Time for Some Updates

Welcome back to me....I hope you have missed my blog  in my absence  I have really missed writing on it, that is for sure. I have said this before and, I was surely not the first to say it but sometimes life gets in the way of life.  That has been the way it has been around our place this summer.  We have been running from one family event to another.  First we had soccer then select soccer and then baseball and then high school baseball and all star baseball.  It has been an incredibly busy summer.   If that wasn't enough, it was an election year and I had to mount a campaign for re-election as alderman in our small city.  That campaign involved the whole family and tough we won, it took a lot of catching up on all the things we put off while it was going on.  

Mid-Summer & Summer Vacation is Over

Dre' and all of the other school teachers had to report to duty today. The students will start a week from today.  I think some normalcy will return now that school is about to start back.  Right now I am sitting at the baseball field watching Holden practice with his fall tournament team. They started at 6:30 and will practice until about 9:00.  I decided to use this time to do a little writing and see if I could get back into the swing of blogging.  

Garden Update

I want to fill you in on how my garden has been doing.  Veggies like potatoes tomatoes, onions, asparagus, peppers, etc. all did really well.  Even my zucchini did fairly well but my squash cucumbers didn't make at all.  At first I thought is was the late spring weather we had and the fact that the weather just didn't want to get warm.  Once it warmed up it was very evident of what the problem was.  We had no bees.  Not a few bees....NO bees.  I have decided to try and get one our friends that is a  beekeeper to place a hive at our place.  That will solve the problem, I am sure.  We have not had an over abundancy of rain this year but it seems like every time we have needed a rain we have gotten it.  I don't think I have watered my garden but twice this whole summer and that is saying something for a garden this far south.  I have cleared some of the small spaces and recently planted a couple of fall tomatoes a pumpkin and some more bell peppers that will hopefully all produce before the first  frost in early November.   I have mulched the whole garden and things are looking pretty good for the heat of the summer.  

Hens Not Laying Yet But They Are Fine Birds

The hens have not started laying yet but they are really happy in their fenced in area with Scooter the pig.  I know I often put human qualities on our animals but I really think the pig and the chickens enjoy each other's company.  They seem to be really happy animals.  

I have added to the hens coop and will take a photo of it in the next couple of days so you can see the work I have done.  If you are considering buying some chickens for your suburban or rural yard, I highly recommend it.  Those gals are funny and entertaining to have around.  They are great pets and when they start producing they will be even be better.  Some afternoons after work I pull up a lawn chair and just watch them for an hour or two. One of the hens, Emma, is a shoulder chicken.  Sometimes when I am outside she will fly up into my lap and then up on my shoulder she goes.  She will sit there watching over all of the other chickens until I make her get down.  When I am not there she will climb on Scooter's back and hitch a ride around their domain.  

I hope I will be writing much more regularly now I hope you will be reading my words more regularly, too. 

Until next time...John.