Amateur gardening

This is the third year I have tried my hand at gardening on a small piece of ground in our backyard.  Tending to it is no easy task with my three children close at hand, but with the babysitting assistance of my niece, I've done a pretty fair job keeping up with things.  One of my neighbors suggesting Preen didn't hurt at all either.  That stuff is amazing and I'll never have a garden without it ever again!  Here's where I'm at:

It's my first year planting onions.  I started them from plants and put them in the ground the first week of April.  They have really flourished and I can't wait to use them in salsa.

Jalepeno peppers.  Also a crop I tried for the first time.  These look like they are ready to be picked, so I plan on going out in the morning and grabbing them.  I'm going to have to research how to store these so that they will last until the tomatoes are ready so that I can use them in salsa.

And one more item I tried for the first time:  tomatoes!  These have been so easy to grow and take care of.  I bought 3 plants from Earl May and 6 plants from our local high school's FFA, and both varieties are doing great.  Can't wait to try them!

These are my Miss Pickler cucumbers.  I planted them last year and they produced for 2 months, so I was able to make a lot of dill pickles out of them.  Looks like they are getting a good start again this year.  I found a few blooms today when I was checking their progress.

I planted 2 different variety of bush green beans, but the heat is really taking its toll on them.  I'm beginning to wonder if they will produce any blooms, because I think they should have done so by now.

The Straight-8 cucumbers are looking good.  If you look carefully in the middle of the picture you can see their first bloom.

The sweet corn has struggled this year.  My husband came in with his 8-row planter and planted 2 varieties for me.  Before he could get to them to cultivate, the weeds had already gotten out of control, so I think that affected our stand.  They are looking better now and there are ears on everything, so we'll see how things go here in a week or so when they mature.

The record temperatures we are experiencing this summer in NW Kansas are taking their toll on everything in sight.  When I see its effect on my garden, I really sympathize with the farmers because their crops are suffering at a much higher quantity than my small garden.  I think we will all just have to be satisfied with whatever yields we can get out of our crops this year and actually just be happy if we have anything left to call "crops" at all!



Raising longhorns

When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle had longhorn cattle running with the rest of their herd and I was always impressed by them.  It became my goal to own some one day.  On Mother's Day of 2010, my husband surprised me by buying me 2 heifers and buying himself a steer.  That is when the fun began and I started my cattle company called Prairie Sky Longhorns.

Raising longhorn cattle is a unique experience for a lot of reasons, but mostly because of the fact that their horns are a tad bit inconvenient for your standard cattle handling facilities.  By a year of age, their horns are too long to fit down an alleyway or squeeze in a chute, so doctoring and branding presents a challenge.  We use my aunt's facilities, which luckily include a squeeze tub, so we can do the basic things we need to using that.  It worked out well for artificial insemination last year, which was important since I haven't bought a bull yet.

I finally received my branding iron a few weeks ago, and the first moment my husband had free after harvest, I begged him to help me get my cattle marked with my brand.  In our minds the tub was going to work.  In reality, there was no way that was going to happen.  As a result, the only animal that got branded was my yearling heifer that you can see pictured here,because her horns were still narrow enough to get down the alleyway.  I was happy with the way it turned out, however my husband said it was difficult to get all parts of the brand to burn evenly on the hide. 

Here are a few pictures of our operation.  I will write more later about my experiences with this majestic breed of cattle.

 

 The brand as it turned out on my yearling heifer.

 My husband getting the brand to look right.

 Our first registered calf born this year.  Brings our registered count to 5, unregistered count is 5 also.

 My daughter watering the cattle this winter.  EOT Henry's Carlita is drinking.

 One of my recent purchases.  Bought from Lazy J Ranch in Greenleaf, KS.

Part of the herd enjoying a summer day.