Watch the garden grow ...

It's been an interesting week.  We had several days of scorching heat (up in the 90's - okay, that's hot for us!) followed by three days of cold rain.  The main water storage tank is full as are those in the garden so I fired up the generator today and pumped 200 gallons out of the main tank and into barrels. 

Our son is back from fighting wild fires in eastern Montana.  He said he didn't like the snakes there.  Especially those with the rattles on their tails.  It was his first time working as a wlidland fire fighter and he said he learned more in a week in the field than he had in all the classes took to qualify for the position. 

I took  some pictures of wild flowers on the property.  I'm no expert on what kind they are.  I just like looking at them.

This one was growing in the garden so I suspect that it's a weed of some type.

Susan spread some old sheets over the U-Haul to keep the heat down inside during the day.  These are some of the sheets we use for row covers in the garden in the spring and fall when the danger of frost is high.

With the rain giving us a break we had some major weeding to catch up on in the garden.  Here Susan is weeding some of the onion plants.  The weeds are thrown into the compost pile.

Just a comparison photo.  The left side is the one she just finished.  The right side hasn't been weeded yet.

Scott got up from his nap so Susan brought him out to the garden to see if he'd entertain himself while we worked.  He played on the tiller for about fifteen minutes then began wandering.  Susan left to take care of him while I continued working in the garden.  Having small children around sure cuts into your productivity.

Our corn adored the hot weather and doubled in size in just a couple of days.

The potatoes like the heat too.

This photo was taken on the 10th right after I tilled between the rows.

This one was taken on the 15th after a day of rain.  See how much the plants grew in 5 days?

The potatoes are starting to put out blossoms.

The little chickens are growing fast.  I let them into the fenced run this week now that they're big enough that they can't escape through the wire.

We heard a noise and saw some grass move under the chicken house so I stuck my camera down and snapped this photo.  (The camera was upside down!) 

I weeded the peas and mulched the rows.

They're putting on some blossoms too.

The raspberries are doing well.

The woman who runs the food bank called us and said she had some things for us to take so we stopped by while we were in town.  This is all food that the dates have expired on and they can't give it away.  The pasta will be rancid and the paper packaged food will be inedible so we'll give it to the chickens. Any suspicious cans of food or any that have been expired too long will also be used as chicken food.  We'll use the rest for our own consumption or give it to those who need it and don't mind eating food with expired dates.