The Weekly Digs #119

Good Instincts

Cameron and the boys set out to castrate our new calf, Jed, a few days ago. Let’s just say it didn’t go as they planned! They were able to separate the calf from its Mom but once they set out to pin it down, the calf bawled and Nellie (the Mom) ran right through the electric fence to save her baby.

She is a better Mom than I originally thought! 

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Next they took cattle fencing and hooked it together as a corral as a physical barrier (picture of this fence below). They put Nellie and the other cows inside and and the calf outside. They tried to pin the calf down again. Nellie and Auggie (our full grown bull, also likely the Dad) both stuck their noses under the fencing and literally lifted it off the ground and went underneath to save Jed the calf!

At this point Cam gave up and said he’d try again next week. It’s definitely a learning process with the cattle!

In the Garden

We passed the summer solstice and that means blink and the weeds grow and inch. Haha. It sure feels like it, everything is growing so quickly! 

We are emptying out the old plants and prepping to put in new ones. The peas are out, the garlic is out, I took out the celery stubs, and cabbage plants.

It took me a long time since we needed to clear the weeds too. We still have plenty in the garden like tomatoes, beans, potatoes, peppers, watermelon, squashes, herbs, carrots, cucumbers, and lettuce. 

But now I have a blank slate to plant some new plants that will grow into fall. The plan is to do some buckwheat as a quick cover crop, then add in cabbages after that is finished. I’m also going to plant dried beans in the open areas and green beans.

My cucumbers are getting attacked by cucumber beetles. I’ve never seen them so bad. I had about 4 plants wilt and die but several are still hanging on. I will plant more cucumbers this week to make sure we get enough. 

House Progress

I keep wishing I could just say, it’s done! But it just keeps dragging on. Looks like we will get another inspection next week, which I hope is the final. 

Cameron finished our back deck, the cold room is done, and as far as I know the rest of the things on the list have been remedied. 

The only thing we still are waiting on is the driveway and and getting some gravel up here! It is not needed for inspection but is need to get an appraisal. Our contractor says it will happen Tuesday.

Preserving

The heavy harvest hasn’t come yet so not much preserving is happening. We are eating lots of meals with garden veggies though! I’m ok waiting a little longer before I’m in the kitchen all day 🙂 We are still in the middle of unpacking.

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4 Comments

  1. Hi! I really enjoy reading your weekly recaps and watching/learning how you garden! I am a new gardener and really admire your methodologies. Thanks for sharing!

  2. I started using the yellow sticky traps for cuke beetles, I got them at Johnny’s. I still also go out and hand pick beetles off every day, but the traps have a ton on them and I’m no longer seeing my plants full of holes.

    1. Thanks! I’m debating on using them… maybe they’ve improved the formula but in the past I used them, and while they worked great for the cucumber beetles they also got some bees on them. I felt kind of bad because bees are such great pollinators and I didn’t want to kill them too. It was a different brand of sticky trap though. Have you had any of that happen with the Johnny’s sticky traps?