A Holiday Weekend To Remember

A front moved through Hickery Holler and the surrounding area this holiday weekend bringing heavy rains, strong winds and hail to the area. The crops on my farmstead were not spared the wrath of nature.    

Fortunately the bulk of my seeds had already sprouted and come up and were not washed away. As you can see in the photo above the Golden Bantam corn is a little soggy but did not wash.  

The red beans that sprouted managed to have enough roots to  hang on in the photo above but notice the bean seeds that had not sprouted lay on the top of the ground. 

These are my Jade green beans. O Wise One looked at this picture, scratched his head and commented "maybe we should have planted rice"! We don't call him O Wise One for nothing : ) Don't forget that this garden sits on the top of the hill.

This is my second planting of cabbage, replanted just last week after the groundhog visited and ate off the first batch. Looking a little sad and broken aren't they. There's always Fall  I guess. 

The hay fields are lush and green this year but you can see the way the grasses are whipped by the wind and rain.  

The rhubarb also took a beating with those great big leaves. I will try to pick some of the stalks and salvage for the freezer. I already have a nice supply frozen up so once the damaged stalks are removed it will leaf back out and do fine. 

Notice the night crawler trails on top of the soil where the worms come to the surface after a rain. Looks like a worm super highway doesn't it. 

With rain predicted for almost everyday this week I have a feeling things are going to get a lot soggier before they improve. We had a nice, quiet and relaxing weekend after a very busy week. I had kept Hank for 2 days last week and then babysat both boys Saturday night until midnight. By Sunday I was exhausted and just rested up on Sunday and we barbecued on the porch on Monday. Nothing fancy just threw some chicken quarters on the grill along with grilled asparagus and a salad.  I had also made a cherry cake that we snacked on all weekend. We are very thankful that we did not have more damage and there were no tornadoes like in Oklahoma last week. Most of this week I will have to find things to occupy myself in the house because until that soil dries out some the gardens are too wet to get into. 

Hope everyone else had a safe holiday weekend!

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter