hot weather

i has been very hot and humid the past few days. the garden loves it. the kids are getting used to the heat. i opened that new tarp up further, supported it around the edges and filled it with water. the kids played in "the pool" and had a great time. tristan could tell that it was temporary but still asked "can we keep that pool?" i have already emptied it since it is too white trash. i'll figure something else out for the kids to enjoy that cools them down.
it will soon be time to butcher chickens. as we moved our chicken-tractor yester-eve a few got out. they are easily caught and very heavy. i don't relish the idea of killing, eviscerating and plucking so many chickens. next week we'll go and help a friend butcher some of his. we hope to get ideas to help streamline and ease the task.
tristan has been sick, fever and general suffering. kassi now appears to have the same thing. i hope it is easier on her she cannot simply lay around like tristan can. she needs to be held much more when she doesn't feel well.
i mowed the lawn this past weekend--what a task. i already had to sharpen the blade--did i mention that it is extremely rocky here? i also used it to mulch some of nimue's old hay for the garden. we have some tomatoes with cedar shavings, grass clippings and some with wheat hay mulch. it will be interesting to compare them and see if any one is better than the next. the garden is full right now "baby seeds" give way to huge plants that consume the garden space around them.
we got about fifty mason jars from cousin-bruce. i emptied the contents of roughly half of them into our compost bins. the pickles (from 82) actually smelled really tasty. there was a salsa that also smelled good and it had ocra in it. that recipe is lost to the annals of time.
i am compelled to get the root cellar going. when we can our garden bounty it should go into cool storage immediately. there is no place like that in our farmstead at this point. the door is still my main obstacle. i need to visit springfield and see what options the re-store has.
we put the little roosters in with the big laying chickens. they get picked on and chased around. i hope they survive. they made their way back to the roost with the other hens last night so that was a huge step. their names are enrique and romeo. enrique is the male silver laced wyandotte. he'll hopefully parent a new generation of wyandottes. romeo was our free chicken that came with our order. he is a blue andalusian and very cool but definitely the outsider. he was chased into the garden and stayed there all day. enrique tolerated the dominant hens a little better. we will see what today brings.