Happy Labor Day Friends:

We have gotten our power back on Saturday and our phone back today after loosing it all on Monday afternoon. We have around 15 trees down on our property and some roof damage. Seems we find another tree down everytime we go out looking but we are so blessed compared to our neighbors to the south of us.

DH has been removing debris from the front yard and removing some of the downed trees. One was on the goat pen.

On a happy note: The storm didn't deter my silkie from doing her job. All the eggs were hatched out when we got up yesterday. All the babies look healthy. We didn't lose any of our animals to the storm. We are glad of that.

DH goes back to school tomorrow after being out all last week due to damage to the school and flooding of three halls. The 5th grade hall, 1st grade hall and the cafeteria all flooded from the 8.37 inches of rain that Katrina delivered us in one day!

Hope everyone has a great week.

Jan

We finally got some rain this morning, maybe a couple inches. It is so dry that all the water was absorbed, just like a dry sponge soaked it up. I saw one rain puddle, all the rest of the water was used by the thirsty trees and plants. We could use a couple more inches in a couple days but are only supposed to get heat.

We got in the first 500 bales of horse hay. Supposed to do another 500 this weekend. Went pretty quick with the elevators. Hay looks pretty nice so far, good and dry.

I have been working on clearing fence again, weed whacking. Also got the drainage ditch cleaned out. We get Canary grass and Cattails that really grow well in the early summer. Ground is too wet to cut them out then, so I have to wait for late summer and dry times. I cut everything down to the dirt. DD raked all the trimmings out so water should have a clean run to drain off this fall. I have a feeling the fall rains will be strong, lots of water, so I want the ditch draining well, doing it's job quickly. We are at the bottom of the drain before it goes into the tube, so any backup fills my paddock and the neighbors front barnyard. Lake O'Dell we call it! I leave the cattails that are right in front of the tube going under the road to Lake O'Dell. Water pressure is like a huge hose, with all the backed up water pushing behind. Cattails soften the water exit flow, keep draining water from washing out the whole side of the 6ft ditch, eroding the fence. Ditch makes 3 corners in short space, slows water down, so is apt to overflow there when we have large rainfalls. Clean bottom of my ditch allows draining water to just fly into the big tube, drain away. Nothing to catch leaves, make a dam in water flow.

Put up a bushel of tomatoes, did half dried, half frozen. I am not a canning person. Too much work for me! I did a lot of canning with my mom as a kid. We canned and froze everything we could. Better food, cheaper to feed 4 growing kids all winter. We all went to pick or get whatever we were fixing, helped prepare it, peeling, seeding, whatever. I think I just did too many jars then.

The dried tomatoes take a bit longer, but make good snacks, kids like them in lunches. I experimented with some extra herbs from the garden, really added some nice flavor. DD made some of the trays, flavors will be a surprise to all!
Also did a bushel of peppers into the freezer. They go pretty fast. Cut in half, remove seeds and wash. Then I quartered them and ran the pieces thru the food processor slicer. Kind of julianned them, small pieces but not bits. Bagged them and froze. We add the frozen pieces to food we are cooking, good color and flavor. I had a bag sealer to use, didn't work too well. Seals on the bags were erratic. I will be returning it and getting the better brand. Should have listened to my mom, she told me cheap one wouldn't work. She likes her sealer a lot.

Have been getting really good sweet corn at the Farmer's Market. Horses love the husks, we do limit their quantity to eat. Our market is getting some very odd food, fun to experiment with new stuff. Eggplant in every color EXCEPT purple. The long purple striped, white eggplants are very good. Also round white ones. Black tomatoes are the BEST for eating out of your hand! She said they are a heritage plant, Black Russians. She had a bunch of funny looking ones, every one was delicious. Cantaloupe are coming in, I use them for desert, with a scoop of ice cream.
So much good stuff, I take the kids' old red wagon while shopping the market now. Husband is also bringing home garden produce from his customers. Regular tomatoes, cucumbers and zuccini. We are eating very healthy this time of year. Apple and pears are getting ripe in the fencerows, horses slurp them down first thing every day.

The old horse is saying winter is coming, starting to get new hair. I plan on giving her a bath if it does get up over 80F this weekend. Cool nights are making it good sleeping, morning is getting later every day. DD is enjoying her riding lessons, showing progress. Her horse is a lot more lively in this cooler weather. He has been off work a month with his EPM treatment. Seems more comfortable. Hope he is cured, though we hear a lot of horses have a relapse, need another course of meds.

Foal is growing like a weed, shoulders are about armpit high now, we can lean on him. We are working on him being seperate from mom, want to wean this next month. He is kind of dragging her down, thin for her. He looks very well, almost fat with no grain at all. He is eating hay well, pasture is pretty burned up. Mare is not bred back, which could be from her not being in a gaining condition to get in foal. We will try breeding her again next year, too late this season.

With the rainfall I will get a couple days off watering the trees! Our big ones are looking rough, dry edged leaves. Shrubs also needed water, along with the perennials. I only water some, when they look real droopy. Supposed to be tough growers. I do have some new trees going, they also needed drinks, no deep roots. Those aqua cones that fit on pop bottles, do seem to work keeping far out trees going with a steady moisture. I only fill those once a week for the little pines beyond the hose length.

Another week is almost over. It hasn't been too good of a week for me. We got back in school on Tuesday (We were out because of the power outages in the area and the gas shortage). I worked Friday as a sub and the other days were spent trying to get trees moved and watching after the animals. Having my pet goat die really broke me up. Didn't think something like that would affect me the way it did. Not knowing what happened to her has me puzzled.

Even with all the stuff going on around here, we are still so much more fortunate than those in south Mississippi. They have homes destroyed; really every material thing that they own is gone. And some have had to face that members of their families are gone too. So, when I think about it my week hasn't been too bad after all.

We are planning to get out today and do some work in the garden and in the yard. Need to move the chicken tractor so the first batch of chicks can have more grass to eat and then I can plant the area they are in now with some greens of some sort.

Also need to be working on a watering system for the rabbits. We are using the bottles now and that gets a little tiresome to have to fill several times a day to keep water available to the rabbits. We are planning a system using a 5-6 gallon bucket, float, and pvc pipe. Will make watering the animals much easier.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Jan

We are getting geared up for the September yearling sales here. We will ship the first four to Keeneland on Monday, sell Thursday, ship more on Thurs and sell Sun, and ship the final batch on Mon. It's a relief, because I don't much care for fooling with the yearlings, and I'm getting sick of having to go back to the farm at 7pm to turn out (they aren't allowed to go out in the sun b/c their coats get bleached out). We just got their x-rays back, and they all looked pretty clean, and they scoped good, so hopefully we'll have a good sale. Ironically, the one with the "least" pedigree had the best heart scan that the Dr. had ever seen. They may keep her instead of selling, as her pedigree and conformation is not great, and not too many buyers pay attention to heart scans. Anyways, I will be glad to be done with this group of yearlings, although the October sale is looming close ahead, and we have 3 fillies and 3 colts in it. Then we are selling 3 mares and 3 foals in November, too. It seems the work never ends....

My pony colt got weaned Friday. My friend who boards him put a mini donkey in with the mare and foal, and the colt took well to the donkey, so she went ahead and took the mare out. The colt took it pretty well--he hollered some, but didn't run the fence, which was a relief because the paddock he's in has a string of barbed wire around it and I was really worried about him getting cut up when we weaned. He seems a lot bigger without his mama next to him. We are happy to have our mare back as a riding horse. We got her for Christmas not knowing she was bred, and found out in early March that she was pregnant, so we only got to ride her for a couple of months before she went on "maternity leave." Hopefully the colt will be a good riding horse, too, and it will be a great 2-for-1 deal.

The gardens seem to be winding down...I'm trying to make some new "lasagna" beds this fall so they will be ready to plant in the spring. I also need to work on getting some rain barrels and setting up a better watering system--I get really tired of watering with the hose. They said we might get some rain today, but it doesn't look like we will. The rain from Katrina really jump-started the grass, and I spent the week mowing. It really helped the pastures, but we could use some more--we are still like 6 inches below normal.

DD's first soccer game of the fall was this morning. They won 4-0, and she scored her first goal. She seemed more embarassed than proud--maybe it's because we were cheering so loud!

The church is supposed to be getting 250 hurricaine victims next week. The Red Cross is in control of it, and they are not accepting any more donations (the church members have been very generous so far), and will only take volunteers that have been through their training program. My mom signed me up to translate if they need it. I'm not sure that their are many hispanics in New Orleans....and anyway I only speak Spanish for the farm, not much "real life" vocabulary. I told her that if they needed me to say "clean the stalls and turn out the mares" it would be no problem....

Hope everybody has a good week. Get ready for fall--it's coming fast!

Hello everyone: Here on the British Columbia coast, we are having the most fantasticly beautiful weather. First I'd like to Thank Gerry in MA for her response on how our DD's 4 year old Great Pyr dog may have died suddenly. They got another Pyr with something else in it. We went to the Chilliwack BlueGrass Festival, over the Labour Day Weekend, so left our dog on DD's farm and when we got back they wanted our dog to stay awhile longer to continue playing "mommy". Also, Southerngardengal, sorry to hear about your goat. I'd say, get another one, they are such good company and do a lot of cleaning up of brush, etc., especially blackberries here. I always thought that goats were fussy eaters and if you dropped some hay or anything on the ground that they wouldn't eat it. Both the above animals time was up and think of the pleasure they brought everyone. The canning is winding down, did prune plums, yesterday and when I get off here will go pick apples before the black bear gets them. He has been in the yard because the fence between us and the neighbours was knocked down and wirey (sp) black fur stuck to it. They are not afraid anymore. Last year I was looking after the next door neighbours house. The neighbour is a young Dutch fellow and the bear left them a "pie" right beside the back door by his "wooden shoes". I got a picture to prove it. Sat. is my day in town as we go to the Farmers Market and they have live music. Tonight we are on Citizens On Patrol duty so DH gassed up the car --- $118.9/liter -- 4-1/2 liters to our gallon making it around $5.36/gallon. Take care folks and have a good week.