We had a busy weekend

But what’s not new, right? On Saturday, we had a visit from the friends in Wisconsin who are going to take over our seed business in August next year. Yep, my knees haven’t improved much and taking care of five acres of gardens is getting to be just too much for me as Will is usually busy haying from the Fourth of July till mid-August, leaving my poor knees to try and weed, keep insects and birds off the crops, etc. Plus, my regular stuff like writing and keeping homesteading moving forward. It was with heavy hearts that we decided to do this. We’ve been working with Lynn and Jesse Frey for three years now, helping them learn and grow in the business. After the transfer, we’ll keep growing some seeds for them and helping out as we can.

Yesterday, our son, Bill and his family took me down to visit our daughter in River Falls, Wisconsin, a five-hour trip for me. Luckily, I only had to drive two hours of that as Bill drove the rest. She has been having some serious health issues, and we wanted to visit. It was so nice as I hadn’t seen her since last year. She’d fallen and broken both heels and is just recovering from that plus Mayo Clinic suspects she has rheumatoid arthritis, as before the fall, she had been in severe pain. She’s feeling better and the casts and boots have come off. She actually walks better than I do. I’m so jealous! We were so happy to visit and see such an improvement with more to come with some new meds.

Today I am seeding out the very last of our tomato crop for this year. The darned mice got the last Grandpa’s Minnesota cherry tomato seeds, right on my kitchen counter … and left me some mouse poopies in exchange. Time for mouse traps as the cats evidently aren’t getting them all. Although Saturday, Mittens came into the yard, carrying a big weasel! This is her eighth weasel that we know of. We think that’s quite a feat for an old cat that only weighs eight pounds. Go Mittens! The weasels have killed a lot of my poultry and even rabbits in the past so I’m not a weasel fan.

Tomorrow I’m going to pick all the peppers in the hoop houses and shut off the heat as it’s getting steadily colder each night and it’s getting too expensive to run heaters in them. We will keep the heater on at night in the greenhouse to protect our squash, cabbages, and onions in there. Will plowed up our carrots but the middle buster didn’t work as well for us to do them that way, cutting off quite a few carrots. At least we did get half a crate of kind of small carrots. But it’s enough to can up so we’re happy. — Jackie