Newsworthy

 1. You may have noticed there's no more Music Monday. I got bored. When I started posting a song every Monday, it was so I would be forced to do something for the blog each week. I don't really need that anymore, and I don't have as much internet time as I used to.

2. The Hubs arrived on Saturday afternoon. He started a job here locally and we're still in the process of looking for a house. Currently we're living with Grandma and her down home cooking.

3. Mom discovered that the chicks like to eat Japanese beetles. That means less bug squishing. The chicks go crazy over the beetles. I drop them on the floor and they immediately know what they are and start pecking at them.

4. Finally got rain yesterday. I think the entire month of May we got 1/4". We got almost 1-1/2" yesterday.

5. The Hubs and I got new phones. We got HTC One X, which is still the Android platform like our HTC EVOs that we had from Sprint. We switched back to AT&T from Sprint because of the lack of service. I now have 2-3 bars of service on the farm where before I might have had 1 bar of roaming.

6. Dad and I gave Freddy his second Parvo shot last night. He was not very happy with us. But then I gave him a rawhide chew treat and he forgot about the shot pain.

This photo was from this weekend, when he was allowed to play outside because he wouldn't get muddy. Not the case last night and this morning and someone is not very happy about hanging out on the backporch when there's cats and a dog to play with outside...

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Strawed Out

Friday night after work, Dad and I (my brother showed up for the second load) went to a neighbor's farm to get straw bales. We don't grow wheat/straw on our farm, only hay. We loaded 180 bales on 2 wagons.

Before the load

During

Since it was just me and Dad, I was responsible for driving the tractor. It doesn't seem like a difficult job, but it requires a steady speed, slow enough that the people loading can hike their bales up and not get ran over by the wagon, but fast enough that they aren't waiting for you at the next bale.

 Dad was stacking, and occasionally we'd stop and get a big pile of bales together. Then I'd hike them up to him.

After

Stacking bales really requires 3 people: driver, stacker and hiker.

Saturday afternoon we put them in the barn loft. We don't have a bale elevator; we use bale forks that take 6-8 bales at a time. That process also really requires 3 people, but Dad and I did that alone: driver, rope puller, and fork-placer. Sorry there aren't any photos of the barnloft process; I was driving the tractor yet again... :)

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Putting food by: Baled and Canned

 Earlier this week, Dad baled 2 of our fields. We got 33 bales off about 18-20 acres. According to Dad this is a little low; he usually gets closer to 40 bales from these fields. But it's been VERY dry this year.

Last night we canned the beets I harvested yesterday morning. We used a recipe out of an old church cookbook. The recipe was submitted by Alice Birk, a family member. (I think the wife of my paternal Grandpa's brother, Glenn.) The recipe was for 6 pints, but we cut the recipe in half. For three pints we used:

1-1/2 c apple cider vinegar
1 c water
1/2 c sugar (we actually used closer to 3/4 c)
a sprinkle of canning salt (not in the recipe, but will help the beets stay firm)
2 tsp pickling spice (I still had some from Penzey's spices)

Grandma already boiled and peeled the beets, so we simmered them for a few more minutes in the vinegar mixture to dissolve the sugar. Then we boiled the jars in a water bath for 20 minutes. Since they are high acid, they don't have to be pressure canned.

This was half a row of beets, or just one package. Grandma said when she was growing up they planted two rows across the garden about a foot wide, so about twice what I planted. I'm not sure how many pints they put away, but it was enough to last the whole year!

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Farm & Garden Update

 Of the 37 chicks, I counted 10 with large combs.

Run rooster run!

 The peppers are setting on. We have several bell, jalapeno and banana peppers.

 The beets are bulging out of the ground. This morning I pulled the Red Ace beets. Grandma is prepping them for canning (cleaning, boiling, peeling) and then we'll can them tonight.

 There are still some radishes. My foot on the left for scale. These are huge and Grandma says they aren't hot like radishes typically get when it's dry and they bolt. These are Purple Plum; definitely planting them again for Grandma. (I'm not a radish person)

Some of the peas have set on; you can see the peas forming in the pods. 

 Most of the (21) sweet potato plants survived the dry spell.

 Blackberries are almost ready to pick! There was one yesterday that was all black but when I pulled on it didn't budge, so I'll eat it this afternoon.

Japanese Beetles arrived. I pick them and squish them. The main thing they're eating is the grape vine leaves that are growing in the blackberries, so I've also been pulling grape vines.

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Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

 After the day-after-the-wedding-brunch on Sunday, I went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I've used the website for research for a couple projects, both the Habitat for Humanity project I worked on in college and for the design competition I entered with a friend a couple years ago.

 There are several walking trails (which are pretty hot because of the scarcity of trees and shade). There are also several demonstration and theme gardens. The plants in the theme gardens are broken down by shade/sun needs, water needs, color, edible-ness, etc. The demonstration gardens show how native plants can be used in both formal and informal gardens.

 The biggest yucca plant I've ever seen. It was probably over 10' tall.

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Downtown Austin

 Saturday morning I was up bright and early. I tried to sleep in because I knew it would be a long night after the wedding, but I was awake by 7 and downtown Austin by 8 am. Brunch was at 10 am at the bride's hotel room, Taco Deli (amazing takeout breakfast tacos), so I knew I had a little over an hour to explore before I had to get back and shower.

 I went to the Austin Visitor's Center website and followed the walking tour PDF download on my Nook.

 Texas Capitol building

 While I was walking around, I came across a guy feeding the squirrels. Kind of like the crazy bag lady feeding birds, but this was a guy sitting on a park bench feeding a dozen or more squirrels.

 This random sculpture looking thing is actually a water fountain. It used to be fed by a well but is now hooked up to city water. There's a foot pedal you push on and then the water comes out of the center there. Kind of strange.

 There are a lot of old buildings in downtown Austin from the 1850s that are mixed in with modern skyscrapers and modern sculptures. Austin is known for their music scene. I didn't catch any concerts while in town, but there are huge music festivals here.

This is the Driskill hotel, built in the late 1880s. A lot of the other stops on the tour were old dry goods stores and saloons.

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Rehearsal Dinner

 This weekend I'm in Austin for a friend's wedding. Tonight was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. It was at the Texas Military Forces Museum, which is on an active base.

There are all kinds of military items here.

 Dinner was a 40s theme. Erika brought hats for us to wear.

 Dinner was burgers, fries and adult milk shakes (mudslides)

I don't know what happened to this photo. I thought it was humorous that the bartender set up shop right under the "museum store" sign.

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