Gully Washer

Yesterday was a beautiful day.  Maci and I had several things we wanted to get done, but Ryan had other plans for us.  So, we played taxi most of the morning.  Moving him to a different farm and running for parts.  We knew when Quentin got home we had to take him to town for practices, so we decided to do our cattle chores early.  Good thing we did!  Of course, the cattle weren't up at the bunks because it was earlier than normal feedin' time.  So, we had to drive back in the pasture and find them--gotta get a proper head count.  As we were driving back out we started seeing raindrops on the windshield.

Whew!  Just in time!  It started out with a few sprinkles, but it turned into a gully washer!  It came down fast.  Within a couple hours it stopped and I had this much water in the feed bucket that was in the back of my pickup...

We measured 4 1/2 inches!!!

We decided to go for a drive to check everything out.  The creek behind our house was running really high and you can see by the grass that it had been even higher.

The water in our neighbor's pond was coming out around the side of the dam.

The next picture is the bottom of the hill in our field (corn, this year).  It looks like half the farm washed down and covered the little corn plants out there.  Sure wish we wouldn't have had that early snow last fall,  so we would have been able to do the terrace work on this part of the farm.  That would have helped, but with this heavy of a rain it also could have blown out a new terrace pretty fast.

The cattle were okay and still in.  The fences will need a little work, but they were okay for the night.

All is well.  Now we just need a few days to dry up. 

Bringin' in the Big Guns

Last week I got around to tilling the new garden spot.  I have a small tiller--we call her Tuffy. 

The spot where we are putting our garden had cattle on it over the winter.  It is REALLY packed down.  Tuffy wasn't gettin the job done!  I was expressing my frustrations at work and my boss said, "go out and get my tiller.  It'll get it done for sure."  So, we brought in the big guns!  I really wanted to keep it.

Now, to get a few things in the ground.  Yesterday we planted potatoes and onions.  Maci was pretty serious about getting the rows dug.

Quentin was great help planting the potatoes.

Then, we had to go see how Ryan was doing with his planting.  The kids always like to see if they can dig up one of the seeds that just came out of the planter.  Here they are looking for a corn seed.

Planting season means lots of meals in the field, eating in the pickup.

It also means lots of seed runs for the kids and I.  We replenish Ryan's supply one last time for the night before I get the kids home to bed.  Then, grab the empty bags out of his truck and take them home for a late night bonfire.