Good morning folks! Don't have much time to visit here this morning, but wanted to get this started. I still haven't got all my chores done this morning and it's already nearly 80 degrees (sigh). Sometime after I get chores I have to make a trip to Wichita, KS. My mom has been in Oklahoma visiting family this last week and is ready to come home. My brother will bring her as far as Wichita, where I'll meet them and bring mom on home. In a phone conversation the other day she said she enjoyed the visit, but was ready to come home! We're ready for her to be home, too (especially my youngest girl ... she's a grandma's girl, for sure).

Other than that, I have the garden to gather (I think we're gonna get sweet corn today - YAHOO!!) ... green beens, banana peppers, squash of various types, okra, and yes ... maybe even some ripe tomatoes! We've only had a couple ripe tomatoes so far, but when they start turning we'll have a bundle ... the vines are LOADED! Cheryl has already fixed me some fried green 'maters, but I wouldn't let her pick any more cause I'm waiting for them to ripen. Finished gathering all the onions in yesterday and tilling up the ground they were planted in ... the weeds were just about taking over. Now the area looks really nice! Wonder what I can plant there for fall ... any suggestions?

Okay ... other than garden stuff, I HAVE to somehow work around the heat and get a rabbit shed built. I have all the material to make a 40' long X 10' wide shed that will house what rabbits we have now, but the heat has restricted my building efforts. I have the posts set for the front of the shed at least ... now if I can just get the rest of it done. Told Cheryl that I was going to have to rig up some lights and start working at night if this keeps up!

I also have to take 30 of our weaned pigs to the sale Tuesday and do my best to find a boar. Two of the sows were in heat this past week and I don't want to let them go too long without being serviced. I'm sure I'll find something reasonable around here pretty soon. Talked to on fellow I do business with about a boar, but he wanted $300 for a working boar - too rich for my blood unless it's purebred - it wasn't. So I keep looking!

Other than those things, just the general stuff that goes on around here. Oh ... I have to put front brakes on the car and pack greese in the front wheel bearings on the pick-up sometime pretty soon, too. Always something going on here ... never a dull moment, that's for sure! I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday weekend! May your day be filled with lots of good stuff! Talk with you later ....

-- Phil in KS (cshomestead@planetkc.com), July 07, 2002

Answers

it sometimes amazes me, how the southern crops come in so early,,, around here, noone is getting maters yet, another month before they should start. Sweet corn should be "knee high by the fourth of July", most of it is. Right now,,, IM in a drought, have had to water my garden the last 2 weeks, no rain, and I have used up my rain barrels. Must be nice to be able to eat from the agrden so early,, sometimes,, (only sometimes), I wish I could also

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), July 07, 2002.

I am with Stan, here in Michigan we are lucky to have a tomato by the last week in july. I have lots of little green ones on one that was started VERY early in a pot in the house and blossoms on many others. I have some little tiny cukes on a vine and we have been eating peas, lettuce, spinach, radishes and soon green peppers, so we are making progress.

The drought here is starting to get a bit serious. All the corn was stunted by the very cold and wet spring and we have had almost no rain since then with a lot of unusually hot weather in June. The corn, even the irrigated corn, is curled and way behind what it should be.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), July 08, 2002.

We only have blooms on the cucumber plants and tiny green tomatoes but we do have squash developing, peas, and lots of salad greens and swiss chard. We don't even have blooms on the bean plants yet. It's hard to wait on those ripe tomatoes when I have a brother in Oklahoma that usually already eating them out of his garden at this time :-).

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), July 08, 2002.

Nothing edible in the garden yet and if the chickens don't quit we won't have anything!! Oops I lie..we've been eating lots of strawberries. The tomato plants are far from my best ever but have some blossoms. the cuke plants are tint but still alive (this is a third planting mind you). The beans are up, the squash are still alive so they may produce something, the peas are still just little vines and I swear not all the seed took! Carrots are pretty much non existant except for a few we started early under plastic. We pressure washed the barn this wekend and boy did I get covered in animal crap from the backspray!! Kinda funny but when manure spatteres your face its not exactly a thrill. Looked good though. The next day we got some shavings from the sawmill and laid down a layer on the floor. Should make next spring/summer's clean out a little easier. That bottom layer of hay this go round was mighty hard ro get up off the floor. I still haven't figured out which hens aren't laying buy husband has stopped mentioning it so I will just keep on not getting around to doing the sequestering thing. Too many otherthings going on these days.

-- Alison in NS (aproteau@istar.ca), July 08, 2002.

I have my early garden finished, my mid season yielding and my end of season "longshot" sprouting in the seedling room. My biggest problem is the Alabama heat, but its good for maters and okra :>)

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), July 10, 2002.