{"id":8871,"date":"2021-06-08T19:12:35","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T23:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=8871"},"modified":"2021-06-08T19:12:35","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T23:12:35","slug":"were-struggling-with-a-heat-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2021\/06\/08\/were-struggling-with-a-heat-wave\/","title":{"rendered":"We’re struggling with a heat wave"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will and I are hard workers and all, but we both really can’t handle the heat well. It’s been in the 90’s for several days now and boy, are we ever panting as we set out tomatoes. So far, we’ve planted more than 150 plants in the Sand garden, with most of them mulched with reed canary grass hay, staked with steel T-posts, and caged with concrete re-enforcing wire, plus the variety name on a stake, in front of each plant. We do have a system; Will digs the holes, I select the plants in the greenhouse, alphabetically, bring them down, write the names on wooden stakes, take them out of their cups or pots, then drop them in the holes. Will follows up, planting each one in, then finishing off the rest while I go back and get another batch of plants. In cooler weather, we work pretty much all through the day with a few short breaks. But when it’s in the nineties, we struggle; plant for fifteen minutes, then take an hour break. Besides the heat, it’s been dry, dry, dry! So we’ve also been watering and I’ve been planting more corn and beans. We have such a short season; we feel we need to hurry to get everything in we can right now<\/em>! By the grace of God, it rained over an inch last night. We were so very<\/em> thankful as our plants loved it and so did we. Being off grid, there’s no such thing as central air conditioning. Whew!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Right now, despite the intense heat, we’re setting out our sturdy tomato plants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Will and I have a system down to plant those hundreds of tomatoes and it seems to work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yesterday, our granddaughter’s pony finally made it home. But even that was a struggle. Bill’s truck had been in the shop for a little work but he got it out so we could make a trip to pick up Whinny. He, Kelly, and Ava got up early and arrived at our place at 9 A.M. (Ava still didn’t know we were getting her pony!) We hooked up to the trailer and headed out, all happy. We only made it three miles and the truck just stopped suddenly. Long story short; the high-pressure oil pump had quit. I finally was able to get Will on the cell phone and he drove over to pick up Ava, Kelly, and me while Bill waited for a tow truck. Then Will went over and hooked up to the trailer and brought it home as Bill went with the tow truck to the Ford dealer in Virginia (the town). While Will drove over to pick up the pony, I drove the family home. But, all in all, except for knowing that it would cost Bill $4,500 to fix the truck, we had a nice family outing. Whinny is adapting well to our place. I turned her out into the goat pasture to graze for about half an hour then put her in the goat corral. With ponies that have been on dry lot (only hay) you don’t want to turn them out on good pasture right away as they sometimes founder and go lame. So we’re easing her into the grazing. She doesn’t seem to be a hog so I think in a few days she can just stay on pasture. I can hardly wait until Ava finds out she has her own pony!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
I just had to share this photo of David, Elizabeth, and Delilah enjoying a swim. It cools me down!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

— Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will and I are hard workers and all, but we both really can’t handle the heat well. It’s been in the 90’s for several days now and boy, are we ever panting as we set out tomatoes. So far, we’ve planted more than 150 plants in the Sand garden, with most of them mulched with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,13,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8876,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8871\/revisions\/8876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}