Hot, hot, hot

Those are the words that I have heard repeated from everyone's mouth for the past couple of weeks. We are setting records around here for high temps that have been set in stone for 60-70 years. We have also set a record for the number of days over 100*. Blech. Those are not records to be proud of, in my opinion.

My tomatoes are hanging on by a thread. Everything else in the garden has pretty much dried up. I run the sprinkler on my tomatoes every couple of days, just to provide them with a little drink of water. I hope to be able to keep them for as long as possible.

The animals seem to be doing o.k. in the heat. When I check on them in the pre-dawn hours, William and Ruby are out in the pasture, running around and playing. The chickens are out and about, the roosters are crowing their heads off. They seem to enjoy their early morning play time. By mid-morning, they are in the goat shed, enjoying the fan that I have blowing on them.

Tonight is the first high school football game of the season. It just doesn't seem possible that it's that time of year again. Football games mean autumn and hopefully, autumn means cooler temps.

Picture of dawn across my pasture. The best part of the day.....just ask my animals!!!


Stay cool,
Beth

The Past Week

Whew. What a week. We have had temps into the 100's and very high humidity too. If I didn't get my outside work done by about 9:00, it just didn't get done this week. It has been miserable. The tomatoes are loving it though. They look like small trees in the dark and the green tomatoes are very abundant. The squash has fizzled and the cucumbers are dwindling down too. All that's left are the green peppers and tomatoes. That's fine with me, I'm dwindling too!!

Onto the animal news. We had a close call with Punk this week. He tried to escape his "holding cell" and got caught under the fencing. I don't know how long he was stuck under there, but at 102*, it didn't take long before he was in some major distress. When I found him there, he was totally limp but every now and then he would jerk, like he was seizuring. I got him out from under the fence, doused him with cold water all over his body and laid him in the shade. By dusk, he had roused up some and when Sam came in that night around 2:am, he was up, enjoying a "salad bar" meal in the garden. I told Sam to tell the guy he works with that he can't have Punk now. He will live out his days in the backyard, separated from the other chickens so he doesn't pluck their feathers out, enjoying life as a retired CEO of the barnyard. Willie and Waylon, my 2 other roosters, are figuring out the pecking order and have come to an agreement over the hierarchy and things are settling down in the chicken world now. Sir William and Ruby, the goat, have become friends and are now inseparable. Ruby was scared to death of William for the first few days but now, when you see one, you see the other. They have been spending much of their time in the goat shed where the fan has been blowing non-stop for the past week.

I have canned many jars of tomatoes this week and have frozen another gallon of peppers. I have also canned 6 pints of sauerkraut after letting it 'sour' for a month or so. It's very tangy and good. I can't wait to have it for supper on a cold winter's night.

I'll leave you with a picture of my sunflowers. Very tall and majestic, they guard the garden and provide shade for the banty chickens.

Till next time,
Beth

Sir William is Here!!!

Well, we have another member of the Moore Acres roster. Sir William, the miniature horse, joined us yesterday morning. We got him home around 11:15 and FINALLY got him in the pasture. It took a lot of pushing from the rear and pulling from the front to get him to move. He is one stubborn colt. He spent the rest of the afternoon running the fence line and pacing the gate, whinnying and crying for his mama. I couldn't get him to drink any water and that concerned me because it was about 95* yesterday and he just kept galloping around and around the pasture. He was wringing wet.

This morning he is MUCH better. He will actually come to the gate when he sees me walking toward the pasture and let me pet him. As I was filling up the water trough, he was waiting to get himself a drink so I feel better about things this morning. He has picked out a shady spot to spend the afternoon and is not crying for his mom anymore. I think he's going to work out just fine!!

This is Sir William and Bonnie becoming acquainted. Bonnie isn't quiet sure what to make of William. She knows with the goats to stay away from their heads because she will be butted. Well, yesterday she was walking BEHIND William and got kicked!! She is going to have to figure out the differences between a goat and a horse and which end is the dangerous one!!

Tomatoes and cucumbers

Yesterday was spent in the kitchen. After picking a bucket of tomatoes and a few cucumbers from the garden, I got busy.

I made garlic dill pickles out of the cucumbers and from 10 lbs of the tomatoes, I got 8 half pints of sauce. Gosh, that is some good sauce. I made it extra spicy, just the way we like it.

I hope you are getting some good tasting food out of your garden!!

Beth

Punk goes into solitary

We've had to contain our rooster. He has started plucking the feathers out of the backs of our hens, causing 2 of them to die from the heat. We weren't sure who the culprit was until I opened the coop door one night and caught him in the act. He will be going to a new home in a week or so with a man that works with Sam, so until then, we had to build a 'holding cell' of sorts. We ran fencing across the corner of our pasture, making a triangular shaped area. We divided that space in half, creating 2 'cells'. Punk was captured and put in the holding cell for the duration of his stay with us. He seems to be doing o.k. with his new living quarters. Our ladies will walk over to visit him on occasion, clucking from the freedom of the big pasture.

Today will be spent mowing grass and canning pickles and tomato sauce.

Beth

Back to Blogging

Welcome to Moore Acres. I've got a lot of learning to do about blogging so here I am. Things might be pretty bland around here for awhile, until I get settled.

Some things about us here at Moore Acres. I am a stay at home mom to a 17 yo daughter and an 18 yo son. My husband is a long distance truck driver and is gone the better part of the work week to Florida. We try to live as close to the 'simple' life as possible. Our animals include a flock of chickens, a Boer goat named Ruby, 4 rabbits that we will start breeding for meat, 6 dogs that rule the place and a cat named Toby that we're trying to convince to become a goat shed cat. We will be getting a miniature horse this coming weekend to help keep Ruby company.

Thanks for visiting.

Beth