As usual this time of year, along comes the heat and there goes the rain. No rain to speak of for over 2 weeks. Cris' irrigation system has come in very handy at the farm. The pump can run for about 3 hours before running out of gas so we can give the plants a good soaking...but nothing beats a nice rain.
We spent the night at the farm last weekend and our dinner was almost 100% from farm to fork.... we had freshly dug up red potatoes with onions and a pepper salsa topped with grilled sea bass. (you guessed it....the bass did not come from the farm...but everything else did).
Still waiting for the tomatoes to turn green but when they do, we will have tomatoes, onions, peppers, radishes, peas and maybe potatoes ready for the market. Later in the summer there will be okra, squash, cucs and beets.
The septic work starts tomorrow (Thursday June 9th) and the well installation has been changed to next week due to some equipment repair with the well people.
Cris installed a window AC unit in the kitchen/living area until we have enough in the budget for the big heat pump that needs to be installed. (around $3500-$4000).
The Memphis house is about 90% ready to go on the market...waiting for my landscape guy to get here to do some trimming and mulching and Cris has to get on a ladder (not his favorite thing) and fix a couple paint spots on the siding. We have hired The Alex's (Alex and his friend Alex) to do some power washing and mulching next week. After all that, we should be ready.... keep your fingers crossed that we don't have to be on the market too long. When we bought the house in 2007, it had been on the market less than a day. But that was before all the housing market mess.... :(
We are done planting things for a little bit so now we are concentrating on getting the fields mowed and especially the terraces. The terraces are where snakes like to hide out and hunt mice..... as we found out last Sunday when Teddy the Terrier found a cotton mouth and killed it. It was about 2 ft. long and Teddy shook the living daylights out of it. I think Teddy saw stars from shaking his head so hard and fast. Luckily, no snake bites this time.
Our goal is to eventually get a new tractor (nothing huge) so we don't spend so much time working on the tractor and less time actually using it. My tractor, the Ford 8N is still in several parts....waiting for a rainy day to work on it. The Massey Ferg. is having carburetor trouble.... Cris cleans it out but then after a while, he has to clean it again. He said he thinks it has to do with stuff they put in the gas now.
When the temperature reaches 90-100 and the humidity is high, we seem to get less than we want to done.... I guess it is because we have to take more breaks and work slower so we don't dehydrate. It will be nice when we reach the point where we can hire interns in the summer.... cheap labor!
