The games of summer

With yesterday being the first day of summer I guess it should come as no surprise that we would have the first watermellon seed-spitting contest of the year. The watermellon had been chilling in the fridge for a couple of days so it was great. Then came the challenge!

"Do ya'll want to have a watermellon seed spitting contest?"


Let the games begin!

Not a bad mornings work

Last night Savannah asked if we could go fishing this morning before they had to go for their CPR/First Aid training. I told her we would have to go at 6AM and she said OK so we got up and went and the fish cooperated! She caught 6 and I caught 1 :-( It was a great time and we got enough for a great meal for our family It doesn't get any better than that. My Fathers Day weekend is starting off pretty sweet.

We were in the boat and the dogs were following us around the bank as we fished and then I saw one of them up on the deck so I thought they had given up. Then to our surprise here comes Cabella swimming up to the boat! We let her in and made sure to keep her away from the hooks and the fish. She seemed very happy to be in the boat with us so next time we will try just taking her from the start. Koko would follow us around but she was not going to swim out to us. She will get in the water but she has to have a little coaxing.

Well the early-morning fog has burned off and the sun is out so it's on to checking chickens, cows, bees and the garden. Have a great Fathers Day everyone.

Hot Pepper

One plant that must be grown here on the 2811 is hot pepper. Melissa loves it and now she has some of the kids eating it as well. It's a little too hot for me but they love it so we plant a few of them. This one is a Cayenne but we also usually plant Jalapeno and this year we planted one called a cow horn which has been a hit as well. You would think that these fireballs would be bad for your stomach but research actually shows that they are good for it. It kills some of the bad guys that cause trouble.

This is our garden so far this year. Everything is going very well with the exception of the attack of the squash beetle/borer worm whatever it is killing our squash plants! We think we have it under control now with a combination of "pick and drown" and diatomatious earth but we'll see. Diligent hoeing has kept the weeds under control this year as opposed to most years the weeds are getting ahead of us by now.

We did get a very late start this year. Usually we try to get most things planted on Good Friday but this year it was May 1st before we got it planted. It was tractor issues and then it was just too dry when we thought about planting so we waited and it seems to be paying off.

We tried a new thing this year of growing cucumbers upright on a tomato cage and it is working great (Thanks Lazy B for that idea). They take up a fraction of the space and don't lay on the ground where they tend to get discolored and eaten by bugs.

Our latest garden ever!!

We usually get our garden planted on Good Friday but not this year! It was May 1st before we got it going this year but it is going well so far. We have kept the weeds under control better than usual and God is providing plenty of rain. We got our first cucumber last week and squash and zucchini are starting to come in as well. Our corn is only about knee high so it will be a while yet on that. The okra looks good but no blooms yet. We planted several varieties of Tomatoes this year and we have several green tomatoes but no ripe ones yet. We got 5 inches of rain in the past week!!! That definitely caused some washing but we have got some dirt moved around now so it is mostly back to normal.


This is our rain gauge full of water! We haven't had this much rain in a coon's age. It is rare indeed when we have to dump out our gauge because it is full, but that is exactly what happened Monday. I would have really liked to have had this rain over several days or even weeks but hey, we take it when we can get it!



The bees seem to be having a good year so far. I have two "supers" on most of the hives and each one could potentially have 2.5 gallons of honey. Of course they will not all be full but some years we have not had ANY surplus honey so it looks like we will at least get some this year. Also we have not "seen" and swarms. That is not to say that we haven't had any but I try to check them pretty often. Hopefully they have been too busy making honey to think about packing up and leaving!