finally

finally the sorghum and rice are flowering (and in the same week, do they have the same timer in them ?)
sorghum

rice

all the long season things are now doing there thing,
it is just amazing to me how long they can wait before seemingly doing anything (they wait 3 to 4 months past what other plants do )

infrared kitty smelling things around the root cellar

and I think this is a similar kitty (some what older but the same color pattern) in color

they look like shadows

looking up

so the wind changed last night and the smoke from the rim fire covered the sky,

yes, the sun is back there somewhere,

the plants seemed to love the diffused light,
I could see how much more some of them had grown,
makes me want to cover the garden with bright aluminum screen,
but I know I can breed plants that can take our full direct bright sun every day,

I also got a picture of a tiny frog that is living in the box where the water spigot is,

it jumps away when I open the box, but today I took a fast picture, and it is growing so I bet it is doing well.

and I found a tiny bee, most bees fly away when you get close, but this one ignored me

there is lots of life here, and it shows up when you water things

sensors for the weather

sensors are hand to have,
what it is temperature, rainfall, wind speed, or humidity ?

they can help you figure out when to plant things, and how much to water,
so set up some
thermometers are likely the most tricky to set up,
if they are put out where the sun can hit them, they can read way to high,
so I put up a shield from the sun,
and it did not work entirely well, so I put up another past the first one

and that ended up working,

most weather stations have a shield built in to the sensor,

but they are usually entirely insufficient, so either put them in the shade, or make more sun shields for them

rain gauges are very handy,
a straight walled cup left out in your garden can get you close enough
but make sure it is level,
this one is no longer level

it drifted over the last 15 years and needs fixed if I am to trust it again.

to many weather stations are installed wrong and don't give good data because of that,
so pay attention to how you install them,

good luck with the weather

buckwheat

buckwheat is great !

it is super fast growing (2 months to finis is what I have been told), makes great pancakes, it is grown as a cover crop, and
it makes a great distraction crop
animals love to eat it,
here a bird was snacking on one in stead of the radishes I just planted

I saw the bird but was unable to get it's picture, it made unhappy noises at me when I came up on it.

I am so glad that I finally have a good distraction crop,
I got the seeds in the grocery store in the bulk bin section,
it is organic unroasted groats, and they seem to have sprouted just fine, all the seeds I use in the future will be from the ones I am growing so I don't have to risk seeds that don't work due to being sold as food.

here is a sleeping kitty cat

cats

I have lots of kitty pictures on this blog,
and found out that some of my friends are horrified by how they live,
but I can tell you they are well fed,  have lots of freedom and seem happy, they play all the time and are clearly having fun with life.
no one touches them, they never come inside, they are wild, you could not catch one if you try, and if you did manage to catch one then you would be scratched up badly till it got away.
they reproduce freely and sometimes get eaten by the other wildlife here, if they get sick they sometimes die, there is no doctors for them, it is the way of nature, and the numbers are mostly stable that way. if we could manage to spade them, then we would run out of cats fast.
these are not to be confused with cuddly pets, they are wild and feral and appear to like it that way. (the few kittens that are super friendly we find homes as pets for them, and that is not hard in this area, and that has been 2 in the last 4 years)
so why do I have them ?
mostly they first showed up on the door looking for food, and how can you say no to that...
but we feed them so they stay and hunt small animals.
mice and rats carry all kinds of bad things with them, anything from valley fever to the plague, 
and before we had the cats were were overrun with mice, and that is just not safe,
so less than a pound of cat food a day keeps all the mice and squirrels and some snakes away,

look at the history of london when they made cats not legal,
the plague took hold of the city, and many many people died.
cats are a very handy farm tool, they are a handy city tool as well,
they are worth it even though I am allergic to them.

here are 4 new ones only a week or two old, the mom is a very neat cat, very fast, good temperament, and a good hunter, and I have fed it many gophers this year.

ceramic crocks

ceramic crocks are great for fermenting things that need oxygen,

like kombocha tea, or cucumber seeds (for seed saving), or fun things like pickles and pickled beets, or even vinegar
I have 3 sizes from this place
http://ohiostoneware.com/products_crocks_petfeeders.html
and they are high fired, so they can take the lactic acid trying to dissolve them
unless you get antique ones, they are really all that are out there that are really good.
canning jars are a good second for most uses though.

make sure to cover them with a cloth securely so insects can't alter your brew (although ants seem uninterested in fermenting cucumber seeds)

and infrared kittens are not so clear at night when to far away

the farm that won't wear out

I have linked to this before,
so if you had not read it and ever plan on dealing with farming at all...
read it, it is eye opening about how bad modern agriculture really is
and teaches you how to keep your farm very productive forever

"THE FARM THAT WON'T WEAR OUT"
it is only 37 pages and worth printing.
read it for free here
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...010134toc.html
down load it for free here
http://archive.org/details/cu31924003695636
get it on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Farm-That-Wont.../dp/1406568430