State of the Homestead

Notice the horizontal pupils

I'm embarrassed to report the state of my garden. It's terrible. Part of it was my fault. I timed it badly, afraid we'd have a snap freeze. (We had a few but they were mild.) It was also my fault for letting the weeds grow faster than I could pull them.

The grasshoppers have returned in force. Nothing we've tried has deterred them. (I refuse to use poison.) If God sent them as a plague, it succeeded. 

The hoppers have decimated many of my plants. I planted the corn late this year. I'm hoping those bugs will be dead before the stalks look tasty to them.

The scorpions have been pretty active too. Makes me wish I lived in Alaska.

Chickens: Mean rooster is still with us, but I'm hoping to send him to the guillotine in the fall when his replacements get big enough. He is the meanest bird we've ever had. I bought him as an adult so that's probably part of the problem.

His chicks are doing well, but we had one fatality the other day. I found her dead in her pen. The only injury I found on her were a couple of red blotchy marks on one foot. The screen is too small for anything to get in. My guess is that it was a scorpion.

I did find a dead snake near the chick pen. He had been tangled in some tree netting lying nearby, but that's not what got him. He had been mauled. I don't know if my dogs did it or someone else. All I know is Nana found its stinking, rotting carcass and she immediately rolled on it with gleeful abandon.

She was so happy with her discovery, she ran up to me and plastered some of that stench on me too. Yuck! We both went straight for a shower after that.


Goats: They've become quite the social butterflies. They're very interested in Nana but run like they were on fire when they see Tank or Iko. Come to think of it, the boys seem to have that effect on strangers too. :grin:

The doeling is eating out of my hand now, but the mama goat prefers a feed bucket. I don't feed them a lot of grain. I use it as a treat at the end of the day. When the doeling sees me coming, she starts bleating like crazy and jumping like a clown.

Greg comes home tomorrow. I'll hand him all the names we've collected so far and he can pick the ones he likes best. I'll probably announce the winner next Thursday, so if you have any other suggestions, go ahead and add them to last week's post.

The dogs: Tank seems improved or maybe that's just wishful thinking. He still has those lumpy tumors, but they seemed to have stopped growing and spreading. For that, I'm grateful.

Iko seems depressed. Nana is always stealing the time I spend with him. I've resorted to taking him on walks by himself. I think he appreciates it. Little sisters can be so annoying.

Maggie, I sense, is starting to have geriatric issues. It's nothing significant, just a gradual slowdown. I'm glad we were able to give her a home in her old age.

Nana knows no limits. She adores being around the goats and chickens. This Sunday, she graduates from puppy school. We have a final exam too. I'll let you know next week how she did. She's pretty good with everything, but she's not interested in shaking hands. They might take points off from us for that one.

Puppy Panic: I mentioned this on Facebook, but in case you missed it, we had a near crisis the last time we went to puppy school. We were teaching the command to come when called. Only this time we had to be hidden and two aisles away (we train at Petsmart) before we called our dogs.

It was crowded that day and the music overhead was deafening so I waited a few seconds before calling her. Nothing. I called again and still nothing. I couldn't believe it.

All of a sudden, she comes up behind me and jumps into my arms. No collar. No leash. She had slipped her collar and bolted from the trainer (who had been holding her leash). The trainer said she raced all the way around the front of the store (it's immense) and circled back to where she heard my voice. 

Scared me to death, but I'm so happy she came when I called her.

Obviously, I was lost and it was her duty to find me. Good Nana.

Good things and bad things on this report. I plan a fall garden, so maybe I can get a decent harvest before the year is out.

How's the growing season by you? Better than mine, I hope.