Welcome Rain - Goodbye Rooster

On this rainy Sunday, things are looking up here at Juniper Hill Farm. The gardens had a decent start, despite some poor seed performance, but have been waiting for rain. I've watered the garden here a couple of times, but today Mother Nature provided. Maybe an inch of needed rain will make the pastures, field and gardens grow. In my spare time, my brother and I have finished sawing a few pine logs that we cut back in January. We got the old sawmill working good after swaging the saw teeth for the first time in years. Linc & I continue to learn what makes the saw cut good and what gives us fits. We had a near disaster though. After resharpening the saw we started into a big log, but the saw heated and laid over like never before. I was 4 inches from sawing into the last steel log bunk before I reversed direction and averted disaster. I guess a miss is as good as a mile. The cornish cross meat birds have now found their way into the freezer after eating their weight in grain several times over during the last 10 weeks. Just for good measure I sent our aggressive rooster along for the one-way trip as well. Every time the rooster chased the kids or the Gardener (or heaven forbid the HUNTER), across the barnyard I swore that I would get the last word on his future. I have a strict policy here on the Farm that I am the biggest and meanest thing that is allowed to roam free. Our goat herd has leveled off at 9 goats right now, with maybe two more bucklings heading to new homes before fall. I'm milking 3 does right now and will likely cut back to two when the calves are weaned. I find that raising a calf on goat's milk is easy and economical, and so far the calves have been doing well. My Land Surveying workload seems to be picking up a bit despite the weak housing market. It's been four years of declining demand that has really put a hurt on many in my field. I feel blessed that I've got so many good clients that provide all the advertising that I need. As July is nearly over I'm getting my list of summer projects into action so I can make some progress on those as well. I've got a few irons on the fire to say the least. I hope to post some updates in August, so I'll save the pictures for then. Thanks for visiting. Take Care.