Sundog CSA September 30th, 2024
Here we are, in a new season and it feels like a change with the lower temperatures and some rain here on the hill. Saturday morning the gauge had collected .31 and this morning (Sunday) added another .71 so we have a total of 1.02 for the month of September. It has been 3 long, warm weeks without any moisture at all other than dew and a little bit of fog in the early mornings so we appreciate the rain. The moisture is too late for the tomatoes as most of them lost the majority of their foliage and the upcoming temperatures will probably escalate their season ending as they are heat lovers! We have not planted or replanted anything in the past week due to the lack of moisture and the temperatures that dry out the top ¼ inch of soil before the seeds are able to push through and establish roots long enough to reach lower moisture. Greens would still have a chance but most other crops are pretty iffy depending on the first frost. If fly behavior is any indication of cold weather coming, it won’t be long because the flies in the barn are more than ready to perch anywhere there is a hint of warmth and it is noticeable because Katy and I are swatting more than the cows are switching as we go about our chores. RAIN TOTAL UPDATE – another .11 in the gauge tonight so we are at 1.13!
Mid-September with the Full Harvest Moon coming on Tuesday, September 17th and a partial lunar eclipse that evening and it is also supposed to be a “super moon”, all happening in the last week of summer, 2024. A super moon is one of those close-ups when the moon appears so much larger than at other times. The first day of autumn/fall is next Sunday, September 22. It is the day when the Sun crosses the celestial equator going south.
September was originally the seventh month of the year when the Julian calendar was used which makes sense since the word originally meant seven. Now what was the seventh month of the year has become the ninth and is the month holding the beginnings of the autumn/fall season. The hot sweaty days seem to turn overnight into mornings that are chilly with the heavy dew soaking my shoes as I head to the barn in the early mornings. The world is not silent but it is much quieter and I am seeing the beginnings of the day as the slow to rise sun is barely pinking the sky at six. Those are the changes this ninth, used to be seventh, month is bringing to my days. It is also bringing changes to the gardens as the plants respond to the shorter and cooler days and even the bugs are slower! 😊
NO BAG NEXT MONDAY - WE ARE CELEBRATING LABOR AND HOPE YOU ARE ALSO! 😊
Sunday afternoon, August 19th, sitting here in the house with the windows open, listening to it pour down rain from clouds that seem to agree that it might be funny to fast forward the weather prediction of evening rain to an afterlunch drenching of those who believed the forecast. I imagine there is a lot of hay laying in windrows, car windows hastily being rolled up, clothes being pulled off the line and people wondering what they left out or forgot because that is what was happening at our house. The weather was part of our Saturday also as we headed to Topeka to visit with Zach and Jen and see all the damage from the storm that passed through on Wednesday evening. The neighbor’s tree sent a huge limb down, blocking their back door and squashing their boundary fencing. They dragged another huge limb in off the street and waited till daylight to see what lines besides their internet was down since their electric was flickering but not out. They were lucky as power was repaired by the next evening. Zach had most of the limbs cut up by the time we got there so we loaded all the brush as well as some chunks of firewood. It was more fun than work as it is always good to get to visit with family! Lots of hugs and laughs as well as sweat! SUNDAY RAIN UPDATE – at 8:00p.m. we had .32 with sprinkles/showers starting to come down again.
A few more days and we will be halfway through this summer month – temperature wise, it has felt like we were at the end of summer! Not that we are complaining, although I did tell Zach that I was going to have to get out my long underwear! He loves weather like the past week and I am more like my tomato plants and wishing for some heat to return!
August, the eighth month of the year and a month that is named after the Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar. It is on the first day of August that Lammas Day was celebrated – the midpoint between summer solstice and autumnal equinox and a time of harvest beginnings for those who grew oats, barley and sunflowers. Tenant farmers would present the first crop to the landowner as part of the celebration in England. In our neighborhood, the harvesting of hay continues as the different types of grasses are wrapped tight for winter feeds – alfalfa, brome and prairie grasses. The smells of newly shorn grasses, laid down in curving windrows to cure almost makes you envy the cows!
We were ready for the miserable forecast that was predicted or as ready as a person can be for over one hundred degrees heat indices and instead, we were gifted with .04 in the rain gauge and an overcast sky! It was kind of that way yesterday when the morning heat gave way to clouds accompanied by thunder rumbles and one of those breezes that comes often enough to dry the sweat. Maybe, just maybe, the next few days will surprise us as well!
Rainfall this week has changed drastically from the last couple of weeks. In the gauge I found .05 from Wednesday evening’s unexpected cloud spill! It was about 11:30 when I first heard drops on the porch roof and it continued dripping until we finally had .05. People, animals and plants are wishing for a happy medium and our wishes are evaporating as the sun heats us up and dries us out! We lay on the back porch this afternoon after picking and weeding in the gardens and high tunnels for 3-4 hours. Other family members came out to look at us, sprawled in front of a fan with wet rags on our red faces. Seth, in an effort to support, laid down with us as we slowly recovered and vowed that it was time to pick in the mornings rather than afternoons. Beans demand to be picked dry and we were not looking forward to itchy okra rows with dew on their big scratchy leaves! We will definitely re-think this next week’s pickings if the heat wave continues. We worked outside yesterday afternoon with no problem but think that the humidity was lower!
I have seriously been checking out our old canoe to make sure that it was floatable – especially after last week’s water dumps on our hill. Our gauge total for the week, ending on Thursday because that was our last measurable amount of moisture for the week, was 6.08. Today (Sunday) we felt drops now and then but the forecasted rainfall passed us by. We had been really pushing ourselves to dig potatoes because the weatherman said rain all day on Sunday starting in the morning and then pushed it back to two o’clock and then pushed it out of the forecast. I wondered because one of my neighbors years ago told me that if your shoes are wet with dew in the mornings, there will be no rain that evening and I was walking wet this morning. We did manage to get the spuds dug and crated and of course we will be eating potatoes in a lot of different forms in the coming week due to shovel cuts! We dug our green beans out of the mud that covered the plants and found that the harvest was small this week. We are putting it down to flooding and hoping for a better picking next week. Bugs are everywhere! Digging potatoes, we counted several praying mantis, countless grasshoppers, wheelie bugs and beetles of every size, shape and color.
Is this June? Or is it April or maybe August? So much rain falling in the middle of days where the heat indices are exercising your sweat glands and you are glancing at the calendar to see what day summer actually began on? We are only ten days into the warm season with approximately eighty more to go before the autumnal equinox. No matter what the season, this rain has been a blessing for the crops here on the hill. They are growing right along with the weeds this year.
This was another week of rainfall here on the hill. The gauge settled at 1.33 and most of it was those semi-slow rains that you dream about when your crops are thirsty and the pasture has been cropped down. The difference between this season and last year is looking at us as we gather beans and pick squash and pull onions and kohlrabi. Our okra rows are healthy and tall even though they need thinning. The potatoes are going to be ok which is good news as they are one of the crops needing those early rains that did not come this spring. We are battling bugs like bean beetles and true bugs which Katy says are commonly called stink bugs and we do have to wade into some of the areas of our gardens due to the height of the grass and weeds and yet it is a good growing season because we have moisture!!
Woke up to a surprise rain this morning (Sunday) and a welcome one as already the hill was getting dry. The gauge registered .33 and by noon, the sun was out and shining. It was a really nice day for being outside and here on the hill, it was mostly dry enough to pull weeds by mid-afternoon and definitely dry enough to pick green beans. Our small early patch is outdoing itself this year and so far, the bean beetles have not made much of a dent. Picking those beautiful beans is a job where you want to call all your friends and say, “hey, what are you doing this afternoon?” because it is a back-breaking or back-bending position. I used to tell my kids that once I got into the “green bean position”, not to bother me because I wanted to stay there until I got to the end of the row. We were also wading through tall grass to find our squash plants and the squash. Seth has put in a request for “chini bread” and was helping pick for that reason alone. The squash bugs are making a dent in our patch - we are grateful for the survivors. The pole beans are just beginning to produce and broccoli had edible heads this week. Onions are fantastic and we are still hopeful that our baby leeks will take off. The ground needs to be loosened around those tiny plants and some compost raked in to give them a boost. Okra is growing fast and will have to be thinned soon. We have been waiting to give it time to grow foliage big enough to shade the ground. Like the leeks, we will be feeding compost along those rows also. Like I said last week, it is a true jungle out there and for the first time this year, everyone is battling chiggers who have moved into the jungle. The last few weeks it has been tick checking before bed time but now it is itching and scratching. Katy says that she has her summer “chigger belt”.
Rain almost every day this week and if it weren’t for the cow lot that we slog through morning and night, I would have no complaints at all. Crops are growing and the ground still smells sweet as we pull vegetables and weeds and although it looks like a jungle out there, it is preferable to a desert! Rainfall totals for this week are Monday - .37, Tuesday - .15, Thursday - .17, Saturday - .82 and Sunday - .91 which adds up to 2.42 inches in seven days and our pond is still not full! Last night’s rain storm knocked out power to our area for several hours so we woke up to silence. The cows were still on time though as they are not governed by clocks or electric lights.
June 3rd and the beginning of the 2024 CSA season. We were worried in March as we re-planted seeds for the second time due to our garden soil being too dry for the seeds to do much more than germinate and die. And then it started raining and although we have had a couple of “gully washers”, most of the water falling has been slow enough to be beneficial. Crops are up and looking fairly decent for the beginning of June. Hoeing potatoes last weekend, we found a few baby potatoes that had strayed out of their hills so the first plantings of spuds seem to be on track. Katy’s college friend, Lenka, who lives in the Czech Republic, mentioned that she was planting potatoes in late April during one of their conversations and explained that they plant for a fall harvest. So, we decided to put in a few potatoes ourselves and see if Kansas weather would support a fall harvest. I remember growing up that my grandparents harvested their potatoes much later than we do – of course, I also remember that we dusted those plants with arsenic. Sometimes the “old ways” weren’t the best ways! Researching arsenic use was interesting as I found that it was used in food as an ingredient (small amounts), as a cloth dye, as an ingredient in patent medicines and the list goes on. It was a by-product of mining that mining companies sold and offered a lovely green hue to the things that it colored! The Sundog crew is content with hand-picking those silly potato bugs!
YOUR BAG THIS WEEK
The ground crunches as we walk outside because the trees have dropped their leaves early and the grass is dried up. I saw that WIBW had a news story in the last couple of days detailing the struggles of a farmer facing this long drought period and information from a specialist about dry conditions. I think the farmer said that it had been drought conditions on his farm for the last four years. The weather forecast is for rain Monday and we are crossing our fingers that they are right because the hill is dry.
NO BAG NEXT MONDAY - it is hard to believe that next Monday will be Labor Day!
It is hard to believe that it has only been one week since we received rain here on the hill - .62 in the gauge that day. Unfortunately, that moisture is long gone. The heat has been intense and the vegetables, animals and people are struggling to stay upright and positive. We are counting the days until the forecast is below 100 degrees – if we are to believe the forecasters, that will be this coming Saturday. We are keeping fingers and toes crossed that they are right!
Mid-August on a rainy Sunday afternoon and the hill is definitely grateful for the moisture. It is one of those warm rains that you don’t mind walking in so we have been out harvesting tomatoes in the tunnels, picking peppers and getting ready to pull some beets and carrots. So glad to have some seeds in the ground to soak up these perfect soft falling showers – greens, kohlrabi and beans were some of the latest to be hidden under the dirt. We are usually lax about planting for fall but this year has been challenging so decided to try the later plantings and hope that with water and encouragement, we could get a few pickings for the bags and ourselves before frost. It seems wrong to even type the word frost in mid-August but there is already a countdown of summer days left on the refrigerator out in the milkhouse and we are down to 41 days as of today since the first day of Fall is September 23rd!
It is hard to believe that we are already thru the first week of August and also hard to believe how much the weather has changed in the last 24 hours. Those first few days of August were definitely “dog days”. I was curious about where that expression comes from and so looked it up only to find out that it was about a lot more than the hot, sweaty days of summer. It comes from ancient Greek and Roman times and is tied to the rising of Sirius, the Dog Star at sunrise which happens from July 3rd to August 11th. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky other than the Sun. In ancient times, the “dog days” were thought to be a time of drought, bad luck and unrest! Growing up, I pictured the dog days as when our old collie dog would find the coolest spot on the farm and dig in around mid-day and not appear again until late afternoon. She would let you lay on her without protest and those days were useful for plotting and planning or daydreaming the long summer afternoons away. Those were the dog days of my understanding 😊
The first few days of August are forecasted to be cooler than the last few days of July and we are grateful for double digits rather than triple digits. Today (Sunday) was really hot as we picked vegetables and weeded a few rows here and there. Some of the tomatoes were wrinkled as though dropped in hot water and when we tried them, they tasted a little like they had been cooked which makes sense when the temperatures are topping 100 each day inside their plastic covered shelter. Outside, the beds are struggling with the lack of moisture and the winds which picked up this past week also. We moved fairly slow most of the day – with the exception of finding the hornet nest accidentally. Hank, Izzy and Seth’s dog, took the sting for the team as we hurriedly pushed and pulled our full garden cart up the hill, forgetting to take pictures of our “picking team” which was why they were posed in front of the hornet nest in the first place.
One-third of the way through the summer with only seven days left in this month of July and it definitely will feel like summer if the temperature predictions for next week hit their marks. I saw triple digits for five out of the eight days on the forecast. Hopefully we will have some rainfall somewhere in those eight days! Today (Saturday) saw .06 sitting in our gauge with an unexpected afternoon shower popping up out of nowhere. It was enough to “rinse” the laundry that was ready to be brought in off the line and probably gave all the plants a tiny bit of relief from the dry weather. We are still out there scrounging for potatoes among the pigweed and tall grasses. Piling weeds and making barriers as we go, we are hoping to find a spot where we can hide some new squash plantings because the bugs are winning where our bed is located currently. The plants have done fairly well considering the pressure of weather and pests but they are fading fast. Maybe next weeks temperatures will persuade the bugs to move north!
We were the lucky ones this week as the clouds dropped 1.38 on top of the hill late Friday afternoon and they did it without resentment as there were no tree limbs broken or power lines on the ground. The earth here is so dry that I was digging in dusty dirt this afternoon (Saturday) as I hunted for potatoes. The surface of the garden is damp but there was no mud. My diggings were the same as a couple of weeks ago when I dug a few rows – small potatoes and very few of them. The spring rains did not come this year and potatoes are stingy if they do not get water. Hopefully this rain will bring up that experimental potato planting that we did a few weeks ago and, in the meantime, we will keep digging for treasures! 😊
TOMATOES - they are finally ripe and in your bags this week. Let me backtrack a little on that statement by saying that they are in your bags except for the ones that we ate, sitting on buckets and stumps in the warm afternoon sun Sunday. They were the very definition of delicious. Katy and I are in agreement on Ananas Noire being one of the sweetest tomatoes, albeit a little on the unattractive side and we love the German Heads. I hope to get pictures of each variety and send them out so you can identify your favorite.
June ended with storms and wind damage at Zach and Jen’s home in Topeka while the hill had a typical summer evening with a little wind and .02 of moisture if you counted the dried scum and lone fly floating in the rain gauge. JULY began with RAIN here on the hill - .48 in the gauge that was cleaned and a new baby calf when we started evening chores. We were grateful for the moisture because up to last evening we were very dry. Unfortunately, lots did not receive a drop! It feels good when the whole area is blessed with that life giving water.
Picking vegetables today was a pleasure after the temperatures and humidity of Saturday! Our feet were sitting in hot, dry dirt though and we wished for moisture for the crops, not only on our hill but for all the planters of seeds who squint into the sun, watching for rain clouds to appear. Gauge totals this week were .16 hundredths one evenings and another .07 Friday night. Winds and heat swallowed that easily this week and the forecast is saying that triple digits could be possible before we pass from the month of June into July. We spent part of Saturday in the pasture digging thistles and observed that the pond is lower than we like to see it going into the summer months (and we are officially in the summer season as of last Wednesday!).
If you love fresh beans, this is your kind of bag! It does not seem to matter when we plant green beans, they all ripen at once. It is like a “bean race” and we, the bean pickers, lost! Or at least our backs lost as we spent quite a bit of time in the “green bean” position today. I dream of green beans that I can pick standing up! We are late getting this bag picked so the newsletter is short this week with lots of pictures!
The month of June has been bringing us small rain showers with cooler temperatures. Our gauge totals are low and yet the benefits of this moisture have been more than if we had a downpour that washed down the hill without that slow soak. The weeds have definitely responded combination of temperatures and cooler weather. I noticed today when I was pulling “pigweed” in order to find a growing row of okra, the root growth of the weeds has strengthened since last week. It takes some “pull power” to get them out and they wrench out of the ground with a sound. The sound registers with me and I feel no guilt as I toss the noisy plant over the fence to Sophie who munches with whole hearted, slobbering enthusiasm!
The topic of conversation this past week has been about the amount of rain that came down at everyone’s house because some people received downpours and others (like us) were treated to a shower here and there. There were reports of water flooding fields and running over roads and that was less than 10 miles from this hill with five to seven inches falling in one huge gush. I think that was the night that we received .24 of an inch. Total in the gauge for the week was less than one half inch – standing at .44 of an inch. Today was one of those sudden showers that came out of nowhere and gave us .09.
If my intentionally planted, carefully selected seeds had the determination and passion for growing that pigweeds do, our hilltop farm would be drowning in produce. I think of all kinds of ideas as I pull weeds such as why not graft tomatoes and peppers on pigweeds? Why bother grafting them on their own kind when the pigweed standing by them, growing in the same soil, and facing the same day to day challenges is towering over them and when I try to pull the offending “weed”, it takes two hands and I hear the reluctance as the roots come slowly out of the earth. I guess I am thinking about weeds because we spent most of the weekend with them as we worked on pulling and piling weeds to be toted to the calf pen where they were received as treats. That was the fun part of the work as we watched those weeds disappear.
Sending out our first bag of the season with fresh greens and asparagus reminds me of life on the farm as a child, only at that time our greens were those that the land grew without our help. There are days when that seems like a great plan!
LAST DELIVERY of this season is this week. It is the end of September already – hard to believe that we have changed seasons again and that autumn is here - hard to believe until you look out the window and see the leaves falling and hear them crunch beneath your feet. We are beginning our day before the sun comes on shift and ending after the sun sinks and there are sometimes jackets hanging in the barn as the days gets shorter and chillier. As the garden dies down and we find ourselves with more free time, we are hoping to finish some projects that were started months ago. We still have an east fence line that needs cleaned out. Notice that I said fence line because that boundary is without a fence at the moment. We are hoping to have some type of enclosure up so that the cows can graze that small field and I am sure that they are hoping for that too. My brother-in-law has been working this summer on the west fence line – doing my share as well as his own. Hopefully we will be able to help out on that side also! Some of the trees and brush have been cleared, leaving the possibility for grass. it is a good thing that we did not waste money on grass seed in this year of drought because our chances of a good stand would have been pretty low. The grain bin project is one that Dan worked on this weekend with some rust remover – both manual and liquid! The replacement parts are due to arrive this week which gives us a little time to get it painted and put back together as right now we are still using our feed barrel system.
We are trying really hard to be positive about the cracks in the ground and the sweat running down our neck as we look at the garden and think about the next few days of predicted heat. The rain gauge registered .08 this morning and we had .03 on Friday so .11 for the week. It has been a challenging season! We feel lucky to have had tomatoes and potatoes although our wishes would be for squash and cucumbers to go along with those crops. We keep repeating to each other - remember last year when . . .. .. ☹
It feels like summer has left this weekend! Seventies are so different than those ninety-degree temperatures but the weatherman said not to get used to this because it was going to warm up by Tuesday! I am probably not going to win any fans by saying this but I am not ready for summer to be over. I am ready for this drought season to be over though. We were hanging out with Zach Saturday when it started to rain and I guess that it continued to rain in Topeka more than it did here on the hill where the rain gauge topped off at .28. It was slow and with the cool down in temperatures, it did help a little but by noon on Sunday, most of the gardens showed no sign that any water had fallen the night before. We have been hearing from people who are growing and their experience is about the same as ours – lack of rain and the struggle with the high temperatures. We have been lucky with our tomatoes and potatoes and believe it or not, the third planting of squash has the beginnings of blooms on a couple of the plants. Buckets and buckets of water and hopefully missing a bug hatch will give us a few squashes before the season ends – keeping our fingers crossed.
NO BAG NEXT WEEK due to Labor Day being on Monday. See you on September 12th.
We did get some rain this week - YAY! Dribbling and drizzling, in short showers nearly all day long, slowly the total rose to .39. And the temperatures lowered to give us a couple of beautiful weekend days with the forecast of more of them to come in the next week. We could definitely use more moisture. The forecasted amount for us was .01 so receiving that extra .38 was a true gift of the clouds on Friday!
We were almost thinking of getting a jacket out for the early morning chores this week and then along came this weekend. Jackets and sweaters are definitely on hold for at least a few more days as the triple digit heat and dry weather combined to make sweat and more sweat. Last year we failed to keep up with the weeds and have lots of reminders from all those seeds that snuggled in for the long winter and then have grown with wild abandon this spring and summer. We are determined to compost as many as possible before they do it again so spent our spare time this week pulling and hauling to the compost piles. If the weeds have seeds that we are concerned about, we haul them to the chickens who are thrilled with the deliveries. Today’s offering were “stick-tites”, wild lettuce, lambs quarters, ragweed and what I call pigweed. I looked up pigweed and there are many different varieties and I think that we have several of them flourishing on the hill.
This past week has gone by in a blur of sweat as the temperatures and heat indices continually flirted with triple digits. We did catch a shower or two which totaled almost a quarter of an inch in the gauge for which we were grateful. Humidity levels were up and down – mostly up and we felt the rivulets of sweat running downhill as we sat and milked in the barn at nights since it did not really cool down much from those daytime highs until well after the sun had disappeared. What always frustrates me is how the weeds outgrow my carefully planted, watered, mulched and debugged crops. Why do blister beetles eat carrots and beets instead of velvetleaf or pigweed or sticker plants or burr marigold? That would be helpful if we could work together – them eating weeds and us growing crops! 😊 We spent our spare time pulling weeds and getting out seeds to stick in the dirt. We are more than halfway through the summer and it is time to be thinking about some fall crops such as turnips, kohlrabi and maybe some cabbages. We are going to try to replant the cucurbits – squash and cucumbers, one more time. Hopefully we will have missed some of the bugs as the season begins to head towards fall and what we hope is a long Indian Summer.
The rain continued to fall here on the hill with amounts of .48 additional on Monday, .10 on Tuesday, 1.00 on Wednesday and then .33 on Thursday so with the Sunday evening rain of 1.71, we had a total of 3.61. That was an amazing surprise that farmers and the land were so grateful for as it sank it and glued together some of those wide cracks that drought creates as the moisture shrinks out of the dirt. I think that we all looked a little better with the rain also! 😊
Sunday evening and we have survived another long week of hot and dry weather here on the hill. It has been challenging to try and keep everything alive by watering and mulching and we failed with some crops. Tonight, there is the sound of a few sprinkled rain drops here and there as some tight-fisted clouds pass overhead. The weather man is forecasting widespread heavy rain at times although the amounts on his map do not come close to the definition of heavy rainfall. The weather must be perfect for horseflies. I don’t think that I have ever seen quite as many as I have this year. The cows are being harassed by them unbearably. In my research I learned that only female horseflies bite animals and humans. So, my evening reading material consists of information about horse fly traps and pink-eye remedies which is another thing that the cows are trying to fight off.
Was it only a few weeks ago when it was raining every other day or more often? And now we are counting the drops and trying to figure out which crops are going to be able to survive the next week. Looking at the eight-day forecast has five days in the triple digits and that is hard on plants, animals and people. Friday morning, the gauge registered .11 and Sunday morning it was .04. There are a lot of tiny little soybeans out in the fields and some late planted corn that show signs of heat/drought stress as we drive down the roads.
Mid July is potato digging time here on the hill. We planted potatoes in two different gardens this year and both did fairly well according to the potato grubs who sampled in both pieces of dirt! It took an entire day but the potatoes are in crates and although they still need to be sorted to make sure that cuts and green tops are out, the hardest part of the task is done. We usually eat the cuts as they tend to deteriorate quickly and it is a good excuse to make potato salad. The green tops, courtesy of the sunshine, are edible but we do cut off the discoloration. The potatoes were close to the surface this year, making it easier to remove them. While digging, we found grubs and blister beetles and a very strange worm that is most likely related to the tomato hornworm. There were several wheelies, lots of sowbugs and ladybugs. Horseflies kept buzzing us and attempting to bite which was distracting. They are annoying to us and even more annoying to the cows this season. We look a little sillier than the cows though as you see us standing in the garden with our hands flapping in every direction as we try to bring down a mostly unseen target. The rest of the weekend was spent pulling weeds in the high tunnels and getting ready to replant chard for the third time and hoping that the rabbits are tired of it finally. We have lost our first squash planting to borers and squash bugs. The second planting is hiding underneath floating row cover and we hope that it makes it to maturity. We are doing the same with our cucumbers as the small yellow cucumber beetles are spreading wilt and the row covers might be the answer since it will make it harder for them to land on the plants. We picked the first offerings off the bean rows. Bean rust ruined most of the harvest. It is not a total loss as the pigs like fresh vegetables and are not bothered by speckled beans.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: NO BAG NEXT WEEK since the 4th of July is on Monday we will be skipping and be back with a bag for you on the 11th of July! Have a wonderful 4th!
We are definitely aware of the temperature and the heat index these days! I am not quite ready to wish for snow but during our latest conversation concerning the weather, Seth brought the subject of “snow ice cream” up and how much he wished he had some. I argued that snow ice cream only comes with snow and I don’t like being hot and I hate driving on ice. Like most debates, neither of us convinced the other and since like most of our serious conversations, it was taking place in the barn and sweat was dripping. I said we could call it a draw and that led to a whole new conversation about using the word draw without crayons and paper. 😊
I think that it is definitely safe to put the winter flannel sheets in the closet this week! It is HOT when you see triple digits in the forecast and heat indices are included in every single forecast. It is almost the middle of June so I guess that it is not abnormal to be sweating and fighting for the ice trays first. It is the change that always throws us off balance and we struggle to remain upright as we find our footing in the new “normal”. The pigs are changing their routine to include afternoon mud/spa time in order to beat the heat and the cows are hiding out in the timber, using the buddy method to switch their tails for as they stand close together. The chickens take cover or hang out underneath the shade trees and the goats graze unconcernedly, owning the entire pasture. If it was raining, it would be the goats parked underneath cover and they would not lie there quietly waiting for the drops to quit but instead would “whine” the entire time that drops were falling about the unfairness of the situation.
Another soggy morning greeted us today (Sunday) and it looks like the entire coming week’s forecast has several chances of moisture falling and filling our gauge. It is a test of patience building to sit back and watch the weeds grow in ground that is too wet for us to walk on. It is a good time to catch up on some of the things listed on the “to-do” list. As we sit making lists of things that we need to do and the supplies we need to finish those projects, it is fairly obvious from the dripping sounds on the floor and splats on the paper and the occasional drip on our heads, that the leaks in the barn roof might be at the top of the priority list! This project has been on our “thinking we need to do” list for a long time and moved to the bottom in dry times! 😊 We were able to get another long bed of onions planted last weekend and some bean seeds in the ground. Transplanting of the last of the eggplants was successfully done to the delight of the resident rabbits who promptly ate them off – right down the line without any preference as to the variety or size. Zach and Jen have been struggling with rabbits eating their tomato transplants but these are our first losses to the four-footed critters this year. Mark’s tree saw activities in the timber seemed to have had an effect on the deer eating our beginning plantings so now we will have to concentrate on some strategies to deter becoming a snack stop for the rabbits. Hank, Izzy’s pup, might have to start taking some evening strolls around the perimeters. He loves chasing anything that moves right now while our old dog, Tic, likes to nap while she is on guard duty, barely lifting an eyelid if there is a commotion.
Welcome to the first week of the ’22 season! We could almost, not quite, copy the words from the beginning of last season as to what our gardening world looks like from the top of the hill - wet and lush! Lush growth of weeds and crops is what we are looking at and what we have been trying to plant into this spring. Most springs we would have been able to plant in the tunnels as with their plastic covers, they remain dry. Winter and spring weather, mostly high winds, effectively punched those covers on both tunnels so they are in the process of being repaired. We were able to “late-plant” tomatoes, peppers and eggplants into the structures a week ago so now Dan is having to maneuver the ladder around tubes and drip tapes. Katy and Dan spent Sunday afternoon working on the top tunnel and by the late end of the day, it was covered and secure. The bottom tunnel is still on the to-do list. The rest of the gardens are in various stages of plantings as we stick things in between rains. We were lucky last week as the large hail did very little damage to our crops, although it shredded blooming flowers and de-leafed trees and probably did not do the roof any favors! 😊 We continue to be grateful that we are not facing the drought that western Kansans are seeing this spring.
WE MADE IT! It is always a little “iffy” as to whether we will make it to the end of September with enough of a harvest to fill the bag – always glad when we do.
Here we are, two weeks from the end of this season and the end of September! Tonight, is the full harvest moon and Wednesday is the autumnal equinox – the first day of fall. We are already doing chores in the mornings and evenings in the beginnings and endings of dark as night comes sooner and last longer and that isn’t going to change for a few months! The sun is going to get up later and sink below the horizon long before I am ready to end my day.
Shining strong with confidence, the sun lit up our part of Kansas every day this week. Temperatures were slightly sticky at times and yet not anything to complain about. I am a summer lover so find heat easier to be pleasant about than the chill and downright cold of winter. There is still water standing in our terraces from the rains last week and the frogs have taken to setting up temporary residence in these bonus water holes along with mosquitos and skittering water bugs. It seems to me that it is a long walk/hop for a small frog from the pond to the terraces but I guess a change of scenery is good for all creatures? 😊
A little taste of fall arrived this past week wrapped up in the rain clouds that moved through the area on Thursday night and again on Friday night. The wind came in strong enough to help things become airborne for seconds and the temperature dropped with the rain. Heat returned quickly along with humidity so summer is still owning this season! Total for the two nights here was 6.23, give or take a few drops. That is a lot of rain! It is such a challenge to go for several days/weeks without moisture and then have clouds open up and pour down, filling the gauge to overflowing and depart without a backwards glance until another couple of weeks has passed. I have to say that it beats no rain for sure!!
It has been another hot week here on the hill with only a few rain drops one morning as we finished chores – drops that fell in the sunshine of the beginning morning, making tiny sounds on the porch roof. We had time to look out the back door to see if it was real and then it was gone. There is a definite need for moisture for the gardens to produce and as we feel the heat and drought like conditions, it gives us pause and the smallest sliver of understanding what the heat and drought are causing so many across this country. In contrast, others are flooded with approaching storms. It seems like people are always complaining about the weather and yet, if you look at it closer, I think that what the complaints are about are the extremes. We will continue to wish for gentle soaking rains, low humidity and moderate temperatures - at least 1 out of three maybe? 😊
Another rain storm - this one seemed resentful and blew rain at us Friday night, breaking tree branches and upturning things that were not “nailed” down and depositing 2.29 in our rain gauge. Thursday morning there was a short shower on the hill that added .15 to our August moisture totals. If we could custom order rainfall, it would come down slow and gentle and without wind and cracks of lightning followed by loud echoing thunder that rolled as though being played by a drummer. And now we are looking at a few days of high temperatures again this coming week. It is definitely still summer in Kansas! 😊
Over three inches of rain fell in the beginning hours of Friday here on the hill - much needed moisture for the land and all of the inhabitants. We were waiting for moisture and raced out at the last-minute Thursday evening after talking and questioning the weather forecast because the rain has been missing our hill – and there we were with our bag of seeds having a Turnip Planting party! 😊 The moon sign was in favor of root crops so with our headlamp beaming close to the midnight hour, we threw turnip seeds in every direction on our bare potato patch. I am not sure that we have ever planted in the dark before and am curious as to where all those seeds landed, especially considering that there were four of us planting and we had one headlamp - wonder what the plot is going to look like? 😊
The rain gauge held .44 and one dead fly this morning. We were so ready for some moisture and so was the garden. The smell of rain after a hot, dry spell is hard to put into words – I just know that you want to breathe it in so deep that it cleans out the dust from your lungs. I feel lucky that I can smell on most days! 😊
Spring just began or so it seems and here it is August! The coming week’s weather forecast sounds like a very pleasant dream after the last week or very warm/hot temperatures. We heard the sounds of cloud rumblings and there were a few stray drops that fell Saturday evening when the wind picked up but there was no measurable rainfall this week or last week. The cracks in the earth are like artwork that the land is painting while waiting for moisture.
Kansas weather continues to live up to the definition of being unpredictable. July has brought the land a lot of moisture and is now sucking that moisture right back up with the high temperatures of the last few days. This morning (Sunday) the clouds are hanging heavy to the north of us and we are hearing strong thunder and we can almost smell the rain but other than a few drops, nothing has fallen here on the hill. The weatherman is saying that rain fell to the north of us and that it is going to “drift” south so there is hope for a shower which would be appreciated.
For our part of the country, rain came again this week. Saturday morning the gauge registered .76 and that was on top of the water amounts from Wednesday and Thursday. Totals for this week were 1.90. The moisture was enough for area farmers to plant soybeans after a late wheat harvest in the hopes that they will win the gamble in the race against a frost come September or October if we are all lucky. I say lucky because I have never wished for an early frost. Huge smoke clouds formed overhead as the wheat fields burned. The air was filled with dust and chaff from the wheat crop with smoke and ash from the fire as the wind carried the news of what was happening to the top of our hill.
A weekend of rain, clouds, thunder and lightning in the middle of July is something to be grateful for and as we record water amounts in the gauge, we are surprised by the differences in June and this month. I like to be able to predict the growing season’s weather but this year would take an expert in long shots, I think! Three inches plus in the gauge on the morning of July 10th would have been a long shot in years past!
And it continued to rain for several days – sometimes with only a few hundredths in the gauge and other times it would be overflowing. For us here on the hill, it was one of the best types of rain – slow and steady, able to soak into the earth rather than run down the hill. Occasionally there would be a downpour but for the most part, it fell easily. The gardens drank it all up! It is always shocking to me that only a few days after such rains, I see that the earth could use another dousing. There is still moisture underneath but the top covering is already dusty.
Raining on the roof as I write this on Sunday afternoon! The clouds finally loosened their grip on the moisture that they held starting on Thursday evening when they stingily let .03 drops of rain fall on our hill, followed by another .17 on Friday during the day. Then the gauge started filling up as Friday evening’s soft soaking raindrops totaled .69 and Saturday afternoon’s roof drumming added another .49! The Saturday moisture was one of those downpour types and not nearly as beneficial as the Friday evening steady and slow cloud release. We needed the rain here on the hill and appreciate the temperature cool down that has come with the moisture.
Saturday night and we are moon watching – there is a big ring around the planet this evening. I had always heard that it meant a weather change which is what a “sundog” forecast. So I looked it up in the Farmer’s Almanac which says that a moon ring is a predictor of either rain or snow. At this point, we would probably take either! 😊 As hot as it has been the past few days, the snow would melt upon impact and the plants might enjoy the tiny chill as much as we would!
The world is made up lightning bugs and a tiny slivered moon tonight that follows us as we make our way to the house after milking cows. Not enough light to see by from either the bugs or the moon but enough light to be fascinated with as darkness has fallen on this day – one of the last days of official ’21 spring. It is hard to believe that next week is the beginning of summer and the shortening of days already.
The weather has changed! And we and the gardens are adjusting to the fact that the temperatures have went from below normal to above or near normal and the rain is not falling as frequently. This morning there are misty drops that coat you as you walk on the paths to do chores but the roof is not playing “rain music”. There is such a difference in being outside and listening to rain hit the earth, trees and myself and then sitting in the barn and hearing it “drumming” down on a tin roof! With the changes we have abandoned flannel bed sheets and mud boots and have been hunting up shade hats and tennis shoes or in the case of the kids, abandoning any form of footwear!
We are plodding our way to the end of this muddy month of May - -and honestly, although tired of mud and lines of socks on the clothesline, it is so much better than drought. We are losing some things to rot from the cool weather and wet conditions however if it were drought days, we would not even have the hope of harvest so . . . . . . . griping is confined to soft whispers in corners as we struggle to wash mud off of cows and coax reluctant goats to enter and exit thru the muddy paths. Boots have become heavy as the earth cakes on and forms molded layers and our faces and arms sport stripes as cow tails swipe past in a back-and-forth motion to be sure that we are coated well. I look suspiciously at Tubiggs who has the longest tail and therefore most ability to “paint my face” and I wonder as I see her watching me sideways as she chews slowly - is this on purpose? And that is why even on the warmest of nights, we will sometimes be bent close to a cowhide, face softly pink with those faint shines of sweat and feel triumphant as we pick our buckets up and head to the milk strainer with a clean head under that hood.
This 2021 season is beginning with water standing this morning as we think about harvesting greens and looking to see if our new transplants are still in the garden or whether they have washed down the hill? 😊 Last year’s, last bag of the season was picked in dry dirt with us grateful for any water that fell from the sky.
LAST WEEK OF DELIVERY! 20 weeks ago – this season began late with snow in April and frost in May. We were late with plantings due to rainwater standing and now we can’t get rainwater to fall as we end this season in drought. The past few days the sprinkler which is old and antiquated, has been moved from place to place as we water the turnips and rye ground coverings and they have rewarded us by shooting up new light green growth. The forecast says that we may get some rain tomorrow evening (Sunday) so we will keep our fingers crossed as the land needs it even if our gardens are almost done for the season. This weekend was the start of our moving project – compost to each of the gardens with the help of a skid loader. So that machine is definitely on the list of things to indulge in if an inheritance lands in my lap! Amazing little machines that move so much more than a wheelbarrow and a shovel and since Dan had run one in a previous job, he spent part of the afternoon running levers. To save on machine hours, the compost is being loaded on a pickup and then hand shoveled off in piles in the garden to be moved by that trusty wheelbarrow. The pigs love Dan’s excavations and have been rooting for treasures this misty Sunday morning. RAINFALL UPDATE - .74 hundredths fell this weekend. We were grateful and the thirsty land swallowed it up.
Beautiful weather this weekend – one of those beautiful Kansas weekends that feel like a gift after last weekend’s heat and wind. Relief came in the way of rain finally on Tuesday with 1.27 accumulating over the next few days. Today as I walked by our plots where we hand sown some rye and turnips, I could see both coming up. The rye is straight red stems and since part of it was thrown by Seth and Izzy, it is an interesting germination picture. 😊 I did toss some buckwheat in the mix but I can see that it will not be coming up as the seeds probably needed to be sown with a seeder and covered instead of hand seeding. The shiny buckwheat seeds are on top of the ground and show no signs of knowing that they are not in their package!
And once again we are wishing for rain to fill our gauge and our mud puddles as the past few days with the high temperatures and winds have left the hill dry and the plants closed as they work hard to survive this latest challenge. This weekend we spent time mowing and tilling under plots that were planted to ground covers as they had sprouted more weeds than anything else and with the forecast of rain looking fairly positive over the next few days, there is hope that it will sprout and grow for a few weeks before frost. The forecast is also showing numbers that have not been there in a few months – 40’s and 50’s. I am not excited about them as love not having to dress in layers and then have to make the rounds to find clothes that I have shed and hung in trees and on fence posts etc. 😊
Rain dances this morning as .87 fell on the hill, coming with thunder and a few flashes of lightning. The wind was fairly fierce for a little bit – blowing the landscape clean before it washed it! And there was a definite difference in temperatures as the sky lightened towards noon and the sun appeared. Everything and everybody breathed a sigh of relief and we are pretty sure that some of our plants grew as we were watching them. Some crops are not going to recover but we could see new life in the peppers and okra as blooms opened out of nowhere on the almost denuded okra stalks and tiny white blossoms were also opening on the sweet peppers. We are hoping that this changes the texture of the vegetables as we have been “eating the drought” as we chewed through tough tomato skins and bendable green beans. We keep forgetting to tell everyone to “string those beans”! They are a multicolored pole bean mix that requires stringing but we wanted to try them again as in the past we remembered them as being very flavorful and also drought tolerant. We will try the long beans again but were not overly thrilled with the flavor or the texture. If you have feedback on some of the crop varieties, please let us know!
Another hot and very dry week here on the hill. This weather is challenging for people and plants that are living on top of more rocks than dirt. We are making some tough decisions as we can’t water everything and we are hoping that by picking some crops, we can get them thru to the next rain which is predicted to be this weekend. Keeping our fingers and toes crossed that the forecast is on track – and planning to do lots of rain dancing if it does come down!
It was an exciting week here on the hill as the house and the garage were stripped of their roofing and recovered in the space of two days. The crew that accomplished that feat worked this hard job and did so cheerfully and we enjoyed watching them work their magic with common shingles. In addition to a new roof, the back porch was jacked up and we are in the process of redoing some of the weary looking boards that have held it up for thirty some years. Katy and I were very impressed that we could take a floor jack and position it just so and start jacking up an entire structure. It was kind of a dangerous feeling as we now think that in addition to being part time gardeners, we may take up part time “building re-do”. It was kind of awesome to hear the groaning and know that it was the house and not me! 😊
Another weekend of raindrops amounted to .47 total in the gauge from the two wet mornings – grateful land and inhabitants and although we wish that rain could come down in a way that would water some plants and skip others (mainly weeds), we are content having mud puddles and tall rubber boots. It is a strange weather pattern this month where the normal temperatures range from sweating to melting and although we have had a few of those days, we have also had some days that were plucked right out of the month of September.
RAIN – lots of it over several days this past week has made such a difference in the gardens here on the hill. The land seems to have life to it once again and even if it is in the form of abundant weeds, we are not going to gripe – at least not out loud! J We have been so lucky here as the water amounts were a lot less than in other areas with a total for this entire week being __. Some people received that much in a period of hours and instead of watering their gardens, it flooded roads and found its way into homes, causing lots of problems.
Rainfall totals for last Monday evening / early morning Tuesday sat at 1.70 in the gauge and added to this morning’s (Monday) windfall of 1.06, we finally made it past two inches. I say finally because to the west of us about 4-5 miles, the totals last week were over 3 inches and we are still not at that amount, even with today’s wet start added in. It is easy to see how dry this land has become when you walk and barely leave an impression on dirt holding over an inch of water from this morning. We are grateful for everyone who did their “rain dances”!
It is thundering, rich and echoing sounds to the south that just keeps rolling. We are hoping rain is heading our way on this Monday evening. It is dark enough that we can see streaks of lightning open up the blackness for split seconds and then before my eyes can adjust, it is dark again. This morning the hill was showered with .65 - a part of an inch that soaked in easily. Our friend, Judy, to the south reported that her land had two inches of water so far. We are hoping for at least that much slow easy rainfall as our gardens are to the point of being desperate.
Mid-July already and it certainly feels like this typical summer month – lots of heat and humidity. Rain is a tough subject to talk about out here on the hill - none coming down is the problem. We got .51 this past week but the wind and heat dried that up in one day. Saturday was another rain predicted day but our gauge reflected .02 as we continued working the dirt. It is kind of a toss-up as to whether we should pull the weeds as they do offer shade at times from the blistering effects of the sun however they also suck up any available moisture it seems and our little seedlings get lost either way.
Sitting in here on Sunday afternoon, still smelling the unexpected blends of heat and rain coming in thru the window – very unexpected and very welcomed here on the hill. I was out in the garden making moats around my surviving squash plants and committing “bugicide” on every squash bug/beetle that I could find before mixing up some fertilizer and giving everyone a drink when the first drops started falling. I didn’t bother going in at first as thought that it was just a cloud teasing since for the past few days we have heard of other people getting rain in fairly large amounts while our gauge collected dust. Mud puddles were forming as I looked out the screen door of the milk house where Katy and I had taken shelter and her reading on the rain gauge said .58. Of course we wish it were more as the ground is very dry but that is so beneficial for the earth – much more than we could have done with a hose today! I checked to find out what average monthly rainfall for the month of June is in our county and according to K-State it should be somewhere around 5 ½ inches. This June we received 2.11 and when you factor in the hilltop location with its ratio of rock to dirt, it makes sense that our gardens are struggling!
Rain came in early Saturday morning – 1.16 in our gauge and we were most definitely grateful for the moisture. Up until that day, we had .95 total for the entire month which wasn’t much when you factor in the high temperatures and the Kansas winds! We are hopeful that we will have more moisture soon since we were able to walk and pull weeds in the garden on Sunday as the moisture was not enough to make deep mud.
Officially we are in the season of summer! We were grateful for the .20 hundredths of rain that we received on the last day of spring and envious of those who had more than that in their gauges. It is also nice to see the temperatures forecasted in the 80s and not the 90s and we are hopeful that they are correct in their prediction of lower humidity. Since I am writing this early Sunday morning there is still hope that we will have rain before the weekend is over and the last weather forecast had warnings of possible hail and straight winds. We will definitely take a “pass” if possible on both of those! MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: No extra rain drops yet and it is past ten as I sit down to write this newsletter. We spent too long mulching tonight and the cows were putting in multiple complaints by the time that we sat down on the milking stools.
Even though the weather says otherwise, we are still in the season of the spring with summer due to being this coming Saturday, June 20 at 5:44 p.m. I looked up the word solstice and it comes from Latin words meaning the “sun stands still” which is what it must seem like on the longest day of the year if the temperatures are similar to what we experienced this weekend. Personally, I hope that the solstice brings a day of slow rain as our gardens and we need it. It doesn’t take very many days of mid 90s and brisk warm Kansas winds to dry out the land. I have been practicing “earthing” but weeding this weekend was more like “broiling” than enjoying dirt time with barefeet. I thought maybe it was just old feet but saw Izzy hopping from foot to foot and her explanation was that it was “hot”!
The month of June has brought heat and humidity, lightning bugs and thunderstorms to the hill. This is ideal growing weather for plants with a good root system. People on the other hand take a few days to adjust! 😊 I saw on the forecast that heat indices were flirting with triple digits which is a little challenging in June. Last week’s rainfall which amounted to .75 totals hasn’t stopped local farmers as we hear tractors running long hours to get crops planted before it is too late.
The 6th month of this year has begun and as of today, the first day of summer is only 18 days away. I sensed a difference in the land during the past rain as the smells of the earth were softening into that earthy sweetness that comes with growing things. I have also noticed that we can get a lot of rain in the gauge and still be walking out into the garden in a day or two so the temperature of the dirt is definitely warmer than it was a few weeks ago.
The weekend flew and although with the weather, there were still several tasks left on the “to-do” list, we enjoyed every minute of the three days! We are closing in on the inch mark in the rain gauge, counting Friday’s downpour so definitely a month of spring showers. If only it could rain with the sun shining - -and as long as I am wishing, if it could come down without mud! RAIN UPDATE – another .80 this morning in the gauge.
Hi Everyone!