Small Accomplisments

Well, here we are in June. The kitchen cabinets are finally done and we have just confirmed that,as suspected, the outside kitchen wall has NO insulation. Not a good thing in Maine. So our next project (as if we needed a new one) is to tear down the crappy hardboard over old wallboard (like30's or 40's judging by the wallpaper) and put in insulation bats. Understand these will not fit. Our studs vary from 32 to 46 inches apart and are made of trees. Then we can put up new wall board that will be custom fit because the floors are not square to the walls. Actually, nothing on this farm is square.
This afternoons accomplishments included setting up for the roosters to go to butchering in two weeks. A good thing because they are starting to crow and get all roostery, pushy and pecky. Time to go to the freezer! The heat followed by days of rain has seen all our tomato and pepper plants done in. The corn has not even come up. I may try some more tomatoes but it is getting late in the season to start and the whole garden thing is pretty discouraging. Maybe next year when we get a chance to do something with the soil in the garden it will be better. We are in Maine so we mostly raise rocks. Then we surround them with clay that is either dust or sticky muck and has no organic content . Hired someone to roto-till and find it goes only 3 inches down after 3 days of work. Add seeds and get what? More rocks in neater rows. I need to find manure and not the kind I get at work.
Ted spent the last two days trying to fix our neighbors lawn tractor which we borrow. But it still eats belts at $37 a pop. And the lawn is now 1/2 the height of the hay. Maybe we'll just hay the lawn.
Confirmed the 3 ewes for this winter. They will be AI bred before they arrive and Elaine at Frelsi Farm has promised to help us with the selection of ramAI stuff as we know from nothing. Less than nothing. Still in the "Oh how cute that lamb is "stage. How will we know if our lambs are good when we think all lambs are great.
Kelly's granddaughter Jasmine, 5 has taken to naming the bugs as they get in the back door. We have these huge iridescent beetles. She has called one Jimmy as in "Jimmy is in my bedroom and now I can't go in. Come help me" She told me a couple of nights ago that Jimmy's cousin Timmy Turner was trying to get in the kitchen window, pounding on the screen. Beetles have last names?
OK The new predator wasps are on the compost pile, the flowers are planted in the front yard with the new stone wall under slow construction, the lilacs are all just about done, tulips gone lilies not yet budded. We are still just at the beginning of summer here. But the days are long now this far north. Sun up well before 4 and still light at 830. Not that we always see it. Very few windows in the ICU and we work nights. This Post written by Alex.