The summer heat is on. We have had a few days of milder weather, but generally, the temperatures have been in the the mid to upper nineties with a heat index as high as 124 degrees. I try to get the chores done in the morning before the heat sets in for the day. Evening chores leave you hot and sweaty. Even though the sun is no longer high in the sky, the residual heat of he day with high humidity can make it pretty miserable. I’ve also spent many hours in the sun watching my granddaughter play softball, videoing as much as I possibly can and cheering her on. Yes, softball season is now in full swing and I am already exhausted.
As usual, I have several projects going at once and that includes trying to carve out time to process the veggies Tom brings in from the garden. It took longer than I had wanted, but I did get a nice batch of salsa canned up and on the shelves. There are cucumbers fermenting in to pickles, too.
I have an audio-only podcast that I enjoy doing called Books Highlighted. There was no sense in me starting yet another YouTube channel so people could watch me read highlighted sections of a book that I have read. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, catch my latest podcast, Episode 9: Soundtracks by Jon Acuff. I also got another video for the Cooking from the Pantry series, Cheesy Chicken and Rice where I use freeze dried cheese in this dish. I turned out pretty good. That video can be seen here:
My Mom and her brother, Uncle Bill, are the last survivors of their family that once had been nine children. Mom is 82 years old so Uncle Bill has to be at least 84. My cousin, Kevin contacted me to say that Uncle Bill was trying to contact Mom and wanted to know if I could help. Between texts and phone calls between my brother, Kevin and myself we got them connected. It seems Uncle Bill had Dad’s phone number but he doesn’t have his phone any more. My uncle now has a number that he can call Mom (when she can answer the phone). My brother helped Mom be able to talk to her brother and they were both happy. Teamwork.
Before I had the surgery on my foot in December, members of the church came and made the bathroom area into, well, an actual bathroom, installing a shower, toilet and lavatory. I have done some work on the walls and such since then, but progress has been slow to none as I was recovering. Recently, I decided to get back to work on the bathroom. I painted some trim and I am in the process of putting it in the corners of the walls and other places trim should go. The work looks terrible, but I’m learning as I go. I really need to see some closure on this room so I can focus on something else. Not done, so no video for it for awhile.
I have been hatching layer chicks over the summer. As my incubator is dying, my hatch rate has been low and I now have three different ages of chicks. One batch of about six is now with the adult birds, another batch of four is in a chicken tractor along with the youngest set of ten. There were a few more of all three batches but predators (probably black snakes) have picked a few off. I need to start another round of duck eggs too, as something has happened to my ducks and I’m suddenly down to just four. I have no idea what has happened to them as there weren’t even feathers scattered for evidence. Their fence is electrified, but the losses have happened anyway. I’m kind of bummed.
The morning of my birthday, the heat gave way to a cold front that blew in about 7:30 that morning, just as Tom was leaving for work, Kinzie to school and I was about to start doing chores. It was really neat to feel the cooler air blow things off the porch and other things across the yard, especially since it had been particularly muggy. It only sprinkled a little after the front came in but it certainly made morning chores so much nicer to do.
I have been working on putting pig hut plans onto paper for several weeks. This has been a real challenge for me. It’s an easy design, much like the plans from a book I bought. I can’t find the book to give the author credit. It’s just a triangle-shaped hut the size of a sheet of plywood on each side for the roof. I’ve built three of these already. Something was missing in my brain to get the diagram onto paper though. I tried to draw the plans on Word, Excel, and a program designed for laying out plans. The diagonal lines were really tripping me up. I could do the part describing the steps, but the diagramming was just beyond me. Then I remembered that I had built three of them and had videos and pictures of the various stages of the pig hut. Duh! The plans are done now and all I have to do is create a nice cover page for it. I’d like to be able to sell the plans but I haven’t figured out how to do that online yet. Sigh… learning while old.
The day after my birthday, my friend from the gym was having a pool party at her house. The day before, I worked really hard to get as much work done as I possibly could to free up some time with my friends at the pool. It was truly a very nice, relaxing afternoon that I really needed. That weekend, my son and his family met us at the Olive Garden for a birthday dinner. That was special too. Little Ivy will be three in November and she is about as sweet and smart as they come.
Because the weather was cooler for a few days, I put the rabbit does in with the buck. I’ll start on baby rabbit watch pretty soon.
I took eighteen Cornish cross chickens to a processor in Kansas last week. The Cornish cross chicken is the same type of chicken that you buy in the store with the oversized breast meat and extra bulk all over. That may sound odd to most people who do not grow their own chickens but different chicken types have different uses. There are egg layers, bred to lay lots of eggs in their life times, and tend to be scrawny ; heavy layers can be what is called a dual purpose breed, good for eggs and enough meat on them to make a decent meal. The Cornish cross is bred to live for about eight weeks, eat voraciously and then be processed for the freezer. They can become so heavy, their legs can break from the weight and are prone to heart attacks at very young ages. This bird is explicitly designed to grow very heavy very quickly. There are other birds that are considered meat birds that take about twelve weeks to get to weight instead of 6-8 weeks, but the Cornish cross is the bird that most farms raise for their table. My birds were eight weeks old. Their weight averaged 6.25 lbs and put 112.5 lbs of chicken into my freezer. Nice. That’s one of the main points of being a homesteader; putting food in your freezer. The video Restocking My Freezer can be seen here.
My old main vlogger camera had been giving me hints that it was going to quit soon but I ignored the hints until it died. I tried to think of viable ways to work around having to buy a new camera, but I had to just come to the conclusion that it was time for a new one. I never spend several hundred dollars for my cameras and the one I bought cost $150. Now, I’m going through the process of learning how to use my new camera. It’s frustrating. Again, learning while old.
My granddaughter, Kinzie is a tough little girl. Literally. She is 5’2″ and 108 lbs. She has a tendency to get knocked around because of her petite size. She goes down, but almost always gets up either immediately or within a second or two. Not this time. At one of the softball games on Thursday, she and another fielder collided while trying to field a ball and Kinzie went down and didn’t get up. I gave her a second or two, but she was not getting up. I ran to the dugout, prepared to jump the fence if necessary to get to her. By the time I got there, she was up and walking it off. I asked the head coach where she was hurt and he asked the assistant coach because she had been closer to Kinzie and knew what the problem was. The assistant coach told me that Kinzie was not hurt. I was hot and told her that was BS because she was down for too long to not be hurt. She replied that Kinzie was up now and just fine. I retorted that it was because Kinzie was tough and not because she was not hurt. I calmed down and went back to my seat, even apologizing for letting my “mama bear” come out so strongly. It ended up that Kinzie’s legs were covered with bruises from getting hit with pitches and, when the girls collided, she got kicked in a particularly large and tender bruise. Plus, the new socks that were part of their uniforms had rubbed large raw patches on the back of her heels. She tapes her feet to minimize the rubbing but it was just another pain point she was struggling with and it took her longer than usual to get back up on her feet.
I’m very proud of that girl and love her with all my heart. I frequently have nightmares about her getting hurt and I had thought this one had come true. It was good that she got up when she did and it was good that I did not have to jump my old, fat butt over the fence to get to her…but I certainly would have! She has another game tonight. I guess I’d better prepare myself.
See you next time!