It's Already Friday???

 My husband and I were comiserating about the heat, and he could not believe I did garden work (the weeds are out of control). 

He said something about Friday, and I said, "huh?"

I could not believe Friday as snuck up on me this quick this week.  It cracks me up, when there are folks who assume, since I do not work a regular "job" that I have all the free time in the world.  Ha!  

Yesterday I froze water in tins, so the chickens could walk in them and cool off.  They loved it!  The heat and humidity has been grueling for all.

Regardless, laundry went out on my solar powered dryer (clothesline).  

It's too hot to cook, and too hot to do dishes - chicken salad on cucumber slices.  I used blended cottage cheese in place of the mayo this time, as I had heard it was just as good, less fat, and more protein.  I have to say, it's pretty good.  We can't tell a difference.  So, when organic/non-gmo mayo gets too expensive, and you can make homemade cottage cheese (or buy it on sale), it does work in this recipe.  

We simply add home canned sweet pickle relish/hot pickle relish.  I mean, each are made with vegetables, and it's delicous.  Once we get garden produce, we can use fresh too.

The heat and humidity continue, and it won't end next week for us.  The fog is due to more thunderstorms and rain, but we got more thunder than rain.  It barely got the ground wet, but caused so much more humidity.  Every little bit of rain helps the garden.  By the way, when I took this photo, there was no wind, and all the flowers we planted made the air smell like perfume.  

I got some garden work done, but the cultivotor needs gas (tiller needs a new belt), so I hand hoed some areas for now.  The heat and humidity suck the energy out of you by the end of the day, so errands are not happening.  I did manage to tie up more tomatoes.  

On a rodent note, we know a family that stocks their freezer with wild hunted rabbits for food.  They have volunteered to come help reduce our plethora amount of them.  However, I have not seen one of them the last two days. 

Each year we make more progress, but fencing the other garden will cost us more than we can spend this summer, so any rodent help is help, and if it puts food on someone's table, then it's a double win. So many people are struggling right now.

Speaking of struggling, more stores are closing, more people are baking at home and trying to sell stuff like that, just to make ends meet.  All Rite-Aids are closing here.  

I do plan to watch the prices on fencing, for what we want.  We are hoping they will put them on sale in the fall.

On a good note, my microgreens I planted are already sprouting.  The lettuce has not yet.

It's Already Friday???© June 2024 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Hot and Humid

 

I debated just freezing the last of the peaches, but canned a smalled batch early in the morning.  We'll get more peaches later this summer.

I made a new recipe for pomegrante vinaigrette.  One recipe uses the seeds (using a blender) and the other uses juice form concentrate (the one I tried).  I used a bit more dijon in ours to thicken it just a bit more, and we love it.  We are enjoying more salads this week with the heat index so high.

I was out checking berries and taking the chickens fresh cold water, when I discoveredd this growing between the raspberries and asparagus patch.  Does anyone know what it is?  The plant itself is growing just like a red raspberry bush, but it obviously is not a raspberry bush.

I have never see this before.  In finding this, I do see some poison sumac in another area, so we need to remove it.  Always something to take care of around here.

It was so humid and hot, I was getting seriously worried about my chickens, and I was about to go look for a box fan and extension cord, when I heard thunder.  The heat index was 103°F and extremely humid.

Soon enough we had not only a few hours of pouring down rain, but thunderstorms.  I'm not sure what took out our power, as it could have been due to everyone's AC on, or the storms.

Thank goodness I keep extra watering units for this purpose, and had them filled for the chickens.  I had to take them fresh cold water almost every 2 hours, due the heat index.

We also have several battery powered lights in each room, candles, a portable phone charger (however even 5G was not working to get weather updates), and I am very thankful I purchased our power source that runs on the same battery our power tools run on.  It has one outlet, a light, and a few charge ports, so we can charge our chargeable fans (we have two) to stay cool, and charge anything else.

In light of this, and for the fact the power has gone out more often, we plan to add some new items to our list.  A generator has always been on the list, but they are expensive.  We do have a plan to keep the lights on (more than the one the power source can run).

 By the way, we took the power source off of the lamp, used some candles for light, and plugged a laptap into the power source to watch a DVD.  Save your DVD's and don't get rid of them.  Our interent was out until this morning, so no netflix or amazon.  We were thankful we kept the DVD's and the old laptop for this purpose.  Otherwise, we could run one lamp and read books or play cards.

My husband is in agreement on keeping the lights on, so I'll update you if/when we locate what we are looking for.  We have considered a well hand pump in the future as well.  When the power goes out, we cannot get water from the well otherwise.

Once our power was back on, we could only watch a DVD using a DVD player.  Our interent was out the entire night and we had trouble getting connection this morning, but it's back on.  It makes you wonder about everything digital these days, and what to do with the power/internet out.

(source:  Amazon)

Our smaller one is similar to this one.

As for the fans, I had a small chargeable fan with a clip, that we use on the treadmill.  It worked like a charm to cool us. 

(Source: Amazon)  Our foldable chargeable fan is similar to this one.

The other fan we have is adjustable in height, and folds up, and we take it camping, so we had that one too.  Both have been used a lot, and my husband was impressed how well the smaller fan worked.

Of course we purchased them many years ago, so I can't say for sure if it's still on the market, but there are some very similar to them.  I'm just glad we had them, along with everything else.

We are thankful for the rain, as the gardens got a good dose of goodness, and the temperature dropped just a bit.  It is still very humid here however.

It's been too hot to do any garden weeding or tilling/cultivating at all.  The weeds are growing, so I hope we get a break soon.  I was literally dripping with sweat just being out there for the watering of everything.

At the end of the day, it's too exhausting to crochet, read or do anything really.  We are thankful for the AC (when the power is on) or the fans.

Hot and Humid© June 2024 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart