Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

 Life is not all gloom and doom in the House of Howard.  About a year and a half ago in the fall my sister-in-law planted 4 little thornless blackberry starts she'd ordered from a plant/seed company.  She wasn't sure if they were going to survive, but she plunked them into the ground and prayed for the best.  She had to make sure they were covered with netting to protect them from the deer and the ground hogs that wander through.   Last year she got quite a bit off of them, enough to take up some room in her freezer and provide her with a few berry pies over the course of the year.   Those 4 little canes went crazy, put off all sorts of shoots and they are bearing like they are on fire. Her freezer is as full as it can get and I have over a gallon of them in my fridge that I am going to work up into jelly or jam or preserves of some kind this week. Ha! Two weeks ago I'd put up a couple pints of freezer jam with them. They are starting to slow down...

 June 9th, 2024 was a wet day.  So wet in fact that they closed down church because it was inaccessible to the majority of the congregation.  The K Community Church down the road pooh-poohed the situation and a few of the members who attended got cut off from returning home their normal route.  I think to get back home they had to do like a 20 mile round trip.   The above photo was taken by our neighbor, Carla.  This flood really damaged the pavement; there were massive chunks of trees and debris all over it.  The road department had to do repairs on it.   My garden is not faring well either, in all the rain.  These were my peppers Sunday morning:   I've not been able to till the weeds down due to the amount of rain, and so much water is turning the green beans yellow.  I hope they make it.  If they don't I will have to do a fall crop.   The tomato plants are also suffering from the rain; blight is setting i...

 At the moment; 5:45 AM on this date, we are under a system that is dumping yet more rain on us.  I expect my draggled garden is out there attempting to learn to swim.   However, if it survives I will have green beans in a couple of weeks.  This seems to be an earlier crop than the Top Crop variety; I believe this is the variety called "Contender."   The tomato and pepper plants are doing pretty well, as is the row of okra.  Out in the big garden I planted the cucumber, cantaloupe and pumpkin plants on either hills or a long raised ridge, maybe they won't be drowned too badly.  I call that a small victory as well.    At least I I haven't had to water any of the garden for the past couple of weeks; maybe a month.  That is surely saving on the water bill. 

 Yesterday afternoon we had another gully washer blow through.  It dropped about 3/4 inch of rain in just half hour or so.  It was the same system that had pretty much washed out my friend's garden in Kansas that morning.  They got over 3 inches out of it; there was an actual stream flowing through her garden area; all of her mulch and top coating was collected against the back fence.   This morning there is a system south of us in Oklahoma and Arkansas that may or may not head our way; depending on which way the wind blows.  We can hear the thunder from a system that is going north of us. Right now, at 6:30 in the morning, it is overcast and not looking inclined to do any drying up out in the garden, whether or not we get another rain storm. Last week, this being Tues, we got 2 inches and I went out to check on the garden. This is how it was: I had literally sunk down to my ankle.  As you can see; the weeds are taking over.  I keep grubbing ...