Tangle Tree Ranch

http://morningjoyfarm.blogspot.com/

This is some friends of us, so check their blog out, some good ideas there. 

Well, we could not have asked for better weather for our haying. It is dry, really dry, no uncured hay in these bales. I balled 126 small square and my co rancher balled about 25 big round bales. Since Bob is at work, a friend of ours needs hay, and we need somebody to bale, so we do work exchange. It is less pressure on me and Mathea, I get help if I break down. The old square baler had a break down tonight, and I fixed it MYSELF.  One chain jumped the big sprocket, I loosen the tightener, put it back on, tighten the tightener, and baled. What a good feeling. Mathea was proved of Mom too. She saw that I had stopped, so she came to investigate the break down. that is how you learn things.

The garden is coming along, but to too many tomatoes yet. Eggplants are coming, but uneven, just like everything else. But it is the same story for many gardeners this year.  Just be patient. That is sometimes hard to be, but I guess we will have practice by the end of this growing season.

Well, since one of our neighbors LOVES deer, or I should say, ANTLERS. We have a problem with deer. They have finished off our cabbage, and love the sweet corn. I can not stop our neighbor from feeding about 400 hundred of them, but PLEASE hunt deer.

I will try a double fence for next year, but shoot antlerless deer. It is not fun to come into the garden and our produce is eaten, by deer. Yes, I know the damage is done by deer, all animals leave foot prints.

Other than, life is good, and we are nothing but good old boys.

Life is never boring when you have animals. Right now our kittens have started to wander out side of their barn. Oh boy, I had forgotten how fun they are to watch. I remember coming home from a summer in the mountains with our Grandmother, and crawling up in the barn to see the summer kittens. My sister and I spent hours there. Some years we got to keep a kitten each, other years we had too many. But how many hours of fun, just to watch them play with each other.

But weeds are growing, tomatoes takes for ever to get ripe, hay needs to be cut. It just rained, and life is great.

We got home from a wake at Fort Totten High School, one of our former students died in a car accident last week. Just 19 years old, The Davidson family is in our thoughts and prayers.

Incidents like this makes you step back and think. About your own life, choices we make and how they effect us. I have used the rule, rather late than never. Slow down, get there safe.

Yes, I am some times late for work in the morning. But I make those minutes up in the afternoon. It is hard to control road conditions, road construction and weather.

We should cut hay tomorrow, but it has rained, so we will see around noon if we can cut. In farming, we do plan, but we have at least 4 plans, just because of weather, machinery, livestock and a 5 year old.

I like to cut hay, rake it and bale it. But not fight the small showers that just makes things miserable. That type of weather gets to me. We have orders for 150 more square bales, jep the small cubes that we pick by hand. I want to be done, school starts on Monday, and , oh well... We will get it done, some how, we always do.

The garden need weeding, and that will happen tomorrow. 

I like Sunday, that is the day we usually harvest, and our daughter enjoys it. She likes to pick beans and enjoy the chatting with our customers. It is fun to watch.

But cows, well our Highlander cows had their first calf, and I got to close to the calf. The cow pushed me, and bruised me up. My whole body aces, but the calf is nursing, running around and sleeps. He is a small bull calf, but we hope he will grow fast.

ND is full of weather, and we got some last night. Our new tent blew down to the road, the screen tent collapsed, and the squash is rotting on root.  I guess you get used to it, after a while, but.....

Our tomatoes have started to ripen, so that is good news. Beans are coming, and the rest will follow, it usually does. 

It is just sometimes more struggel than money, but small scall farming is just that.

But when a custumer say they use everything in their bag, even things they do not know how to prepare( she uses Local Harvest to find what to do with the stange things), that warms my heart, and gives me new entusiasem.

I tried to write the weekly newsletter for our CSA yesterday, but I could not get my brain to work. I think about what happened at home, and just sit here.

I do my work, but the thoughts go to those who lost their child, father, husband, wife and so on. This man who did this will be free in 30 years, that is the max jail time in Norway. Hm, what happens then???

For those of you that know, I am from Norway, lived there most of my life. No body in my family as fare as we know, as I am writing this, is hurt.

This tragedy that happened on Friday, is beyond understanding. This man who did this, well, it is hard to understand. For all of us, it might feel like 9/11 over.

I know I grabbed the phone and called home ASAP on Friday, even though they live 1,5hrs from Oslo, just like my non English speaking Mother did on 9/11. She call to Bobs work place, asked for him. Got a hold of him, and asked him in her poor English:" Are you OK".

Thank you to all who keep us Norske in your thoughts and prayers.

It is warm enough for all of us. But the good thing is that there a some tomatoes ripening, not many, but one here and there. Mathea and I have seeded more carrots, lettuce and cucumbers. We have weeded some three or four sister beds, and have mulched some more beds. It all takes time, but we do enjoy it.  

I like weeds, the green kind, the kind that have deeeep rots, but not mustard. I dislike mustard, it make everything yellow, I do not like that, so I have to pull them. Mathea helps in harvesting yellow heads, mustard, so we are making heads way in some rows. Other rows, well, I am not sure what to do, but Bob and I will think, and weed.

The beans are looking very good, but how long from bloom to fruit??? I guess we will find out. 

We will start our CSA on July 18th, at 5pm in TSC parking lot in Devils Lake.

Rain and more rain, I think we should have planted rice instead of a regular garden. The ONLY thing growing is weeds, and you can not remove some of them when it is this wet, due to disturbence of the plant roots on the vegetables. Not funny, i feel like canceling all orders. But I know that we will get summer, LATER, so our garden will come. Better late than never. 

I just heard on the radio that Mrs. Obama just planted her 3 sister garden. Well ours' are up, and ready to be mulched. 

Tomorrow we will focus on the machinery garden, the one we use the tractor for and the big planter. We have bought in 1.5 miles of dripp line, so no more spray watering. 

  Finally summer here, after too long winter. Hard to believe that on Tuesday this week, I had 2 wood stoves going, and three blankets on the bed. This is North Dakota.

I am so happy I am late with some tasks in the garden, like planting, seeding and so on. The weather is down right nasty. I have both wood stoves going, several roads are closed, and I can not take the horse trailer out of here. Our gravel road is just muss, not funny. 

I hope that this cold, windy weather will give us needed sun and warmth.