Farm Life Journal-July 18th, 2005

We got just a small amount of much needed water from heaven last night. Just enough to move the float off the bottom of the rain gauge. I've been doing a lot of watering this past week but this rain will do a lot more good to the plants.

I need to go to town this morning and get a total mechanism from the hose out for a 2 gal. sprayer. I only have one sprayer and it is for herbicides only. I need something for insecticides, fungicides, etc. The leaflhoppers of several kinds are getting bad out where the chickens don't go yet. I noticed a lot of small soft lime green hoppers on the grape vines last week and small regular grasshoppers and some others on the potato vines last night when I watered them. I tried unsuccessfully to drive 2 mother hens and their 7 young chicks over to that bed this morning. 9 banty chickens could do a lot of damage to the insect population in that one bed.

We have a lot of research and relearning to do as we take over the management of our farm again. Do any of you have any suggestions as to some good farm magazines we could subscribe to and gain some insight? We long ago dropped our subscriptions to whatever magazines we use to take.

We got the second cutting of alfalfa sold last week and told the man he can do the field for the rest of the year. He lives next door and can get to it promptly-we hope. We did tell him to leave 10 bales of last year's hay for Holly's horses. She said that is the hay she wants and will need 6 bales but that doesn't sound like much to me. By winter more spoilage will have happened in those bales making more of them unusable. I really wish she would take this year's hay and may have the man save her 10 bales of the 3rd cutting if indeed we even get a 3rd cutting. We will need some measurable moisture to get that cutting.

The man who rented the 40 acres of pasture that was so terribly neglected for 8-10 years by the former tenent has done lots of tree cutting, bulldozing, mowing, etc. already and he doesn't even have any livestock in there yet. He figures his year from 3/1-2/29 and paid for a full year just a couple weeks ago. We offered to prorate the rent but he didn't want to do that. Please pray for special and abundant blessings on this farming family. His father has also done thousands of dollars worth of bulldozing and fencing work on another pasture for no charge to us. I guess the whole neighborhood is buzzing with talk about how badly we have been treated by the former tenent as far as this one field is concerned. There also seems to be doubt in some people's minds as to whether or not he is being on the up and up with the crops and expenses. We do know we have not recieved detailed records on herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers, seeds, for several years. But until Jack got angry enough to do something nothing could happen. The children and I knew lots of things needed to change but we couldn't get Jack to budge until this spring. I am sure we will not cash crop because we lose too much control over our land that way and we have already seen the results of that kind of attitude from tenents. Even with all kinds of conditions put into the contracts-which will now be written not verbal-we feel we give up too much control and input.

I kept Skyler yesterday evening while Kyle, Holly and Jack went to see the latest Star Wars movie in town. Skyler is such a delightful child. He does have an unusual personality tho. He loves to push wheeled things around so our chairs are a delight to him. They live in a trailer home so there is no room for such items. While we were outside one time I showed him where the blackberries are and picked some for him. He loves those blackberries and by the time his folks came home he had eaten 15-25 berries and was pointing out more ripe ones to me that were on the other side of the fence. I told Holly and Kyle that if they see Skyler headed for the blackberry patch it is because he knows just how and where to get them. I just hope he doesn't get badly scratched and turned off on them from that or pick some really sour unripe ones. We have lovely large almost seedless blackberries that make the scratches worthwhile to me.


GOD bless and keep each of you.