Good Morning!

[Killerbunny]

Pics as required by rulez of Franks 2 new babies. I have had trouble hatching these eggs. Frank is 5 and so is Mum. Both ameraucana x brahme hatched from blue eggs. These 2 hatched from her olive eggs. Hoping they dont give up.
franks.jpg

Update on the 2 kids. They are very beautiful cockerels and I hope they have good temperaments like Frank so i can keep at least 1.

[WLLady]

hi all,

@ross you can post shows here: Event Discussion (Sales and Shows) the calendar is locked, we enter those manually from this topic in the forum

rutabagas are better when frosted once! and smaller are less woody, but i've never seen a small rutabaga honestly!

Been a whirlwind here. absolutely crazy. I got a call last friday that they want me in for surgery on friday this week. of course that meant getting scripts filled ASAP at hospitals that aren't open on the weekend...and covid test and all that. and isolation for 5 days after the covid test....so. i managed to cancel my work vacation, get groceries done (thank you DH), get the scripts filled, get the covid test, and now am working from home isolating until friday. phew. what a blur.....there are so many things that NEED to get done! they had figured on maybe end of august or sept...which i thought was great, since the garden would be winding down in a big way by then. yeah. well, i've spend the weekend digging out potatoes, getting swarmed by angry nests of biting ants and hoards of mosquitoes and deerflies (argh!), getting garlic dug, picking beans and cauliflower and broccoli and getting them frozen....the first tomatoes are ready today and full of blossom end rot. i just do not have time to get the calcium to deal with it. sigh. we just have had too much rain in the sand leaching everything out. we checked the bees on the weekend and the honey is not ready to extract yet, so hopefully i'll be healed up enough for that to be possible in a few weeks. we did get the barn cleaned out, but there's 2 coops still needing cleaning. maybe tomorrow or tonight after work is over. Have another duck sitting on eggs (not due for another 30 days or so)....eggs are getting sparse with the heat and humidity lately. the girls are doing a lot of moulting getting ready for winter-i'm scared for an early winter this year, everything else is done earlier than normal (especially in the garden). we found a couple of dead bunnies in the driveway today so thinking we have foxes learning how to hunt again this year. will have to keep an eye on the critters now. had a hawk hanging out a couple days ago too.

[labradors]

You certainly have been busy Wllady, but you can cross one thing off your list: Calcium for BER. BER is caused by inconsistent watering (too much rain usually). It DOES inhibit calcium uptake, but all the calcium in the world will not help if the plant is unable to use it. Once the watering is under control, the plants will be fine, so it's a good idea to toss the toms with BER and let them put their energy into producing new ones. BTW "plum" varieties are usually the varieties most affected by BER.

Tons of bunnies here! We've never seen so many in 18 years, and they have been eating everyone's greens. Bunny fencing is a must here this season. A mink was seen killing a bunny next door the other day, so our chickens were put inside for safety.

I agree that something must be up with the weather. Everything seems early this year! Isn't it earlier than usual for hydrangeas?

[WLLady]

Yeah... Watering has been completely out of my control this year! We had storms dump 6 inches of rain on us in the first 2 weeks of july. And now zero rain and hot.... I did put some calcium down and took off all the affected tomatoes. Only my larger beefstakes were affected. Cherry tomatoes were fine. I do not have any plum yet... Thinking of just tossing a couple handfuls of slow release fertilizer out into the garden and whatever survives survives lol

[labradors]

Some tomato varieties seem more susceptible to BER. We're getting lots of rain too. When there is rain in the forecast, I go out and remove all the (Septoria) diseased tomato leaves and pick anything that has blushed, then it will be dry for a day before the system repeats. I prefer to ripen on the vine, but rain will water down the taste and cause cracking. I fertilize when I think about it, using (store bought) dehydrated chicken manure, keep removing the dead leaves and, fingers crossed, I can usually get a harvest right up until frost.

[WLLady]

Well surgery cancelled until sept.... So at least i can say i am definitely covid free. And the barn is clean and the garden up to date lol

[Killerbunny]

Oh no sorry!

[Ontario Chick]

Well surgery cancelled until sept.... So at least i can say i am definitely covid free. And the barn is clean and the garden up to date lol

Wow, what a way to make you work for nothing, or at least not much, you must be a very patient person...

[labradors]

Oh no! It must be a great feeling to have everything done though :).

[WLLady]

LOL....yeah.....of course there's always more to do....haha. We broke a water pipe in the basement sometime last night, so that will need to get fixed, because thats the water line to the barn. oh well. we have it patched right now so we can use the water till we get all the needed parts. now that we aren't isolating anymore we CAN go to the store. haha. I'm a little ticked about the 4 days lost from work in the lab because of the self isolation and the complete and utter waste of time-not just mine but hubby's and lost time at work and the preadmit team that all met with me over the phone and the paperwork, the filing stuff for medical with the insurance that now i have to spend the time to tell them to hold it until september.....ug. friggin make work project. But the worst is the week of antibiotics that kill my stomach that i've had to take in prep for the surgery. I do NOT appreciate that. but it's the state of health care in ontario. and looking at the covid numbers today i have a sneaking feeling that sept may not happen either, because at that point i think we'll be back into another lockdown period. (maybe because i'm just feeling pessimistic right now....).
the barn and coops are super clean! they are very nice. and it is good to have them done. but it does mean that my back hurts more because of everything i have done in addition to working from home this past 4 days. in a normal week i would do the physical work on the weekend so i could take breaks and then rest after work.....because working is bad on my back. so. guess i'll just take it easy the next few days and hope it all settles. Either i'm patient or willing to let people s&#@w me over....not sure which. but hey, if it starts feeling better and i decide that it's okay enough to not get fixed, then i can cancel it next time. so there. LOL