50 Shades Of Grey ... Farm Style.

A Lovely View

I know it sounds a little ominous, but don't panic. Steve has not been naughty. You'll laugh when you see the photos. Steve got the first chicken and turkey tractors finished today while I was planting and getting the running around all done. After he was done I guess he looked at it and thought 'Hmm, that'd make a good work bench' so he built a second one above the first for use by the chickens. I couldn't resist taking photos. Maybe I just get a kick of seeing my husband behind bars. 

It's been a very productive day! Even Jordan got in a full days work despite being in a play at school and taking half the afternoon off for the final show. It was awesome.

We got some herbs in, half a dozen roses and a rhododendron are planted, 800 feet of potatoes, a hundred pumpkins plus we transplanted out the 4 giant pumpkins from the greenhouse. Mateo our wwoofer and the sister missionaries all he lped with the first rows of market crops in the green garden, the girls helped me plant chives and Meghan cut the grass. So it's slowly beginning to look like a house with a yard and garden instead of a trailer park after a tornado. I even cheated and ordered pizza for supper because I still don't have an oven and the time saved gives me more time to get the turkeys moved to their new home before it gets dark.

Caged Husband

Ok, my drink break is over. Time to get back to work. I think I've absorbed as much water as I'm going to for now.

(10pm Update)

W ell it's too dark to work so I'm inside now avoiding the bugs. All the animals are tucked away except the ducks who are out hunting for their new crunchy June bug treats. The wind has picked up so I popped out to give all my plants one last watering while the bugs were relatively light. I sprayed myself first and still got a few bites despite the wind. 

The turkeys are settled into their tractor (that's the name for a movable poultry pen) and are all roosting up on their perch. They look so cute! The chicks have moved from the dining room to the greenhouse where the turkeys used to live. We moved the feeders that they're used to out there and I'm trying to teach them how to drink out of the watering nipples. If they get that figured out it'll be lovely because I can set up a gravity fed watering system for them when they're ready to move outside in a few weeks. It's hard to believe that just a few weeks back we were worried about the turkeys getting too cold on those frosty nights where it dropped below freezing. Now the problem is the heat. The greenhouse topped out today at over 51 degrees Celsius, that's 124 Fahrenheit. Yikes! And that was with the main door top open. I quickly opened the back door and vented the whole place. The tomatoes are all ok and we'd moved the roses out to the garden at that point so the real worry was the turkeys. They were totally fine and had plenty of water while they lay in the shade. It took them a few minutes to adjust to going from their greenhouse box to the great outdoors and their new grassy run, but they have settled in and are having a very good time now. I was thinking I'd put a solar light in there to attract bugs for them to play with in the evenings. Turkeys love bugs.

It's an inside job

If the weather is wet tomorrow I'm going to build a display rack and pot up more tomatoes. I'm taking them over to the Co-Op Country Store in Middleton for sale so feel free to buy some :)  The basil should also be okay to get into the garden and some into pots. The oregano in the greenhouse isn't doing very well though so I'm going to make a nursery bed in the garden next week and plant it in a nice sandy spot. The weather is supposed to be gusty and wet tomorrow so I'm glad it'll water in my new veggies and give me a break from digging. Maybe I'll even sneak my radio and bench out to the greenhouse and commune with nature for a couple of hours after church. That's the thing about the weather, it dictates so much of what we do here at the farm and so we just have to always plan for a backup activity if the weather turns inclement.

Well, I'm off to shower and scrub off the layers of sunscreen and repellent. I have a lovely tan but I'm pretty sure it'll wash off too. Then I plan to collapse into bed and stay there. Have a lovely day guys. I probably won't have time to post tomorrow but if I can, I'll get some photos of the gardens as our 'before' shots.

And Something Went BUMP In The Night

Sitting here this evening I heard the bugs flitting outside the window against the screen and I thought about the moths which I don't like and how grateful I am for window screens. When all of a sudden something much heavier bounced off the screen with a definite 'twang!' Say it isn't so! The June bugs are back! GROAN

June bugs are not my friend. And I'll let you in on a secret. I have an irrational fear of flying insects. I'm okay with butterflies but moths just do me in. I know I know, they can't hurt me. I KNOW that, inside my head. But when they're being all floppy and dive bombing my face I freak out. I gradually have lessened my fear as I've progressed on this Earth, 40 years of living in moth country. And then along came the ultimate nemesis ... the June Bug or June Beetle as it's also known.

These rather large members of the scarab beetle family can fly but are exceedingly clumsy and are attracted to light so you'll hear them hit the wall, screen and light fixtures on the outside of you house with a wet sounding thwack every evening for several weeks. The worst part of June bugs is that they have lumpy legs that act sort of like velcro and so if they land on your clothing or heaven forbid, in your hair, they're very difficult to get out again. It's not like a quick swipe and they just fly off. Oh no! They stick on so you have to actually touch them and peel them out of your hair like a giant burr. <>  Just thinking about is giving me a serious case of the creeps.

There's not a lot you can really do but wait for June bug season to end in a few weeks. In the meantime you can bait them by leaving a light source on outside away from doors and windows, and keep the curtains closed so there's less light to be attracted to. I remember last year being so grossed out because there must have been close to a hundred June bugs all over the screen door one evening that I actually found a can of Raid and sprayed them all. It seemed like a great idea...until I tried to leave the house the following morning and had to crunch and squish my way across all their little beetle bodies.

I can hear the ducks making some of their hunting noises so I'm wondering if despite it being 10:30 at night, if they're out sloshing down some bugs for a night cap. If they are then they're suddenly my new best friends. I really don't like June bugs. I've been out fishing as the sun set and heard them coming across the lake towards me. Honestly the sound is like a drone coming to terrify me so I always pack up my rods and gear and go home.

Probably my nastiest experience with a June bug was in Chris' Grade 11 year at West Kings High School. I was driving the vehicle along Glebe Rd near Greenwood and had the music turned up and the windows open enjoying the evening air. I think I was driving him to one of the last rugby games of the season. When all of a sudden a nice fat juicy beetle hit the vertical window frame beside the windshield and my open window and exploded into a mass of green beetle juice and bright pink guts. This concoction then splattered one whole side of my face and glasses. Being chivalrous as he is, Christopher did hand me a kleenex after he stopped clutching his sides with laughter. How kind of him. So that is my ultimate horror story of June bugs so far. Needless to say, it did nothing to lessen my dread of these cursed beetles. YUCK!!