Well, we have a reason to celebrate - it is the last day of August. July and August weather has been brutal. Gardens failed, corn crops failed, soybean crops barely survived. I am generally canning 3 times a week at this point - tomatoes, pickles and beets. I have 16 tomato plants and am picking 1 - 2 tomatoes every 3 days, am just starting to pick 2 cucmbers once or twice a week. My spaghetti squash is growing and it seems like there are some young ones on there so maybe by Christmas. Ha! I may be able to do some more pickles but it isn't looking very good for tomatoes. I guess my Grandma Lucas's garden failed sometimes also.
We are starting to have a cooler day ever so often so I am starting to ride again. I have plans to put up panels to make my small arena/lg round pen. For those of you who don't know what "panels" are - they are made up pipe - they are about 12 ft long and 4 ft high and hook together to make a portable fence or corral. I have to move them with our tractor and chains as they are heavy. Best done on a cool day. Once they are up then I can start doing some "ground work" on my horses and mules. "Ground work" means I run my mules and horses around in a fenced area and make them do what I want them to do, not what they want to do. I then ride them and work on different skills - teaching them to back up, side pass, etc. My young mule, Johnny, just needs me on his back and riding him. I love working with them. I love having an arena where I can contain and control them.
The hay pasture is doing okay but we sure need rain. When we get rain, the pasture will grow which means we will have hay for winter. We need hay for winter. We have sold all of our Spring hay. Normally we have hay left over from our Spring cutting but this year, folks in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas have been calling and buying all the hay they can find. So we sold all our hay to them, hoping it would help them out. Now we need about 50 round bales (1500lbs a pc) to get us through winter. Round bales = you have probably seen square bales. In Calif. square bales are "3-wire bales" meaning they are bound with 3 strands of hay string (used to be wire) and weigh approx 90-120 lbs. Out here in Missouri, they have 2 wire bales weighing approx. 40-60 lbs. Round bales are equal to 16 2-wire square bales. It is wrapped in netting and can sit out in the weather because of the way it is rolled. The rain will run off the sides, whereas square bales just assorb the rain as they don't have anyway for the rain to run off. Farmers, years ago, would bale their hay, stack it in a pyramid then cut their dried corn stalks and lean the stalks against the side of the hay and hope the rain would run off.
Round bales of hay have to be moved by a large tractor with a steel spike on the front. You drive up to the side of the bale and stick that spike through it, lift it and move it where you want. When we are feeding our round bales, my husband brings in the round bale, I open the gate to the pasture, use a carpet cutter to cut the netting and unwrap it from around the bale, my husband drives into the pasture, lowers the bale, the horses rush up and they are happy and set for about 3 days, depending on the weather.
When we first moved here to the ranch, we didn't have a big tractor, only a small one. We had baled the whole 80 acres which gave us 3500 square bales of hay which filled our new barn. Our first winter arrived with gusto. My husband built a lift table for the back of his little tractor and would pile up 3 - 4 bales of hay on it, drive through the snow into the pasture, use a long rake handle to push off the bales for the horses. The horses have no trouble getting at the hay, even with the hay string on them. We had to do this twice a day, all winter long. It was so cold, we had to wear two layers of gloves, padded overalls, two layers of socks, Muck boots (water proof), ear muffs and warm hats. Even with all the clothing, you still got cold.
Since we had just arrived, we didn't have our water troughs set up for winter like we do now. Now we have trough heaters so the troughs don't freeze over. That first winter, we had to go out every 4 hours with a sledge hammer and a hay fork, break up the ice then scoop it out. Horses need water in the winter no matter how cold. Sometimes they will come up and stick their hooves in the trough to break the ice to get the water, if we don't get there soon enough.
It was a true adventure that winter. We moved our 5th wheel trailer into the barn in one end and I bought a used washed and dryer and set it up against a wall in the barn. I didn't have a hot water heater so cold water washing was what I had to do. BUT, when I finished washing, I had to undo all the hoses for the washer and let them drain, then run the washer to get the water out of the motor, unhook the dryer. We then put shop lights underneath the washer and the dryer, along with one inside each of them to keep all the mechanical parts warm and not freeze. One morning, after a snowy night, I came out of the trailer into the barn to do laundry and instead of the washer and dryer, there was just one big snow mound. The wind had blown so hard it blew snow underneath the edge of the barn and made a wave of snow which entirely covered both of the appliances. Oh my! Just another adventure.
It was a long first winter with much to learn coming from California. Our neighbors, Dale, Gail and Nadine watched over us, calling everyday, coming over and helping us learn how to live in the country in the winter. My California horses were wide eyed and trying to figure out why mom put them in a freezer. They learned about snow, ice, how good grain tastes when it is real cold and how to walk on "high heels". YUP high heels. You see the snow and ice build up under their feet and they will end up with 2 - 4 inches of ice/snow on each foot, trying to walk. I went out and knocked most of it off their feet - lets see that is 4 x 14 = 56 feet. Hmmm my back sure knew it was 56 feet. We don't have to do that every winter because that was an exceptionally cold and wet winter. I do keep watch and help them out if I see them with their high heels on.
Well that is it for today. Glad you could come and read my dribble.
FARMER'S COUNTRY REMEDIES AND HANDY HINTS: Lots of Cucumbers?
If you get lots of cucumbers, this idea will help in cleaning them.
Just put them in your washer filled with cold water and some ice. Put it on
"gentle" and, of course, NO SPIN DRY. It does the job well, fast and easily.
COUNTRY RECIPE'S: "Settler's Beans"
8 slices of bacon, fried and crumbled
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/4 teas ground clove
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup ketchup
1 reg. can light red kidney beans
1/2 lb hamburger, fried and drained
1/2 teas garlic
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 reg. can butter beans
1 large can pork and beans
Preheat oven to 350 deg. Combine all ingredients and put in a very large casserole dish. Bake for 45 min. until bubbly.
Thank you for visiting and hope you enjoyed your visit.
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