well...we tried

but sometimes, you just can't catch a break. The hay got baled, but minutes later, the skies opened up. Will tried mightily to get it into the barn and he did...but during and after a massive rain storm. Oh well...at least it is for mulch, and not for feed, right>?


Look closely and you can see the hay in the rain - and the baling equipment in the rain. I couldn't get closer because, well, what good would it do to get the camera wet too?

HAY!...almost

It's been way too long since the hay was cut...somehow we didn't connect with our hay guy in the spring, and so we waited for him all summer to no avail. We were down to four bales, and that's a pitiful situation. Can't mulch much of anything with just four bales...
So we finally started searching around for someone else, anyone at all to please please cut our field and bale the hay. One problem we have is that we use the old-fashioned square bales (which are actually rectangles) and not very many people bale those anymore. Most hay is used for cows, and folks just have those giant round bales made, and leave one for the cows to munch on. The giant bales are of no use to us...can't haul em around for mulching. So we finally found a guy (I think it was four guys) to cut the hay and that was yesterday, A truly beautiful sight. Then we waited for them to come back and 'fluff' it with the 'fork-thing' attachment on the back of their tractor. But they didn't show up to do that...hmmm....and then this morning we waited again. And we were worried. Because it was supposed to rain. And that would be bad. We haven't had rain all month, but you would know that when we finally have the hay cut we'd be threatened with rain. Well. Will made a phone call, and found out they don't plan to bale it until TUESDAY. (It's Sunday right now). Tuesday! And yep. It's raining. But it could all work out, you know. We're kind of counting on that. Not raining much, then stopping, then allowing the hay to dry. then baling, right?

the Last Gasp

..and here you have it. A bucket of peppers and a bucket of peppers. Sweet or hot. Pick your choice, as they say in New Orleans. The End. With 'assistance' (aka: hired help, but we are very grateful), all has been pulled from the ground - in the field, in the flowerbeds. All tomatoes and their stakes, peppers, eggplants. There just comes a time, and that's all there is to it.

I have no pictures of the bare field and the fence lines, but - to us, anyway, it is a beautiful sight.
All I have is this, a picture of the last two buckets of whatever there was.

Even though it cannot be posted here, I have in my mind the flats out by the greenhouse- a sturdy army of pumpkins and winter squash- and tomatoes and peppers not as hardy but they'll do for now. A sign of what is to come.

All that remains is some plowing and a trip to Mississippi for chicken **** and we're on our way to a fall garden.

In the meantime, one more honey-spinning exercise: this time, assistance provided by Mark, age 5, who wanted to see what this was all about: Mark watches 'Mr. Will' uncap the honey: Here, he checks out the spinner, and helps to align the racks to receive the frames.
Then he prepares to help hold down the machine while Will spins furiously. I sent him (and his mother, Maria) home with a jar of honey. They are having Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches for dinner.