Well it’s been a pretty good Father’s Day. The kids and I hung out all day playing wiffle ball and working on BJ and Mattie’s flower planters. We got an old wheelbarrow from a neighbor who was going to throw it away. We now have a grand total of about 3 bucks in a pretty nifty planter. I’ve seen similar ones with the Deere logo for much more than that. Ours is now our favorite color, RED. Filled with potting soil and a few flowers and I find it quite attractive. Mattie replanted her potty garden. I must have spent 50 dollars on flowers this week. We also got a pretty neat little outside play area set up for the kids at the double-wide. Now they have a trampoline and a swing set.

The kids have been slow to rise this week. I can see it being a problem by the time it’s school time again. Speaking of school the kids attended bible school last week at Bethel Baptist Church. They came home with something every night. Madison did a solo of “Jesus Loves Me”. I’m awfully proud of them. They seem to be good kids, so we must collectively be doing a fair job raising them.

The excavation continues. They are really making some progress. We set one of the brush piles on fire and it burned almost all up. That’s unusual for most clearing jobs. Dave is doing a really good job keeping the dirt out of the brush. Won’t be long until we will have to make a definite decision about what to do with the farm. The calves are eating hay and grain good so we’ve decided it’s time to wean them. That means no more early mornings and late evenings feeding bottles. At least until I run across some more.

The 6000 turned the dreaded 666 hours this week. I noticed it today and was glad to see it was about to turn to 667. The dust is so bad from the drought I had to wipe off the instrument cluster to see the gauges. We got just a little rain one night, but it’s till very dry. I heard on the radio they have banned folks from watering their gardens and washing cars. I think it’s very unfair that commercial car washes aren’t affected. Just doesn’t seem right that I can go pay to wash my car, but I can’t do it at home. The garden is very dry. We pulled some potatoe vines today to see what they would be like and found very few and very small “tatoes” as Mattie says.

Got my transfer tank / toolbox combo mounted with the help of my friend James. Now it’s time to spend a hundred bucks on fuel to fill it up. It will pay for itself after 58 transfer tank fulls. I can save a little over 40 cents a gallon on off road fuel.

On a sad note I saw a release on the Clorox intranet site that they are closing yet another plant. This time it’s the Edmonton Alberta Canada bleach plant they acquired from Procter and Gamble. I have been reading a blog on the website and noticed lots of folks responding to say Clorox is losing touch with its workers and becoming a cut throat organization. I can only hope that folks will wise up and organize. The only thing that can help them is a union.

Madison and Garett found several chicken feathers near our chicken coop. We’re concerned a gray fox we saw a few nights ago has started dining on our chickens. Mattie had to rescue one chicken from Thumper’s water tub. It had fallen in trying to get a drink. Poor thing was totally exhausted and floating with help from it’s wings.

Used the 6000 4wd for a little demolition this week. We have acquired some more land and it had 2 trailers on it. One was in such disrepair that it could not be saved. So I used the 6000 to knock the walls in on it so we could salvage the metal and then drug it off the foundation so we could burn the rest. Hopefully we’ll be able to salvage the other one and rent it. I tease the kids that I bet nobody has used their tractor to do as many things as we have. From demolition and farm work to picking berries and moving swing sets.

Well lots to do, so I better go ……..Be sure to check out the pics I’ve added and check back soon!

This entry was posted on July 1st, 2007 by joelw at 5:56 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.