It truly has been a rainy week, and I’m glad. It has rained five of the last six days for a total of 2.65 inches. Most of them were not storms, certainly not the kind of storms that causes damage anyway. My dogs are not big fans regardless. With the recent fireworks and occasional thunder and lightning, they have essentially gone on strike. Now that the fourth of July is over, I now need to begin the job of retraining my dogs to do their jobs, guarding my livestock.
Three of my ducks were killed early on when the dogs went on strike. I was discouraged but not surprised. Several times, I have tried to kick my dogs out of the house but they are both large, particularly Beethoven. While I am physically wrestling with him to get him out the door, Candy is quietly sneaking back into the house to hide in a corner. Usually, these altercations happen at 3:00 in the morning when I get up to use the restroom and discover that my husband had no luck getting them out the door himself. Because of the time of day, our wrestling matches were as quiet as I could manage but I eventually give up in frustration hoping I have not disturbed anyone’s sleep. The holiday has ended and no storms are expected tonight. I WILL win this time.
On the morning of the fourth, at about 6:00 in the morning, I heard the dogs barking nearly as soon as I let them out. I quickly had to get dressed and out the door as I discovered that they were barking at Daisy who had gotten out of her paddock and was roaming around looking for a free meal. Candy gets particularly defensive when a loose pig raids her feed dish.
I managed to get Daisy corralled pretty easily the first time as she had not been fed yet for the morning. I went back inside to drink my coffee and do my morning book work and devotional. I am now ready to do morning chores. Daisy is out again. Apparently, there is an issue with the fence charger and Daisy is able to come and go as she pleases. This time, I decided to take a chance and put her in with Wattles and the piglets. It took a little longer to get her in the paddock this time. Almost as soon as I turn around and walk away to go do other chores, I hear pigs squealing. Turned back around to find both Wattles and Daisy had challenged the working fence so they could roam. It was time to wake Tom up for some help.
He got the charger fixed and I slowly got my sows back into their perspective pens. They were in no hurry, so I could not be in a hurry. At least everyone was where they belonged by the time the chores were done.
There were very few peaches on our trees this year but Tom found a few and picked the ripe ones. There might be two more left on the trees to ripen some more.
I did get the video showing the damage from the second storm that rolled through. It can be seen here.
As I drive around running errands, I have seen a lot of homes and businesses that sustained much worse storm damage than we had suffered. It’s crazy how much damage straight line winds can do. I will say that there were some trees that looked like an F zero tornado hit them though.
I started thirty-four chicken eggs to incubate, though I removed one the next day because I had discovered that it was cracked. Most of the eggs are to expand my egg layer flock but some of the eggs are from the Bresse birds. I had not intended to do that, but it may work out in the long run.
I recorded an episode of This Grandma’s Life podcast discussing my challenges with the pigs and what I should do with them. It can be listened to on your favorite podcast network or watched here.
I’ve enjoyed the cooler, rainy weather but it appears that it is over for now as I’ve just received a heat advisory. I’d better get back to work making sure everyone is staying hydrated and as cool as possible. See you next week!