My favorite section at the bookstore!

Planted this last night. 110 days to maturity. We only have 105 days until our average first frost, so its a gamble. Will order frost cloth.

I have been torching the bindweed but its one versus thousands. I wish I had an attachment lie Elliot Coleman (Four Season Harvest) where I could sweep the ground just prior to seeding.

I love this stuff and so do the bees

Thats alotta rain for here at the end of July! High today only in mid to upper 80s....whats going on?!!

I stirred forever, over an hour, and never got true trace. It looks like it may be setting now hopefully. Next time I am going to make sure both pots are at 80 degrees when I combine. Perhaps the double batch made it harder to combine. The double recipe filled the square mold and four round ones.

Oils and beeswax totally melted

Filtered beeswax from my backyard! Note to self: make more chunk comb honey in 2010 so I can make more cosmetics.

Bees wax is still semisolid in oils at 108 degrees

Melting bees wax, straining through cheesecloth and adding to hot oils.

Pg 91 Soap Essentials Bar. Doubling recipe. Using tap water instead of distilled. Adding 4 oz of melted bees wax at oil stage as suggested by Soapmakers Companion pg 160. Will be using 1/2 cup powdered wheat and 1/2 cup of coarse wheat and 2oz honey after saponification.

Preparing the round soap molds

Taping up the square soap mold

Torch

cucumber seedling

Baby chicks first time in the chicken tractor. Look closely in the window...its Davy cat!

Sammy likes the garden hoophouse too!

Anabel was AIed last Monday July 20th with semen from TBone from COBA Select Sires. She can be pregnancy tested in 30 days. I will probably put it off until September 1st. I will have Isabel (sale barn Jersey 4yr old) and Mairead (Dexter 2.5 yr old) tested at the same time and if they are not bred they will be taken to the sale barn.

Tying up the baby tomato plants.

It was a MAHVELOUS day with the temperatures never getting above 89. Down right miraculous for Texas at the end of July! I spent all day planting a fall vegetable garden. Right now I can feel it in my lower back.

Nippy is a big gardening help. She thinks the new shade/hoop house is a nice cool doggy retreat.

Jessie planted a 48 ft row of these bush beans. Check back with us in 55 days!

planting pumpkins

I had put out 6 pecan trees about a week or so ago. Its not the right time of year, but they were half price at Lowes. Unfortunately I had leaned them on the fence before planting, and the goats thought it was a wonderful opportunity for fresh grazing. I am very heartened to see that the leaves are now growing back.

Tiny bantam Araucana...just adorable. Will try to hatch more after our Florida trip this summer.

Very poor hatch rate. 40 plus eggs and only 5 chicks. Some of that due to shipping but some began developing and stopped.

Tomatoes and peppers ready to go into garden as soon as it dries a little. Next year I am back to starting my own in Feb for spring and end of May for fall so I can get the varieties I want. Purchased fall tomatoes: eva purple ball, green zebra, jubilee, juliet, la roma, porter, red currant, red grape, rolf red heart, supersweet 100(hybrid), viva italia and yellow pear. Puchased peppers: anaheim, ancho san martin, giant maroni, tam jalapeno.

Storms blew through here in the early am hours dumping up to 3 inches of rain with strong winds

First time we have ever lost any roof an we have had some real humdingers before

Shade hoop house for starting fall garden. Dimensions are 8 by 24 each...i have one more to put out. Maybe rain tonight! To follow up on early post, solarization did NOT work and will not until I can find one solid piece of plastic large enough for the garden. It didn't matter how many bricks I put down, the wind still played havoc with the plastic. So I guess it will be back to hand weeding and hoping the johnson grass doesn't take over.

In Texas you have to work at night to beat the heat when putting in your fall garden. Now it is only 95 degrees at 10pm instead of 103!

Helping Pam set up her garden blog

Black Copper chick hatched today. Wondering if temp isnt accurate on incubator. Outside temps have been 107 today!

Success

Dehorn day for Spunky (pictured) and Speckles. They will need to come back in October for their Bangs. Speckles naval infection was gone, but unfortunately it left a hernia. She went in July 14th for surgery, which cost roughly about the same as the new clothes dryer that I need! We picked her up July 16th and she has to have stiches removed in 2 weeks on July 30th.

Abby and Suzette also came into the vet today and got their Bangs, and other vaccines, and were wormed. That takes care of them until they are old enough to breed. We'll be looking at July 2010 for Suzette and September 2010 for Abby if we do not sell her.

hatching day

Look closely, our corgi Nippy is crashed underneath the 4th of July decor.

Neither Apache or Arapaho have thrived in drier than average conditions, but Ouchita has. Need drip tape.

New fig growing back after late freeze killed it back

Scissortail hatchlings

Scissortail nest with 4 babies in my pluot tree.

An actual persimmon on my Tamopan persimmon. Got about 1 inch of rain yesterday and its only 81 degrees this afternoon....wonderful!

A cucumber from Jessie's very own garden.