Lake trip

 Esme went to a sleepover last night, and today when she got home we took a little trip down to the lake.  She wanted to go fishing, but it was so very hot - we planned for an 'expedition' that we could come home when we wanted to.  In the middle of it all we cooled off a little on the wooden dock.

 I snapped a picture of her and she snapped one of me.

 She said when it was a cooler day we could come down with our easel and maybe draw some pictures of the lake, because it was so pretty.

 I caught this picture of a grasshopper with its wings open - and she snuck up on the black and blue dragonfly and got a nice detailed pic.

We also saw some 'rose' flowers and a little school of fish swimming in the water by the dock after we had been sitting there quietly for a while.

Garden today

part of the harvest today


Lemon Boy tomato


The garden with water.. and weeds


Another shot of the garden greened up


Florida Speckled Lima Beans


The four on the right were one 'ear' of corn that had split and never developed kernels because of it. The one on the left just had no kernels in it. This was the end of what was out in the popcorn field (although I had harvested good ears a while back)



The Kitty goat doesn't mind malformed corn, and eats the small unformed ears


Grasshopper that made himself known..
what kind is he?


Dixie Speckled Butter pea lima beans



You can't see me. No, I said you couldn't see me! Don't take my picture!


This sorghum broomcorn was white and yellow a few weeks ago - and now it is ripening to reds and browns


puppies eating softened food
they sing and cry like they are complaining in between each bite
but that is most likely the evidence that they are coonhounds!


blue eyes reflecting


second harvest of the day after little girl ran to Grandma's house

I sorted some summer and fall seeds - dreaming of what could be and what it would take to get there. Ordered some other fall seeds this past week and they are now all finished and paid for - not much, six dollars worth for a few things we wanted to try more of. I think I am set for 'oh way too early' spring seeds - cabbage and peas etc... if we choose to do that next year.

fall bugs and foxtail grass

Something is eating all of the new beans as soon as they put their heads up - and is now starting to put holes in the purple hull pea leaves as well, apparently they aren't quite as tasty, but they'll do. I had expected the new squash plant to get eaten when it came up - as those bugs are still prevalent out there. But, I hadn't expected the new beans to be eaten as soon as they put their heads up. There are a lot of things nibbling on the beans but it has not done anything to really stunt those plants yet. I'm going to need to put chemical on the garden for the second time during the entire season... if any new bean is going to survive. Hmm...

And my one lonely cornstalk is up, from the one lonely dent corn seed I put in the ground. They are very viable.

I was collecting interesting seed from some grass out by the roadside. The closest thing I can find to it online is yellow or green 'foxtail' grass. It has small seeds in a fuzzy caterpillar like head. The seeds become dry and fall off at a gentle touch or can be coaxed off in a threshing like process. I collected a small tin of them. Then I read that dogs often get the seeds in their nose, eyes or ears and have terrible complications from sniffing and burrowing around in it. Our dogs were right there next to the grass - and didn't seem the least interested in it. I am on the fence about spreading it around behind our garden, which I was going to do because of it's interesting 'grain' like potential and the fact that we have quail and turkey living back there now. It is liked by wild game fowl as a food source - which I could tell just by examining it in the wild. I would hate our dogs to get a problem from lodging seeds in themselves - but they seem smarter than that. It might be different if there was a whole field of it...

I need to look into other grains at our co-op tomorrow. I want to get a grain crop that I can grow for chickens and other animals - but that could also be threshed without terrible difficulty to store, either for livestock or for an emergency food supply. It is always nice to have something on hand that has multiple purposes. I have found a few good sources to buy seed online if our co-op does not have the hull less varieties of the barley or oats that would serve as that multiple purpose grain. Hull less oats would be the best choice, because it is easily digestible by humans, dogs and other livestock and is a good keeper, as well. I was also thinking about sowing common rye grass in a few places only for the fowl and livestock. It would be nice to get some of that growing wild out there.