So, Got A Lot Done & Photo Of Baby Violet

People keep wanting to see how she looks now, and she is a beautiful baby.  <grin>  Here she is.

And the nest of bunnies I decided not to kill are doing fine.  They are starting to act feral, but not so much so that I cannot feed them.  The dog is endlessly fascinated with them, but as with the chickens, all I had to tell her was that they were “no” and she is happy to simply watch me feed them.Amazing how fast they grow.  They are enjoying nibbling on greens, but still eating about 5cc’s of kitten formula mixed with heavy whipping cream every day.  Of a litter of 7 I have not lost one yet, which is really unusual.  Bunnies, even under optimal conditions still have about a 30% mortality rate by this age just with the change to starting on greens.

This morning Nell and I headed out early to Frank Calta’s home for an early breakfast of fresh eggs, venison sausage, toast, jam and coffee.  The weather indicated that there might be a 10 minute sprinkling of rain, but what we got instead was a steady rain for 2 hours at the Minnetonka garden while we weeded all of the tomatoes and peppers, and then put cages over all of the indeterminate tomatoes.There are 35 indeterminate tomatoes in the garden, types being Joe Lauerer, Riesentraube, Nyagous, Cherokee Purple, and Kellog’s Breakfast.  For determinates and dwarfs we have Czech Bush, Rugose Sungold, Plainsman and Super Canabec.  34 of those for a grand total of 69 tomato plants.  Along with those we have over 30 Jimmy Nardello peppers.

The Autumn Delight popcorn is 4 to 5 feet tall already.  The beans and squashes are doing great, and the only downside to it all is that we found that a tree had blown down into the northwest corner of the garden, breaking the bean trellis.  It is the rest of the tree which had lost a large branch earlier in the year doing the same thing.  Going to have to rebuild that all again.  Oh well.  Nothing that cannot be fixed, just a pain in the tuckus.

We were soaked by the time we were done, but it saved us from feeling any obligation to water the garden.  As if on cue, the rain stopped as we were leaving.

Back at home I changed into dry clothes and headed out by myself to the Ness farm.  Last week I had gotten a good start on weeding and hilling the corn.  This time the Ness family was home and I had access to their cultivating tiller.  That allowed me to get the entire garden gone over, though not real neatly, between the rows and the corn hilled.  The last unplanted portion of the garden, on the far southwestern edge, I tilled as well and put in 6 hills of Thelma Sanders squash.  Really nothing else to do except replant things and maintain through the summer there.  It looks good.

At 230 it started to rain again, and this time there was thunder and lightning, so I packed up and headed home.  Now I do not feel bad using my remainder time this weekend puttering around the yard and celebrating Father’s Day.

So, with that, Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!