A Hot Winter's Day...

The kids were playing on the back porch while I was cooking supper yesterday.  Next time I looked out I saw the little Mud Monsters!  They played a bit longer after these photos and got even more muddy!

Late Summer Blooms

Over 7" of rain brought in by Hurricane whatever a couple of weeks ago sent the late summer blooms into exhibition mode!

Another Massacre on the Farm. I hate snakes.

I hate snakes. I can't think of any reason to like them. I don't care if they eat rodents. The Bible says I will hate them, so I do. I was just talking about this with David & Elizabeth in the car when we got home and found this. This is the chicken snake that got in the chicken nesting boxes a couple of weeks ago. Grandpa came over & chopped it up for me. See the fat part of his body? One of my eggs. I hate snakes.

Last summer we got some guinea keets. They've grown & now serve as the power horses of bug eaters around the place. I bought 10. I have 2 males left. Some were lost to owls, some to coyotes. They're strange, loud birds. But they work hard.

So this year, I got 10 more. Just a few days ago. Aren't they cute??? : ) They stayed inside a few days, but they're already big enough & it is warm enough, that I moved them into a cage that is suspended inside the chicken coop. They've been outside for about 4 days now, I think.

This morning when I went out, I found yet another massacre scene. I hate snakes.

See how fat he is? He has swallowed 3 of the keets. 5 more lay dead. I assume they were squeezed to death. He was stuck inside the cage because his body was too fat to get out, now.

I hate snakes. Dad came to my rescue this time. Dad stabbed the serpent with rebar and a knife and when the snake got his neck through the wires, he found the pruning shears were not nice to him. I hate snakes. When Dad got the slithering beast out of the cage & held him up, he was over 6 feet long... and that was without his head.

Lunar Eclipse

5:30 am - Dad woke up for some reason, looked outside, and noticed the eclipse. As he was climbing back into bed, Rebekah started crying. I sat up wondering what was going on. He told me about the eclipse. I grogily fixed a bottle for Rebekah because she wasn't going back to sleep & gave it to her. She fell back asleep. As I was laying her back in her bed, David sat up & asked what was going on. I told him nothing, go back to sleep. He tried, but couldn't, so I took him out on the back porch to see the eclipse. We watched it until it went behind the trees at about 6:20 am.

This Week in the Garden

Right now my tomatoes look terrible, but there is still lots of fruit waiting to turn red.

This is why my tomatoes look so bad. I found, picked off, and fed to the chickens at least 6 of these nasty things this week... each day larger than the ones I found the day before!

I spend a good amount of time each day out there looking for them because I've chosen to be pesticide free. I need to look up what the eggs look like. I've squashed a bunch of eggs this season but apparently I missed some!

Assorted peppers are doing well. Anaheim, poblano, jalapeno... respectively.

Finally grew a marigold from seed. Never got that to happen before.

Baby Cucumber:

Pinto & Black Beans:
Corn. I didn't know if this bed would be worth growing in because there's not really any soil in it. I guess we'll have to wait & see how the corn turns out.

Elizabeth with her gourd:

I suppose in the next week, I need to make sure my children have clothes on, have hair brushed, and then take some pictures of them!

David is in charge of letting the chickens out each day. He has discovered that roosters like to fight. heh heh...

Outside Stuff

Wow, I really haven't taken many pictures lately. This was last weekend. See how nice the grass looks?

Rocky, Penny & Red racing across the yard.

I had some more hollyhocks bloom - a white and another pink. They're pretty much done now after this week's heat.

Thistle & butterfly below. Maybe it's a Tawny Emperor? I don't know, but they're very common. I once thought maybe they were Hackberry Emperor, but my photo doesn't have dots on the upper wing. Haven't been able to capture any of the really pretty butterflies, but I've seen some flitting around that look kinda like a Tiger Swallowtail, some Monarch looking ones, and some others.

The standing cypress that wasn't even supposed to bloom this year because it's a biennial:

Here's another peak into our country life. Elizabeth is on the back porch playing with a raccoon skull.

And here's the garden today in the peak of the heat. Everything's pretty wilty even though I watered this morning. It perked back up some this evening as the day cooled off. You can also see how the grass is quickly turning brown in this heat.

Cherry tomatoes were starting to turn to red... my mouth is watering thinking about them...

I love my little country family!

A friend recently called the garden hose in her front yard their white trash swimmin' pool. This is even better - I threw down a tarp first so we'd have puddles to play in (and to keep the fire ants off the baby) while the chickens stood in the shade watching!

Oh yeah, it was well received and once again I earned the title of "Best Mom!" And that's all that matters.
Now their cool little bodies are inside. One is at the dining table, buck necked, playing with his Legos. The next one is in her undies having a tea party on the couch. And the last one is in her diaper eating puffs off the floor. And I put them there.

Oh yeah, I love my life. : )