Month: August 2022

*Low Flying Airplane Noises*

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

So first of all, look at this super cool video my dad took! I’ve never been this close to an aerial applicator doing their job, it actually spooked me the first time they went past and I decided to stop and wait for the next pass so we could get a cool video (don’t worry, i was the only one on my aunt and uncles mile long driveway so I wasn’t being unsafe). Only thing I would have done differently? Slow rolled as they went by so I could maybe stay with them just a little longer, you can probably tell I put my foot in it a little trying to keep up but for obvious physics reasons there’s no way that was ever going to happen. It was really cool to see it that close in any case.

Why did I refer to them as aerial applicators and not the more traditional “crop dusters”? Well, many reasons. One is, I’ve been told by a couple pilots they prefer aerial applicators, and two, they don’t really dust crops anymore, they more “mist” them, the mixtures are, in general, significantly different than even a few years ago so dust rarely comes into play anymore.

Cheesy Dad Joke incoming! Also, please ignore how dirty my car is, Clifford the Big Red Dodge has been lovingly washed since this was taken

That said, I’m totally guilty of coding switching here, depending on who I’m talking to I’ll still use crop duster, because when your 90+ year old dining companion refers to them as “crop dusters” it’s generally not worth it to correct them, and might come off disrespectful. So, if you hang out with me for a while, you may hear both. I’m guilty of that with a few things. 

Especially because I live in a very old community generally. 

(To clarify, this does not apply to rights issues and the like, I still correct all the “-isms”, I don’t entertain racism, ableism, misogyny, homophobia, etc regardless of who I might offend in the room, because if I offend you, I probably don’t care to be your friend anyway. In the same vein, if you feel the need to discriminate, you can feel free to close this blog out as well, we don’t put up with nastiness here, thank you.)

We’ve had the weirdest weather here. I live in the high desert, right, so it’s, generally speaking, dry here. Dry is nice because at 110° that’s the difference between “it’s far too hot to be outside” and “it’s far too hot to exist”. Humidity is a game changer. We recently had a string of four days of over 80% humidity. This is way too sticky even when you live in a humid place. The girls got a few days off to help manage,since it can be dangerous to work in conditions of heat and humidity that you aren’t used to. It also stormed a lot which makes sense when you consider the humidity most likely came from that monsoonal moisture coming up from the southwest. This time of year they have to deal with lots of flash flooding and storms as well. I’m very grateful we haven’t seen a lot of flooding around here but some places in the southwest got obliterated. 

We mostly just tried not to melt. Everything was damp and sticky, and it’s amazing how quickly some fungi and molds and things pop up after a few days of 80+ humidity. Even my old dead wood pile had little green patches. We had little white mushrooms pop up in the yard and several of my plants just sorta wilted under the dampness. Desert plants aren’t humidity proof. It was also weird because the grass and pasture was all weighed down so no mowing or trimming could be done effectively, the bugs were really bad, and all the the normal characters, like the field workers next door, the early morning joggers, and even the delivery guys were all absent or nearly absent trying to avoid working in the 100° weather with 80% humidity. I totally get it, no judgment here, I was also hiding out, but it was slightly eerie. 

Joe before…
…and after
plus potatoes

Not much else has happened around here. We’ve been slowing down in the garden, something ate my last two kohlrabi before they came ready, but we’ve gotten lots of potatoes. The dogs tried a new groomer out and I think we like her, I just hope she lasts a while. We’ve had a string of bad luck in the area, groomers come and go with alarming speed. There must not be a lot of business here. So fingers crossed this one works out.

Until we chat again my friends.

Odds and Ends

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

I accidentally bought more hay. I say accidentally because there was a total miscommunication, no one’s fault, but somehow I thought I had said no to buying more than my usual hay (which I usually actually barter with my uncle for, a lot of things in farm country can be favor for favor if you are trustworthy) and my cousin, who’s slowly taking over for my uncle thought I would be willing to buy whatever didn’t sell. He couldn’t reach me at work so he called my dad, and I finally caught up to the situation and cut it off at half a truck load. So I have some bales to figure out storage for. Both of the guys thought that the other had checked in with me, so I couldn’t very well back out and make them unload it all. That just wouldn’t be fair. So I apologized to my bank account, wrote a check, and now I’m in the process of fixing some of my damaged tarps so I can fake some long-term covered hay storage. I guess, really, it’s probably a good problem to have, although it was an expensive, unplanned line item in the budget. 

The interesting thing about living on a farm is that you quickly realize that some seasons are generally more expensive than others. For us, summers always seem to hemorrhage money, no matter how hard I plan ahead. Case and point, unplanned couple hundred dollars for hay. I’ve had to put a couple extra hundred in bug maintenance this year and even more into the ever expanding collection of first aid supplies for humans and critters. I seriously need to just invest in Bandaid stock at this point (I’m not blaming anyone either, I’m the worst offender, I just think about doing something and I have a new injury). We also had a weird amount of equipment failures this year which cost in one way or another. 

In other news, we had a lovely, unexpected visit from some old friends. Some of our friends from our church when we lived in the Puget Sound also have family in this area and they come by to visit every so often. It’s absolutely lovely to see them. I used to teach their youngest in my 3s, 4s, and 5s class when I taught Sunday school and now she’s a senior in high school. I taught that Sunday school class when I was in high school. Time flies. I can’t believe she’s almost an adult, and speaking with her, she’s such a mature, intelligent, put together young lady. Way more prepared for college and beyond than I ever was.

We also had a bit of a weird experience this week relating to the canal. As I was going about my morning chores I noticed a really rotten smell. It seemed to linger but I didn’t really pay too much attention to it after I  made sure it wasn’t a wound on the girls or a small animal nearby needing help.I have honestly come face to face with skunks and possums, and while this didn’t smell like that, I still basically convinced myself that it was one of those things. It got progressively stronger and less fun to be around as I went about the morning but it somehow didn’t even occur to me to check the canal. When I walked back up to the house and smelled it on the porch as well, that’s when I thought enough of it to bring it up to my dad, who mentioned it might be something slowly floating its way down the canal. Unfortunately, it’s not the most uncommon thing to have wildlife occasionally fall in the water and become fatally trapped. We still didn’t really feel it was that big a deal until the ditch rider came by and had a proper freak out.  The Ditch rider drives along many times a day looking for issues within the canal, for context, and he had apparently seen something because he drove back and forth and made some phone calls. I got a little nervous watching this because we’ve all heard the stories about people falling in, or worse, and I really, really didn’t want it to be something like that. 

Luckily it wasn’t a human. However, it was a crime. Someone had dumped a poached deer into the canal to hide it, and it had gotten caught up in the weeds by my corral. They took the antlers and nothing else. Such a waste. I won’t go on one of my long rants again, but really, it’s so unnecessary and disheartening. 

Cool storm cloud? Anyone?

Like I said, there’s relief in knowing my fence line wasn’t a human crime scene, and I’m quite relieved I didn’t investigate and find it myself, but it’s quite sad to know people are still making selfish, unethical choices. 

I think I need to be paying more attention going forward though, especially to gross smells.

Until we chat again my friends. 

Two Steps Forward…

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Anyone else ever get to feeling, sometimes, like they are just forever reacting to things instead of actually accomplishing new tasks and making any actual progress? This has been the whole farm this summer, seems like I cannot for the life of me get ahead, I just keep reacting to issues as they arrive. It’s not the world’s greatest feeling.

Take, for example, this water trough. I’ve been having consistent issues with it, finally thought I had it fixed and now we are literally back to square one. Basically, after the hard winter the frost free had no pressure and when it did, my auto waterer wouldn’t turn off. Then we got the pressure back and the valve itself wore out. Got that fixed, and the auto waterer working, but by that point the trough had gotten bad enough from not being circulated enough that it needed more than just a spring clean. So I very carefully tried to work around the auto waterer, emptying the water slowly through the little release valve instead of just dumping the trough. Got it clean, filled it back up. Now the auto waterer leaks again and on top of that, the little seal has started leaking too. I have checked and tightened, looks like I’m going to probably have to seal it with an external product, probably something like flex tape (I’m not necessarily recommending that product, I don’t have much experience with it, but the couple times I used flex seal I was pretty impressed). Seems like I can’t quite get the water situation solved.

Too cute for her own good (tried to crop her swollen leg for those who don’t enjoy that sort of image)

Same seems to apply to the sprinklers and the misters in the barn, constant leaks and blockages and cracked hoses, and whatever else you can imagine can fail in a sprinkler or mister system. I almost lost a huge chunk of my pasture because one of my lines just wouldn’t stay cleared. Craziness. 

Kinda feels the same way with my sweet mares this year too. While every day is a wonderful chance to spend time with them, and I am really loving our time together, work or play, this year any time we attempt to accomplish anything the horse in question goes lame. Poor Ro has limped her way through the summer so far, effectively halting our work on lope transitions and bravery on trail rides. We’ve been trying more on the latter but it’s hard to be brave when uneven, rough footing is hurting you. So we have slowed down and tried to be a little more cautious about that. Nellie’s leg has been huge most of the summer due to the high temperatures and while the vet isn’t necessarily concerned, I’ve been warned to go very easy on that leg. It doesn’t seem to hurt her as much as it seems to annoy her when her range of motion is affected.

I’ve spent a lot of time and money this summer trying to aid these issues, but we kinda seem to be spinning our wheels a little. Like I said, it’s never time wasted, I love working with these sweethearts no matter what the pace is, but it’s funny how it seems to be the summer of setbacks. 

When you can’t hold your own head thoughtfully, have your mom do it

On other news, we have had a nice little potato crop. After a lovely roast potato dish the other day, we’ve had enough continue to grow  that we took some to my grandma as well. Potatoes are such a  lovely crop to grow, and something we eat a lot around here, so I definitely think more of the garden will be devoted to potatoes next year. 

As well as kohlrabi, because that’s also been a hoot and a half to grow. Super cute plant, very tasty payoff.

Unfortunately a decent amount of the garden got eaten by something, and what it didn’t eat it slept on and squashed, so I have been doing a little bit of research into container gardening in this part of the country. I did a little of it when I lived in Seattle and it was helpful for the critters there. It would also give me more potato space for next year. Win win. 

potatoes!

Anyways, I won’t catch up with farm chores by complaining so I better get back to it. Lots to do, especially the stuff that needs doing before the heat hits each day.

Until we chat again, my friends.

It’s Warm

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

It’s officially that time of the year where we have to be very careful not to melt. We don’t see highs below 100 or lows below 70 for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, I don’t mind it. I’d love it if it was a little easier to get outside in the mornings, work kinda makes that hard sometimes, but I really don’t mind the heat so much if I don’t have to drive anywhere. My car doesn’t have AC any longer so to drive anywhere is wholly unpleasant.

I definitely don’t like the fire conditions either, and we are deep, deep, deep in that part of the year. Last year it was so smoky and so much of the country was on fire, that I think everyone is a little more on edge than usual this year. The Willow Creek fire in Oregon from a few weeks ago burned close enough to be viewable from my back porch (we weren’t in any immediate danger as the Snake River was between us and the fire, if it had jumped the snake we probably would have had bigger issues, however it affected some in my community). I was really worried that was going to be indicative of the smoke watch but so far, we’ve been very blessed to stay mostly clear.

The sunrises have been amazing lately

But it was a very clear reminder to be vigilant about fire safety and to keep a very close eye on the brushland behind the house. Just in case.

There’s a notorious hill in my area called “Chicken Hill”. I don’t know if that’s its official name or just something locals call it, but it’s a bit notorious because of its proclivity for catching fire. It regularly seems to go up and despite this well known fact, people continue to camp, live, and launch fireworks up there all summer long. This is the first year since I moved here full time that the hill hasn’t burned yet, and to be honest, I’m suspiciously waiting. Last year the chief of police was the one to accidentally set it on fire, so no one’s immune. It also always seems to burn out of control for longer than expected, you would think the fire department would have a specific Chicken Hill response plan by now (I say this in jest, firefighting is seriously scary, hard work and I have nothing but major respect for the work they do, especially the chronically underfunded rural departments). Very often it’s the 4th of July that sends it up in flames. We’ve been lucky so far.

In other news, I tried a new recipe with the kohlrabi from the garden. I have never grown or cooked kohlrabi before so I was pretty dang excited. First of all, kohlrabi totally looks like an alien vegetable out in the garden, with its big old leaves and funky green bulb. Super cute but definitely a little off looking. Based on appearance alone I was worried it would be a more bitter veggie but boy was I wrong. It honestly tastes like sweeter broccoli. The skin is a little tough but even so, I could totally see myself eating a fresh kohlrabi straight from the garden like it’s an apple or something.

Kohlrabi stir-fry

The recipe was super easy, fry some bacon. Then saute the kohlrabi, garlic, and green onions in the bacon fat. Wilt in your kohlrabi leaves (and some spinach if, like me, your leaves left a little to be desired in the bulk department) with a little stock, add your bacon bits back with some soy sauce, toss like mad, and serve. Salt and pepper to taste but remember this has bacon and soy sauce so… be careful about salting without tasting. It was such a tasty side, we served it with rice and pork medallions. I will be making that again.

I think this week our potatoes should be just about ready to go, they are starting to show signs of readiness, at least according to Google. A lot of how I garden involves a good old Google search, everything from bugs to harvests to produce storage. A modern farmer if you will.

Other than that it’s been pretty normal on the farm. I briefly headed up to the county fair (most of which was shot down due to heat) to support my little cousin who won grand champion in his 4H rabbit project. Super proud of him for working so hard. Ro has been basically on stall rest for everything from a pulled shoulder to stepping on a bee hive. She’s had a rough week or so. Poor Nellie still is struggling with that swollen leg of hers, which is somewhat normal for this time of year. It doesn’t hurt her as much as it just annoys her because it slows her mobility. But I give her time off, just in case, because learning should be a fun thing for her too, not stressful walking around on an uncomfortable leg.

One of Aaron’s prize-winning bunnies

Anyway, that’s all for us here I think. Stay safe and cool out there.

Until we chat again, my friends!