Summer Update

Summer is officially here and boy are we in the thick of it. I know that I am a native of this place but when it gets this hot I wouldn't mind being native a few hundred miles north.

In addition to being hot, it's very dry. I don't like to complain when I know others have it much worse. I just wish that I had taken the time to get rainwater collection put on the greenhouse roof and added extensions to our pond drain to make it deeper. I could have 300+ gallons in plastic barrels and maybe another 8,000 gallons in the pond (very rough estimate).

The weather lately has made me realize the importance of deep mulch gardening. I've got quite a bit of exposed soil and it's fried. So, in addition to the upcoming chicken butchering days, I plant to:

1. Put a gutter and downspout on the greenhouse.
2. Get 3 PVC elbows and short pieces of pipe to add 12-18 inches of depth to the pond.
3. Mulch the garden and get some soaker hose for targeted watering.

I'm a little concerned about the pending availability of 2nd cutting hay on this area. This has got me to thinking about putting up loose hay by hand. I've mowed about 5 acres of pasture. If I had managed it for making hay from some of it, I could probably have 4 or 5 tons of hay. When I say "loose hay by hand," this is what I mean.

Here's a cool blog for those of you with an interest in horses.

And, last but not least, here's some food for thought.