The stinging insects are vicious this year. My daughter "found" a nest of yellow jackets in the ground in our front yard and was stung five times on one foot. Thank God she's not allergic. It was just painful. I just came in from spraying the nest with Raid. Also, our honeybees in the maple tree out front recently split and the swarm decided to take up residence between our chimney and house. It kills me to spray honeybees but they are getting inside and all of us have been stung at least once. The bees aren't aggressive but it's hard not to step on them when they get in the carpet. I've sprayed seven cans of bug killer in the crack where they've taken up residence and they're still hanging in. We might have to get an exterminator in. The man who's going to be grinding out the old mortar and tuck-pointing the chimney won't want to deal with bees. We also have a hornet's nest in one of our barns that I'm going to have to deal with sooner rather than later.
We were one of the 30% who got rain today and it was welcome. I really need to close off one part of the pasture to stockpile some grazing for the fall. We're supplementing Sugar with alfalfa hay to try to put some weight on her. She is very thin and we can't seem to get her to gain weight. I understand that some dairy cows are naturally thin and put all fat into their milk rather than on their backs, so we're just trying to keep her healthy. We'll wean the calves after our vacation in October and hopefully that will help. I hope she can hang in there for a twenty month lactation. She's currently eating 12# of organic corn and oats per day along with good minerals, salt, dried kelp and all the pasture and alfalfa hay she can eat.
The lambs have about 5 weeks before slaughter and seem to be growing OK. I should probably give them some of the alfalfa hay since the pasture isn't great. They're still nursing, too.
I've got a ton of projects that I want to complete before cold weather comes but we're busy at work and are putting in some overtime. We'll probably hire someone to convert our old greenhouse into a garage and put a new roof on the shed rather than do it ourselves.
The garden is doing well and we've frozen 20 quarts of corn so far with only the early corn having been harvested. The tomatoes are slowly beginning to ripen and we've got more beans to freeze as well. I've made six quarts of sauerkraut and the late cabbage is about ready so that will make another 8 probably. We've got about 6 quarts of pickles and hope to get more but the plants seem to be dying off as they are wont to do in late summer.
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