A Rambling Update

I keep meaning to take a photo of my lawn tractor and wagon get-up. It sure is convenient to have around.

Today, after dropping Finley off at school, I started down our drive, and thought to myself, "The road feels a bit rougher than normal. Perhaps I have a flat." Sure enough. The kids and I walked up to the house, loaded up the wagon with a Chris' portable air tank (with the dim hope I could just re-inflate the tire and get the van to the garage) and car jack (I prefer not to use the little hand jacks that come with cars if possible) and headed back down the drive, Z on my lap, Joe steering.

It ended up that the tire had a pretty good sized hole in the side (from what, I can't figure) so I was forced to put on the spare. I miss the days when I had an actual tire for a spare, and the spare was conveniently located in the trunk. This spare is the kind that you have to crank the doughnut down via some obscure hole in the bumper, then crawl under the vehicle to lift it off its cable hanger thing. Anyway. The van is now parked at the house.

Back to my beloved tractor and wagon: I am finally learning how to back a trailer up. Today I managed to back the wagon into the garage so that I could easily unload the tire and jack. This is not to say that I am good at it. I keep forgetting that I need to turn my wheels in the opposite direction that the back end of the wagon needs to go, and I usually start to jack-knife at least once or twice before I get the wagon somewhere in the neighborhood of where I want it. But I'm learning.

In other news: We had been without a good rain at The Funny Farm for a good three or four weeks. The pond had nearly dried up, the grass was crunchy, but at least the hot, dry weather made for a nice clothes drier. Saturday night we finally got a good bit of rain. The morning found the water level in the pond much higher, but the surface was littered with dead fish. We didn't even realize there had been that many fish in the pond and weren't sure what exactly caused their demise. Were they dead before the rain and just stuck in the mud, or did the sudden influx of fresh water put them in shock? Thankfully, I spotted one little fish still alive near the banks, so we are hoping the population bounces back.

The hens had been on strike the last few weeks, but have started laying again now that the weather is cooler.

Last week, I finally pulled up the plastic where I had planned for the veggie garden and turned over the soil and dead grass. Now I just need to decide what to plant for our fall garden and surround it with some fencing to keep the chickens out. I saw one of the chickens pecking among the tomato plants yesterday. I am hoping they don't ruin all of the fruit. It would be nice to eat at least one tomato from my own garden this year...

Last Sunday, I started dismantling some of the old barn, stacking the old tin, throwing rotten wood into one pile and reusable posts in another.

We also got our builder's permit last week. Now we have to start building...