Pioneer Woman at Heart

One Flourishing, Frugal and Fun Family!

One family learning to live off the land, cut back on expenses, and to live a simpler and a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Adopted Motto

"Eat it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Or go without."
~A Pioneer Sampler, by Barbara Greenwood~

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Rain & Allergies

My cucumbers and peppers are sitting in water.  We continue to get rain, and some times in sparatic, heavy downpours. 
At one point, water was coming up into our garage, but thankfully, the downpour stopped. The rain has already killed much of my squash.  There is nothing we can do, so I pick what I can and leave the rest up to God.  You can see in my photo, that my lens immediately started to steam up out there.  It's so hot and humid the windows on the house are that way too.  The humidity before a storm carries a large amount of pollen, so my allergies are bothersome this week.  When there are heavy downpours, the pollen is knocked down in size, and I can easily inhale more, thus making myself even more sick.  I have to stay inside, and the farm vet is making a house call today.  I am praying the humidity and rain gives us a break today.

The effects of pollen are not just on myself either.  One dog, Sadie, has been miserable.  We have to pick up medication for her today.  And yesterday, we noticed that Jasper, one of the cats, is having some of the same issues. 

Remember Jesse's (another dog) foot surgery, long time healing, and reappearing soreness?  The ending diagnosis was a possible snake bite?  Well, a week or so ago, my daughter saw her dog licking at it again.  She carefully took a look and pulled a thorn, a little less than 1/2 inch long, from one of the puncture wounds.  We are still wondering how the vet missed it, other than he did say the paw is full of nerve endings, and it may have been between two that he could not cut into.  Either way, we are watching the other paw for another possible buried thorn.

However, the snakes are everywhere in the pasture, and the same daughter almost stepped on one.  With the amount of rain we are getting they are moving up out of the creek and into the pasture.  I am hoping, when the goat fence is up, their movements (hooves hitting the ground and making vibrations) will keep the snakes in the creek area.

The rain is effecting the building of the goat fence too.  The ground is too wet and when Hubby and daughter put the 9-wire on and tightened, look what happened - 
See the bottom of the post in the very back?  The ground is so wet, it pulled the post.  

Oh, and I have been monitoring the traffic sources to my blog recently. Traffic is highest from a spam referring URL. If it continues, I will be shutting down this blog.  From what I read on Google, there is no way to "block" the the referring URL's, and if you do not click on them, they will go away eventually. 

5 comments:

Lisa said...

The rains have also affected my area. I lost all my beautiful squash and cucumber plants. It rained here for two weeks straight. The snakes are moving and I have to be careful when walking my dog outside. I am looking forward to trying again with my garden in the fall. However I do have a wonderful farmers market I can go to and buy all the vegetables my heart desires.
Hope your dogs get better and keep looking for the rainbow!
Lisa

Winnie said...

Kristina, we are having non stop rains and heat as well. For sure, it ruins gardens and makes allergies go crazy! This summer has been unusual for many of us this year weather wise. OUr area of Florida and north into Georgia has also seen an explosion of snakes from a prolonged wet Spring and Summer. The Timber Rattlers are horrible!! Hopefully the weather patterns will change and you could get a nice fall garden in and harvested before the frosts come.
This Spam issue is very crazy! I would hate it if you had to stop blogging. Is there another way to have your site with a different venue??

EMMA said...

Oh dear you do sound like you are suffering, and the poor animals too.
We've just come back from a holiday where my husband and son's allergy tablets ran out. Picked up a product called HayMax, which is slathered around the nose area to stop pollen getting in in the first place. Combined with eye drops this seems to be working remarkably well.
Hope Jesse's foot problems will soon be over.
Don't quite understand that last paragraph (duh me!) but please don't stop blogging!

Unknown said...

So are you getting spammed on your comments or? I set it up for no anonymous comments on mine. Worked great...

Pioneer Woman at Heart said...

Thank you all for advice on blocking spam. Emma, thank you for telling me about that product. I was just telling my daughter, that back in the day, folks would put petroleum jelly under the nose to block off pollen (of course I am looking for a much healthier product than pet.jelly). I will check into it too.