 12 or more feet deep.

Need a pond

3.1 miles in 14.31 minutes?

I don't know where they got these stats....seems like wishful thinking!

VA Cross Country teams are going to regionals in Arlington this weekend. Another EARLY morning!

A pile of chicken wings

It was a little hard getting over the bone cracking noises, but we got passed that quickly. Jess was especially impressed by the FDA facility where we had had the chickens slaughtered and processed this morning, because it was a family enterprise and the children were all involved. Jess was glad that she wasn't required to do that as part of her homeschool education!

Cutting and sealing

My sister Brooke and I spent a couple hours in the evening cutting all the chicken into wings, leg quarters and split breasts and then sealed them up for the freezer. I was very tired from a long day, but the work went very quickly with help.

Chicken dinner

Chicken destiny

Jessie and I got up at 5am to load the chickens and drive to 1 1/2 hours to Greenville for processing. FYI, Starbucks is open at 5:30am so that is a good thing.

Tools of the trade

I spent this evening trying to rig up safe transportation for 28 live chickens, and this was the best I could come up with...a rubbermaid tub and an 8ft furniture box. It will do! Jess and I are leaving at 5:30 am tomorrow to transport them to Greenville for processing. I will be glad to have that over with. My sister Brooke is coming over tomorrow night and we are going to cut the chickens up and vaccuum seal them for freezing. I will be a busy day.

What a beautiful (and busy) last couple of days it his has been. The rain has finally stopped, and it has been sunny. It makes me feel as if I should hurry outside and get all the backlog of chores done before the rain starts back up!

Our weekend started Friday night when the whole family, with the exception of Nathan who had worked all day, went to see Where the Wild Things Are. It was an interesting movie and I enjoyed it.

Saturday, Paul and Nate ran a 5k in McKinney. Nate's boys cross country team is going to district next weekend and they need the practice. While they were gone, I took Jessie on a field trip with her Sunday school class to Temple Emmanuel in Dallas. Later that afternoon she had a soccer game in Sherman which her team won. We wound up the day with Halloween activities. Beth and Adam took Jessie trick or treating, she was a vet-wrapped mummy, Savannah went to a church event and a band haunted house with her best friend, and Nate stayed home and ate pizza with us.

Sunday was daylight savings, and would have been an excellent morning to sleep in BUT our doorbell rang at 5:00 am. A neighbor thought our horses were out, but they weren't ours. They live on the property behind us, but the man says they belong to the previous owner. We tracked them in the dark and called the Sheriff's office. They sent out a very nice deputy who made sure they had a place to go and weren't a danger to people driving. I got to see the sun come up!

Jessie went to Sunday School and Savannah went to church with her friend, but the rest of us spent Sunday morning at home for a change. Paul and Jessie helped me plant blackberries. Paul dug the holes, Jess drove the riding lawnmower and trailer with dirt, water and plants; and I kneeled up and down planting the rootings and watering. My back is still killing me! Then a man from Whitewright came to pick up our Dexter bull King. It was an effort to load him, because he got upset by the commotion and broke through the pen, then stuck his head under the fence and lifted two tposts totally out of the ground. We spent all lot of time running back and forth trying to contain him. It took us 1 1/2 hours, and then by sheer luck we got him into the trailer! I was really happy, because this was a much better fate than the sale yard. Paul and I finished up the evening with dinner out, and two magararitas had me totally unconcious....I was EXHAUSTED.

Today is Monday, and Jessie and I finished the last two rows of blackberries. We put in over 100 really good looking plants with lots of roots. I am going to water again on Thursday to give them a good start, and then I think we are looking at chances of rain again next Sunday or Monday. A full week looms ahead with piano lessons, a sports booster meeting, a district cross country meet and a basketball scrimmage.

Halloween and huge pumpkin

After debating the different merits of being a Clone trooper from Star Wars or Indiana Jones, Jessie settled on being a classic mummy. It was much less expensive, and more creative. She looked great! I think it took about 7 rolls of white vet wrap from Tractor Supply.

Despite all the rain, this Fairytale pumpkin is continuing to thrive and grow...and not rot, thank goodness!

Hallelujah...rain is done. 13.75 inches for October!

I think this is the last of it for a little while. There is NO rain in the forecast for the next five days or so. It's cool though, so it will take it a while to dry out. We are trying to get rock hauled in for our driveway which is rutted out and full of potholes. Well it's no wonder...13.75 inches of rain in October is absolutely incredible. We've had more than Dallas because in today's paper, the Dallas Morning News reports a total of 14.5 inches at DFW airport for September AND October. That is 31 days of rain since September 1st, including 19 days this month. The paper reports more than 1400 washed out soccer games, pecan growers with orchards full of nuts but no way to harvest them, and tomato growers with fruit splitting on the vine. It is very hard on the animals as well. I've managed to find cover for everybody except the adult cows, but the boy goats are crowded in more than I like. I've also been worming everybody like crazy. A man from Whitewright has purchased our Dexter bull King, and he is going to be here Sunday afternoon to pick him up. It should be a slip sliding experience.

5.25 inch total for this rainfall

Emptied out 4.5 inches and it continued to rain throughout the day. I didn't get out to photograph it, but the next reading was .75 inches to give a total of 5.25 inches for a 24 hour period.

Pumpkin progress

Getting a lot more of these pumpkins now, although many are rotting on the vine before getting any bigger than a golf ball. Unfortunately, those that do make it probably won't have time to mature. We have less than 10 days to average first frost.

Rain gauge

3 minutes of fame

KXII at noon - October 15 - Master Gardener Minute - "Saving Seeds"

I was an hour early and got to fret a little bit before going into the studio. It was over in a flash. Rita Cotay was extremely nice. I babbled through it talking about 90 miles an hour, but when I got home and watched it on tape, I was happy that I didn't look as bad as I thought. Low expectations I guess!!

Waiting to go on...waaay early

Water draining off fields from the east

Speckles, Suzette and Abby

Spunky

Get out of the water Spunky!

You'll catch your death!

No seeum my boots

View to the northwest

View to the north

Growing every day, must like this rain

And still raining this morning

I am wondering if we are going to qualify for any rain records this October! I could hear the seasonal creek to our north boundary, roaring as soon as I went to check out my garden. Closer investigation of the ravine in the back revealed thousands of gallons draining off the fields. Truly amazing. I heard the storms hit in the early morning hours and I immediately started worrying about the two middle kids driving to cross-country before school while it was stormy and dark. I got up earlier than usual, 6ish, to give them their marching orders. Drive careful, drive slow, take my truck (gasp), and text me as soon as you arrive. Stormy weather is much more stressful when you are a parent... and a farmer. All the livestock is covered in mud and I'm struggling to keep them out of standing water. The areas they traverse around the barns and gates are not navigational. Its a mess!

Fairytale pumpkin

Persimmon

This rain was from 3:30a to about 8ish Friday Oct 9th. Cold weather has taken me by surprise. I don't have the goat barn ready for winter yet. We are just drowning in rain and mud.

First Graders Day at the Grayson County Fair

Lots of rain