HAULING HAY.
Our little house is basically nestled in the middle of a rather large cattle operation - which makes for some surprising mornings with cows peeking in the windows. This past week, bales and bales and bales of freshly-cut hay have been rolling into the nearby barn for storage. Generously, the farm manager offered to give us some of the old rotten bales if we would haul them out of his way. This is an AMAZING gift to us, as we mulch our entire garden with hay and straw. SO - we got up extra early and spent a hot, dusty, sweaty, itchy morning loading up the truck and driving up to the garden - over and over and over. It was all worth it, though! We think we now have enough mulch to finish out the season (all for free!) Plus...we found what we assume was a baby vulture in the barn. I am trying to convince Jesse to let me keep it and raise it as a pet. Right?!- Hannah.
BELATED WENDELL WEDNESDAY.
This is what it is like to try and brush Wendell. He was A MESS after all the rain we've had, and Jesse was trying to make him presentable because he had an appointment today to be neutered. Obviously, he was having a great time this morning and completely oblivious. I have felt really terrible all week, knowing how traumatic and confusing today will be for him, but he bounded into the clinic like this was the greatest day of his life, so excited and happy to see all the dogs and cats and people. Poor pup.- Hannah.
AFTERMATH.
It's nice to look around and see green, to walk through the yard with a literal bounce to your step as opposed to the hard, crunching thud of the days before the drought ended. The ground is finally wet, we've received 3 1/2 inches over the last week, and we feel incredibly lucky, especially knowing how many others never got that rain. But we also don't know what all the lingering affects of the drought will be. Will we see it in the yields of our corn? Beans? Melons? We already see it elsewhere. We put our peppers in right at the beginning of the drought and they didn't see a rain for over thirty days––many did not survive. The tomatoes are loaded with green fruit and unfortunately some of that fruit has been lost to blossom end rot as well, an affliction tomatoes receive from not enough water (or in other cases, not enough calcium). The garden is actively on the mend, however. We're feeling good and optimistic about a forthcoming bounty. But having started the season late, and having not been able to get our plants in the ground in time to enjoy much of the spring rains (rather modest this year anyway), the drought was especially hard on us and we're still finding it's fingerprints, scattered like a sloppy criminals, all over our soil.Also, we've noticed the drought even messed with our blog, so please forgive us while we clean it up!- Jesse.
THE BLOG LOOKS WEIRD, AND OTHER NEWS.
Ya'll. I have no idea why the blog looks so strange. For some reason, all of the crazy coding and html and nonsense that I spent so long trying to understand has just disappeared....so the blog became a complete jumble of words and posts and tabs. I was able to fix some of it, and will try to work on it soon....but we have been in the library for 3 hours now and mostly I just want to cry.ANYway. Surprise! We have a new addition to Rough Draft! This one was a necessity, however, as the mice situation inside of our house has been out of control lately. Meet Gladdie...our slightly cross-eyed, wheezing, snaggletoothed, and possibly blind kitten. Yeah, we know how to pick 'em.- Hannah.
