I guess we’re never satisfied. Although the rain is great for our gardens, it sure makes it tough to finish up making hay. Will finally saw three clear days in the forecast and cut another farm’s fields. Yep, the next day it was cloudy and it did rain a bit — not much though. So when it got nice yesterday, he went over early and began raking the field. The hay was dry and nice, despite being rained on. In the afternoon, he started baling it. Pretty soon, he showed up at home with the Ford tractor and a broken drive chain and sprocket from the round baler. Of course no parts were available locally, so he had to call the Surplus Center and order the parts. Hopefully they’ll be here in a few days and hopefully it won’t rain much.

Today he brought the baler home to work on it and because there was a partial bale in it, he drove it down to the cow corral to give it to them so it didn’t get moldy in the baler. But when he opened the door, he couldn’t get the bale out — too heavy. And no drive chain to move the floor chains to dump it. So he parked it down there, put the safety latches on the cylinders so the door couldn’t fall shut and kill cows, and left it as sort of a bale feeder for today.

The cows are helping Will get the bale out of the baler.

While Will was doing all of that, my friends, Dara and Leslie came over again and helped weed the bean rows in the Central garden. The rows are about 50 feet long and full of both beans and weeds. We got them mostly weeded, having to leave some pigweed in the rows which had semi-runner beans. The beans had twined around the weeds and it would do too much damage to remove them. Leslie and Dara both took home sacks of Providers to can up and some eggs from our new pullets which are now laying pretty nicely. Today I went out and picked a basket of Strike beans. Boy, those are really nice. I read a University study that showed them to produce more than Provider, my old standby. I believe it, although I’ll never give up my Providers as they surely do provide — all season too. I also canned up four pints of Crawford pole beans and they turned out very nice. I’ll sure do a whole lot more when I’m assured of plenty of seed beans.

Take a look at these Strike green beans; one row fills a big basket easily.

Good news! We’ve been seeing another young wild turkey hen. So Mama Turkey had more than one daughter! Mama was back briefly a week ago, with no babies or young. I’m not sure what that was about. Maybe she just wanted another breeding and nest? A friend, living about five miles away, let me know she also saw a wild turkey across the road from her place. That one was a male. So we’re having more sightings around here and that’s exciting.

This is one of my fancy daylilies. Isn’t it pretty?

My daylilies and other lilies are blooming up a storm. Some of the fancy lilies are simply stunning. I’ve got one tree lily (trumpet x oriental cross) that has a flower over a foot in width! And to make it better, it is also very fragrant. — Jackie

10 COMMENTS

  1. Sorry to hear about the baler breaking down. It’s nice to have people near you to help when you need them. The look of those beans is making me hungry for fresh beans. Does the Provider beans tolerate the heat well? I sure would like to try them in Oklahoma. The day lily is fabulous.

    • Good friends are the best!!! Yes, the Providers do well with heat. I grew them in New Mexico and they did great there.

    • We do, too. Obviously!!! And what’s not to love? They taste great, put out beans early and all summer and plenty of them, too.

  3. I love reading your blog. I spent my youth gardening and preserving with my grandma and it has stuck with me always. I agree with Tammy your bean pic is beautiful. I haven’t had much luck with the beans I ordered this year so only getting enough to eat. But cucumbers are growing out my ears. lol Just finished up another batch of dill, bread and butter, and some relish. I love seeing the jars sitting on the counter knowing…I did that from starting the seed to preserving the harvest… love it!

    • Yeah, that’s homesteading; some years you have a bounty of this and next, of that. So just keep planting and canning! Yea!!!

  4. Will’s friend came over and baled up that field for us. Rain is due for three days and our baler part just shipped and won’t be here for a few days at best. Whew!

  5. Your picture of your green beans is pretty enough to hang on a wall . It makes my mouth water just looking at it !

    • They are gorgeous but I’m kind of getting tired of canning beans and there’s lots more to go. Ah, the life of a homesteader. But oh how we love it!

  6. Haying has been tough out here this year, too. We have a bunch of last years, but will buy 10 more large squares this year. Our trucker who supplies us called when he brought the load to town – it is the ONLY one he had gotten in without rain as of last week. This gentleman puts up thousands of bales over a few hundred mile area. Tough year.

    You are right – that lily is stunning!

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