Things are growing, July 4th weekend

Things are growing

Despite the weird weather this year, things are growing.  

Beans are up!

These are pinto beans.  Not sure that I have a long enough season here for them.  We will see.

Corn is up and growing fast!

Cabbages and broccoli are slow start  though

Looks like a big elderberry crop this year!

These babies are loaded!  I am thinking maybe over 200 lbs of berries this harvest!  UGH!!

Choke berries and choke cherries are getting attacked!

As if they don't have enough "normal" problems of rooting and disease, now they are getting snipped off by something.  Probably rabbits.  I have begun doing a walk around the farm morning and evening to hunt the buggers responsible.

They seem to be good at sprouting out again - but how many times can they do this before they die?

Ginkgo trees are fighting to survive.

They don't get snipped off as often, but they seems to have some rooting issues.  Some are sprouting out.  Some are in such a wet location that I don't know if they will make it.

This one is basically in the swamp.  Still surviving somehow.

Rainbows!

I was out picking stuff up at the various tractor supply company locations this weekend.  Lots of rain and rainbows popping up!  Was very nice!   I got my two 6V batteries for the backhoe and a tire/wheel changing tool.

I also finally remembered to look for the roofer information on the signs along 30!  KLA roofing.  I will have to get a quote for some metal roof on my house.

Backhoe

AS I mentioned above, I got my backhoe batteries!  The beast started up fairly easily, I was impressed.  I moved it out of the garage without too much damage (I broke a piece of siding off around door frame - easily repaired).

These batteries weight almost 45 pounds each!  They fit in a tricky spot where you really can't put your hands!

Here are a couple videos that I posted to youtube.

More mulch! Things are growing!

Wow, Big mulch Pile!

The first thing I noticed when I pulled up this weekend was the HUGE pile of mulch the trimmer guys had left for me!  WOW!  Thanks guys!  I used the front loader on my tractor to heap this up so it would mulch better (and give me room on the driveway).  This stuff will come in handy.   By the way, it gets SUPER hot in these piles!

Free wood chips! Yay!

Here it is all squished together - quite a pile!

Confused turtle again

This little one keeps getting lost around the side of the house and then waylaid by the dog fence!  I moved him down below the house (just about 15 feet - not too far) so he could get to the woods and stream on the other side.

They can run much faster than you would think!

Stuff is coming up in the gardens!

The corn in the front patch is coming up!  Its sparse in some areas - but that may be because of old seed (and sometimes the planting machine gets finicky).

The beans are mostly up now too!

They are a little sparse on the left side though - did a critter get in and eat them off?  Or is it because its partially shaded there?  I put some chicken mesh around the base of the garden fence to stop the critter issues...

Raspberries are blooming!

They are growing quite well too.  Hopefully I will get some good berries off this!

Mulched the "old" blueberries

I trimmed around the "old" blueberries and then applied mulch.  They look much better now and I shouldn't have to trim around them so much with all of that mulch!

Garden progress

The tomatoes and the cabbages and broccoli are coming along.  The cabbages and broccoli look like they need some sevin!  I think I did put sevin dust on these before I left.

See the holes in the leaves?  BUGS!

BEANS!

Yep - picking more beans.  Slow slow process with the "velour" beans.  Fortunately (in this regards anyway) the weather has been so dry that the grass hasn't grown much, therefore I did not need to mow.   I think I got all but 1/4 of the "velour" beans picked.  Here is a final picture of the patch as I left this weekend (its a panorama - the garden is not curved!)

I did pick some crops - the strawberries, the zucchini, brussel sprouts, and tomatoes:

You Have to zoom in to see the berries - but they are doing quite well considering the drought!

Good number of nice looking berries there!

I put the brussel sprouts and the zucchini in the same tray - sprouts cover most of the zucchini - but they are there!  About 6 of them I think.  I let the sprouts go too long and they started sprouting !

Tomatoes are less than last week but still doing well.  Especially since we aren't looking to preserve a great many this year!  These will probably go into the FDer.  Some of last weeks went into freezer because the freeze-dryer can't keep up!

Big tree came down!

The big tree that was hung up out in back of the house finally came down!  I am not sure when it happened - maybe last Friday.   I still need to clean it up a bit.  There are some widow-makers hanging on in the trees yet.  Kind of letting them sort themselves out before I go in there to clean!

Broke out a section of this tree too.

Nice little bridge across gully!

Not sure if this bug damage was before or after it broke.  Woodpecker damage too.

Widow-maker!