The Post-Deluge Post

I can’t help myself… I am a Minnesotan, I just HAVE to talk about weather!

You locals know that our area has received a significant amount of rain - starting Sunday with most of it descending on us Monday.  Most of that time the rain was heavy or very heavy and reports of up to 11 inches were not uncommon.  Our rain-gauge is out of commission, but Rollie and Ardis measured 8” inches so that is close enough.

We can count ourselves fortunate that the worst we ended up with was varying degrees of moisture in the basements.  This multi-level house actually has three basement levels so the inconvenience varied from dampness in the “laundry basement”  to really wet – sucked up with the shop-vac (what a great invention) in “Kurt’s basement”  to standing water 3.5 inches deep in the “way down” basement.  We were without hot water one night as the pilot light of the water heater went under and we had a tense hour  when we thought the septic was flooded but that turned out to be a fairly easily repaired pipe issue.  Phew! 

He appears to be contemplating the problem at hand

The pond overflowed of course, but Phil's hives are fine

 It’s taken a lot of effort to dry things out but all in all, it could have been worse.  Many folks have lost all or part of their gardens and crops – ours are OK.

If you look back a couple of weeks, it's changed quite a bit.  Notice the hull-less oats to the east?  Almost ready to harvest.

Things in the garden are a little behind, as expected.  I did nibble on a few sugar snap peas today, and had my first cherry tomato earlier in the week.  The lettuce has been good and there are a few raspberries ripening every day - with a lot more to come.

The pigs are enjoying a different living arrangement this week.  Kevin is off to camp, so to make the feeding and watering chores a little easier for me, the porkers have been split up and moved in from the pasture to the two coop-yards - three pigs in each.

I am hoping they will plow up all the long grass and weeds that the chickens do not eat.

Kevin moved the pigs on Friday while I was at work, so I don’t know just how he accomplished that task.  I was NOT supposed to let the hens out into the coop-yard (they are in a fenced area out the front instead) but I forgot.  He couldn’t lure them in, so he just put the pigs in with them.  Poultry and swine seemed to get along fine and the hens rather enjoyed the pig’s chow.  So, no problems until I went out to pick up the eggs after work and discovered that all three of the pigs were in the coop gobbling down the chicken’s kibble - payback I guess!  Kurt and I managed to stuff them back out through the little chicken door (that they were not supposed to fit through) and put a board across it to reduce its size until all the hens came in for the night.  Thank goodness they did not go out the front door of the coop, as that fence would not have held them long – crisis narrowly avoided!  Ok, it wouldn’t have been a crisis but we didn’t need a pig round-up Friday night, that’s for sure!

It's kind of different for me when I am spending some time in the garden.  I am used to hearing the gentle clucking and occasional squawking of  my hens but now there are piggy noises. They talk quite a bit - I wonder what about?

Over at the Winter Coop, the chicks are looking very adult – some of the cockerels are eating size!  And, the little turkeys can fly up on the roost now so I finally got a better photo of them.

Notice that they are all white?  At the Farmers' Market yesterday morning, I asked  a fellow farm gal who has Royal Palms about that and she said they will get the black marking when they are a few weeks old.  So, the picture above was taken yesterday afternoon.  This very afternoon, I noticed that they have a little black on some of their feathers... When did that happen?  I should have taken another picture, but didn't think of it at the time.  Next week maybe, if they cooperate!

Until next week then, I will bid you good night, and be well.