My neighbor Rachel showed me how to make mozzarella and ricotta from our milk and I made our first batch last night. we're going to try to make some Jack cheese next round.( it will take a while to cure).
Molly came over with Rachel and Emily to deliver the goats. Molly stayed awhile and played with Tommy.
Also last week-end I was invited to our friend Tim's place to shoot a few rounds and learn a bit about guns. I think out of the several rifles I shot I like the 7mm (7 mag) best. It shot the smoothest for me, even thought the 30.06 felt good as well, just a bit heavier and a bit harder to keep steady... I guess other brands may be better but so far that what I like.
We will be planting a couple of Grape fruit trees this week and hope to see our purchase of trees from last months order shipped.
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( 2.9 / 96 )This week I started 2 five gallon batches of pear wine. I made the first batch from memory using regular bread yeast. I made the second batch using a wine yeast ( it ferments longer creating more alcohol) and a pectic enzyme to help release more sugar from the fruit. the second batch also contains a 1 pound box of raisins.
We harvested one huge basket of pears.The same amount had already fallen from the trees, that's why I decided to try wine rather than let the pears go to waste.
Shelly has been planting our fall garden, I need to till some more rows for her today. we decided to change the direction of the rows to help the watering out with the natural incline of the land. We also decided to make shorter rows with more space between so we could manage the weeds better( weeds got away from us last spring).
We will also try some new watering techniques this year. The soaker hoses worked well for a while but we have to much mineral content in the well water and it eventually clogged the pours of the hose, same with the drip line heads.
Ta Ta for now
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( 3 / 114 )IT RAINED..!!!!
Our pond has came almost all the way back up, the ground is soaked and I can see the vegetation already starting to look greener. Since we moved here we have only had one other good rain.
Our fruit trees are doing well, (compare with the picture of the holes in an earlier post). The olive trees are still small but doubled in size since we planted them in the spring. I think we are going to plant an orchard of olives....at maturity they produce about a 4 quarts +/- of olive oil per tree, if you ever bought olive oil you know how much that might be worth.
I only have 8 out of 20 cypress trees left, the drought was hard on them as well as my nut trees. I only have 7 out of 12 pecans and all my walnut died.
Fruit trees ( about 5')
Olive trees ( 2')
Pear tree ( was here already)
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( 2.9 / 135 )I recently got in touch with some old freinds, and thought I should put a few more pics up. so here we go
Tom and shelly at MadDogs on the riverwalk
Grandma Francie and tommy
Nick
Stephanie
more to follow
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( 3 / 125 )WoW,
Its been the hottest summer on record here. I've lost about a 1/4 of my Cyprus and a few pecans. It can only get better from here ( or a least that's what we will tell ourselves.
On the positive side.... my pond is low so I was able to put some pillars in the bottom and built a small dock. (pictures to follow)
its only 12' long and 6' wide, but good enough to get out over the water to feed the fish and fish the fish :)
The kids go back to school next week, the cat had a second small litter, we are down to 4 chickens out of the 35+/- chicks we started with( caught a 5' rat snake with chicks in its belly), the dog is looking nice and fit and we are getting ready to till the garden for the fall planting.
enough for now.
Chikies before the snake....
Kittens from first batch... yin and yang ?
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