Marmalade Hollow: Musings: 1st Edition

Jeremiah has been in Kansas City since Monday. One of his students was first at state for a welding sculpture. I know it's good publicity for the school and a pat on the back for him to have such great welders but dangit, sometimes I feel like we're back in the military again! He'll be gone 2 weeks in August. He signed up for some kinda revamping of tech. ed., it's al volunteer and he figures if he's going to have to teach to a certain standard he may as well have a hand in writing them, which he has! His first meeting was some time last Fall in KC, the 2nd in Denver shortly after Christmas and then this last one is back in KC and he goes to that just before training in Columbus, OH.

Jeremiah, his students and HCTEA (school) are so lucky, the school and Jeremiah know just how lucky they are to have the available funds and the people (taxpayers and the "higher ups") who actually give a crap about tech ed. (unlike some stupid states, not to point any fingers). Jeremiah requested the purchase of a VERY expensive piece of machinery for next year and it was approved. With this machinery (robotic welder) comes a week of training in Columbus for him and 2 other teachers. The machine shop teacher will be going along with the college welding instructor which HCTEA works very closely with. -As a side note, the high school students also get college credit for the cases they take as of recent.- Not to mention, the welding teacher and his wife and family and the 4 of us have all become really good friends so it's almost like being in the military again- same job, husbands "deploying" at the same time!

I have been here running the place alone which normally isn't a big deal as generally I do the chores mostly alone anyway but yesterday the heat was unbearable! 109* with the heat index at 116 (with the humidity) and just like wind chill is real, so is heat index! Lord have mercy, it was sweltering! Keeping the animals cool was the main priority all day, especially the meat birds as they do not do well in the heat once they are nearly butcher size. I couldn't keep enough water in the pigs wallow so I ended up turning on the sprinkler for them which they were much appreciative of. A friend of mine scoffed when I mentioned the last time Jeremiah was gone that I was "running" the place alone as if it weren't a big deal. I didn't even have the garden then! Not that I need a pat on the back but it is a lot of work and I will be happy when he is home.

I am really looking forward to vacation here in a couple of weeks. We've rented a cabin near a Lake on the WV/KY border. Friends of ours are going to milk the goats while we are gone and take care of everything for us. I plan to do a lot of relaxing, though I am afraid I really don't know how to do that!

Our last puppy left just today. We were boarding him for the new owners while their new fences went up. I was very sad to see him go, he was a sweetie!

The refinance finally went through on the house, good Lord I thought I'd never see the end of that abut it sure is nice to see the miniscule interest rate we scored!

We've got plans to put in a new milk barn but first new water and electric lines need to be dug and we've got to rent a ditch witch for that. All in due time. The weather is supposed to cool down dramatically so maybe within the next couple of weeks we can get that done.

The grass hay is all put up for this year, alfalfa will be next though we're going to have to shuffle that around a bit as cutting time falls right in between 2 of the trips for Jeremiah I was discussing and hay in the field waits for no man. Our own grass that we planted this past spring looks so very nice! Jeremiah mowed it all about 2 months ago to prevent the cheat grass (A.K.A. June grass) from reseeding itself. We HATE cheat grass! If we continue to fertilize the brome (of which brome is usually fertilized in Feb.) it should continue to take over and we'll seed some other areas this fall with the 60 or so lbs. we had left over. We decided against seeding everything to be sure that what we had already put out was actually going to grow. With all the moisture we've had, the brome hay yields have been so good for everyone (but don't think most people went down in their price!!!) so ours looks really good! Brome growers only get one cut a year, it's a cool season grass and comes to a head which is when it's cut for hay. Some people will let it go to seed and not cut it at all. Since we cut ours back to clear the cheat grass it is behind on growth but better that in my opinion than having to spray for the "weeds". If we get decent moisture, it'll stay green and should come to a head once it cools down and then we'll mow it all next fall after it's gone to seed. It also sends out runners, like Bermuda. Maybe next year we can put up our own brome!

Anyway, I pick up Jeremiah from town late tonight...er, soon here as I got called away from finishing this post. I'll leave you with some random photos I've (or the kids) have taken recently.