Quick Update…

Just wanted to post a quick update on what’s been going on around our little farm.

Our well has been giving us problems for quite some time now.  We had changed out our really old pipe with a flex pipe and used a sand-bucket to try to clean it ourselves…remember this.  Well, it never fully fixed the problem and finally went from bad to worse and something had to be done.  We needed professionals!  After talking to the really nice guy from the well service place near our home we decided to try to save our existing well by air lifting it (cleaning the sand and tree roots out of it) and digging a second well.  The second well will have a hand pump to water the sheep out in our east pasture, the flowerbeds in that area, and as an emergency water source if we ever lose power for any length of time.  We will always have water available to us as long as the farmers in our area leave some behind after irrigating their crops.

I was at work, but Randy was nice enough to take a few pictures of the process.

I believe the new well ended up being about 75 feet deep.  Not quite as deep as they expected which is a good thing since they charge by the foot : )

This is all the sand they got out of our existing well.  Yummy, huh!  Thank goodness for our Berkey, but it only shortens the life of our Berkey filters running visibly yucky water through it. 

Our well was stirred up quite a bit from the air lifting, so we have been hauling in drinking water from mom and dad’s.  It’s just safer and a lot easier on our Berkey to not have to filter the murky water coming out of our faucets.  Our faucet heads are going to need some new parts in the kitchen and bathroom from the months of sand and little tree roots coming through them.  Maybe a new showerhead, but everything else seems to have weathered the storm fairly well.

In sheep news….every three weeks we garlic drench our sheep.  This will go on for six sessions and then we will be on a 5-6 times a year schedule.  This is in an effort to step away from chemical wormers as much as possible and transition to a more natural approach for controling parasites in our flock.

Here are the girls freaked out by the fact I’m coming out in what seems like the middle of the night to them to get started.  It was so hot the day we needed to drench them, we had to get up really early to try to beat the heat of the day.

It really is a beautiful, peaceful time of day.  Working and handling the sheep is something I truly enjoy.  I talk to them constantly during the process, rub their little wooly heads, and eventually one-by-one they are all sent out to pasture with the smell of garlic on their breath.

As you can see they are not impressed at all or in any hurry to fill the shute and get it over with.

I’m really horrible at taking food photos.  Someday I may get better and maybe not.  Anway, here is our dinner from last night.  We had acorn squash baked and filled with a seasoned brown rice/wild rice mix and a salad made of Asian greens, red bell pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, parmesan cheese, and some organic salad dressing.  It was so good. 

I realize it is not fall yet, but the cooler weather has me back in the kitchen and loving the thought of putting together yummy meals again.  In the summer even our propane stovetop puts off too much heat to make it enjoyable.  We try to grill and do cold sides and salads in the summer, but now that cooler weather is upon us the oven can comfortably be fired back up.

Tomorrow Randy and I have reservations to rent kayaks at a lake a little over an hour from our house.  This something I have wanted to do for a long time.  We finally just decided to go for it.  It may be a little chilly first thing in the morning, but I’m so excited to be out on the water in my own little “boat.”  Randy being from Michigan where there are lakes around every corner, and both of us living 1/2 block from the ocean in Myrtle Beach and then just a short drive to the Gulf in Alabama….we miss the water.  Kansas has very few bodies of water, so we will be soaking it all in tomorrow morning.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.