Ah, Fall. Cooler temperatures on the way and we were fortunate to be eastward enough to get some of the rain from Hurricane Rita.
Thinking of taking some of the calves to the sale this coming weekend.
Hope all are doing well and the rain in the Tennessee/Kentucky/Alabama/Louisiana/Arkansas areas were no to agreesive from Rita.
My chick like cat food and are not that fond of the layer crumbles. Might go back and try pellets to see if they give a better response to that now that they are older. No roosters to speak of - had one java hen go broody but she appeared to be out of that stage this weekend.

Everyone enjoy the week and the cooler temps.
Roxann

It is still hot and humid here in Mississippi. The temp was 77 degrees at 6:30 this morning with humidity of 90 percent. We had tornadoes all around including our county Sunday. At one time there was a tornado warning for our county and six surrounding counties. There were funnel clouds spotted in each of the seven counties at one time.
I suppose this was all from the remenants of Rita. We got about 3 1/2 inches of rain yesterday.

I have most of my fall planting done in the raised beds. Still need to plant the "Big Red" mustard but other than that have the rest of the seeds in the ground.

The baby chicks are doing good and growing. My neighbor called this afternoon and wanted us to come get three more little chicks that he had found wondering around. Seems one of his hens stole a nest and hatched out four babies. He had already given me one of them. They are Bantams, so I will probably keep them in a seperate pen from my other hens. (That is if there are any hens in the bunch).

Harry glad to hear Alma is almost finished with her treatments. Hope she gets to feeling better soon. It took my stepfather several weeks before he seemed to get his energy back after taking radiation for 8 weeks. But he is up and at'em now. Seems to be doing really well.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Jan

Good afternoon
Harry, glad Alma is on the downhill side of treatments now.

We got 3-1/2 inches of rain Sat and early Sun, and just knew our creek would be up and overflowing, wrong, didn't make a dent, just some puddles. That's how dry we have been here. Usually that much rain overnight, the runoff would have the creek up and running enough to make me take the back way out to get to my shop.

DH busy working over his bush hog, seems like he is having to do quite a bit of welding on it. Hope all goes well so he can finish up the pastures, then it's on to cutting wood for the winter.

Every chore I started to do today went haywire, so decided it just wasn't my day to accomplish anything and called it quits and parked myself in front of the computer.
Donna

Not much going on in my neck of the woods. Weather turning chilly for a day or two, but then expected back into the mid-high seventies by next week. I like the cool but don't look forward to the winter one iota. Michigan can be very nice with the changing seasons, but getting up in the dark and coming home in the dark gets old real fast. That and the winter tends to be alot of gray skies. Gray and dreary. Quite depressing at times.

Big college football game on saturday for us here. U.of.M versus Mich St. GO STATE!! I always root for the college known in these parts as MOO-U. (farm country area...kinda)

Been using my new wood pellet smoker grill. Really neat and kinda expensive, but I splurged and bought it for my birthday in August. Sold a couple toys on ebay to justify the new toy. Cooks using wood heat and smoke only. Neat little contraption and fun smelling the smoke thru the smokestack in the garage.

Laurie brought the ashes home from the creamatorium or whatever you call it for our cat we had put down 2 weeks ago. She couldn't look in the little gift bag they put the ashes in (weird, eh?). Just a little cardboard box with her ashes. Makes me wanna cry if I think about. She was a pain in the *ss at times, but I loved that little critter.

Thats all for now.

Duane

Whew, have we cooled off! Now 9:30 and only in the low 50's according to our atomic clock/thermometer....only 48 by AOL weather. Supposed to be 41 tonight! Looks like our planned wood splitting session today is not a bit too early. We have been delayed this year due to an excess of "other" projects and am beginning to feel pretty uneasy with the woodshed only having three ricks in it (6'x14"x7' ). Last year we used 7 of the 10 that we stored. So, we have a way to go. We are using some nice big red oaks that have fallen on the farm this year. Guess they must have some type of disease as they look entirely
healthy one day and just keeled over to reveal NO roots. Amazing and a trend that I hope does not continue though it provides us with a nice wood supply for the moment.

My favorite little Gray Japanese Banty came off her nest with 5 of the very smallest, little, black, puff balls on Tuesday. Had been hoping that she would hatch some of this setting as an earlier try produced no viable babies. Swept out and washed down the walls of a new "room" in the ancient hen house, put some bedding on the floor and installed her with the babies immediately. Last night we put a heat light in there for her....spoiling her a bit, I know, but she is the sweetest little thing and the only hen of that breed that we have. Sure hope some of the little ones are hens!

Am busily gathering and collecting seeds from my zinnia bed. Had thought we would enjoy having some for cutting and we have.....will have a bigger patch next year. They were the most productive part of the garden this year due to our extreme temps and drought in July.

We still have a considerable amount of brush hogging to do but have been beset by rains that have kept the undergrowth green and moist. After July passing without a drop of rain here it seems bizarre to have to postpone so things can dry
out.

Sure is great hearing what everyone is doing at this time of year....you all will hopefully keep us "on track". This is just our third Fall on the farm....moved here in '03 after living in SW Florida for 24 years. Love the change of seasons and being back "home" again but we are kind of out of practice in the "getting ready for winter" department!

Big doings today! Had the first calf born in the fall herd, then another right behind it. The bull we turned out to that group last part of December was out only three weeks when he became gant and sick looking. We brought him in and put out the other bull. We had both bulls tested again before the spring breeding season and the one tested positive for bovine leukemia and was not productive. We figured our fall herd would be three weeks late because of him but lo and behold, today we have the proof he was at least producing at that time. Seems like there are only two kinds of bulls, ones that have gone bad and ones that are going to go bad. Delicate little critters.

We are enjoying the cool weather since it's time for high school football with grandsons playing. Also have been able to dig and rearrange the perennial beds without suffering from the heat.

I enjoyed the thread about a dog to protect and guard the property, particularly trying to visualize a Corgi being the guard dog. We have a Corgi who lives to herd cattle. Of course, she wears out pretty quick because her legs are only about four inches long but she makes up for it with her voice and spirit.

This week we will be finishing building the last pond and installing two new waterers. That will complete the major projects for 2005; at least that's all the money we can spend until next year. There's always something waiting for the next cash you can round up.

Take care everyone,

Sarah

Cooler Fall weather has arrived, and it is welcome. We didn't get quite as much rain as Donna, but we are still not too bad. Of course, I am having to mow again!

I am in the process of eliminating one of my flower beds so I can get the riding mower to the back of the garden and the new "orchard" (just 4 trees). I have tilled another flower bed and part of the garden. I will reclocate some plants to the tilled bed and may "line out" others in the veggie garden. I hate to throw away good plants. Unfortunately none of my close neighbors are much into flower gardening.

I cleaned the garage/shop yesterday afternoon and thought I wouldn't be able to get out of bed this morning, but made it. Standing on concrete is a killer for me. Today, plan to get back to the garden project. DH spent the afternoon brushhogging a field where the ragweed had taken over.

We plan to sell part of the Holstein heifers next Tuesday. Some of them are looking eminent; sure hope they do well. We will begin looking for some Angus heifers and a new bull with that money. Our little beef herd needs 'beefing' up fast.

Harry, glad to hear Alma's treatments are almost over and went so well. Continued best wishes.

We just turned on the furnace for the first time to take the chill off and be sure it is still alive and well. It is and the heat feels good.

gld

Have a good day.

This morning I walked out on the back porch and WOW!, it was cool and no humidity. Maybe Fall is here finally. Got outside and worked in some of my fall beds and didn't even work up a sweat...LOL. I can't stay inside this morning. I am in and out because I have to come in and rest after a while. Then I go right back outside. It is so nice.

The kale, radishes, and lettuces are up good. The collard plants are growing and ready to transplant. The onions I planted are up and looking good. The carrots are up too thick so I will be out thinning them later today. But the beets didn't come up too good so will be replanting them this afternoon also.

Have to get the bed reworked and ready to plant the turnips and mustard. Will try to get those done this afternoon also. If I can just keep our part-lab puppy out of my veggie beds I will be a happy woman. He never gets into the beds unless it rains and then he will dig the whole bed up. He is in the pen right now so I can get the veggies in the ground. We have to put chicken wire over the beds to keep him out. I tried ground red pepper sprinkled over a bed and he just sniffed it and went down the middle of the bed....

The baby chicks are growing and getting ready to put in a pen. The bantam chicks are still too small to move but the others are feathered out and ready to move.

I have to start introducing the older chicks (2 months old) to the hens so I can move them in to the coop before it gets too cool.

Am ready to start selling some of the young rabbits so maybe I will start making enough from these sales to buy their food anyway.

Hope everyone has a great weekend....

Jan

I'll add to your "Journal" to bring it to the top for the last day. Today was a fantastic day, weatherwise, and the last day of our "Farmers Market" for the season. It has been very enjoyable with the different folks playing their instuments and singing. Now for the winter the entertainers will be playing Sunday evenings at the local AW restraunt. My garden didn't produce very well this year. I had a dreadful time watering as the water just seemed to run off the soil like rain off a ducks back. We have two wells and aren't short of water but living on the beach, our place is very rocky. We have been using broken cement to make planters, etc. I've been hauling bags of horse manure from our daughters and I finally asked her for a truck load. They used the tractor to load their dumper truck and bless her heart, backed up to where I'd dug the potatoes and dumped the most beautiful load of aged manure. The leaves didn't rot last year that I buried so this year will shred them. At the last place we lived, I had the garden fenced in and one side of the chicken house opened onto it so when I dumped the truck loads of leaves into that area, the chickens scratched them and my rototilling the area all winter, the leaves were broken down by spring. I have my raspberry and boisenberry patch on the septic field here and that is fenced in for my chicken run. I used to take our old 4x4 truck down to where the boats are launched, after a storm, and load it up with sea weed BUT my DH won't let me haul it in the new truck. I cann't lift too heavy of buckets to haul it up from the beach. I'm glad Alma is coming along so well but do take care of yourself. Take care everyone -