Summertime...

Well it looks like the triple digits MAY be gone. For now at least, the forecast shows upcoming highs in the mid-to-upper 90s. And while that is still hot, it makes me very hopeful that more comfortable weather is right around the corner.

This summer has been a tough one, for the animals especially. It's almost a full-time job keeping everyone cool and with plenty of fresh water. Not to mention the hay that is already having to be fed due to the fact that there is very little grass anymore.

We did have another little shower the night before last, which was very welcome, and I must say that between that and the good rain we had a couple weeks ago, we're actually seeing a bit of green in our pastures now. That is such a welcome sight!

The pool continues to give relief to the kids when they get too hot in the house. We only run our air conditioning at night, so we can sleep, and to keep the electric bill down.



Well...

My handy husband doing some measuring.

Right off the bat we had well trouble and had to replace pretty much the entire system... pump, wiring, pressure tank and gauges. It was quite the learning experience and much simpler than we had anticipated. The farm actually has two wells on it (three if you count the hand-dug, rock-lined, hole in the ground that we found in the "freezer building"), and we plan on getting the second well up and running eventually to supply the barns and outbuildings with water. 

This is the "freezer building"... a building that housed two huge deep-freezers and shelves for canned goods. If you look carefully in the lower right hand corner you can see a plastic bowl being used as a makeshift cover over the hand-dug well. The well appears to be about 25 feet deep or so. We intend to get a hand pump for use in emergency power outages, which would render our main well useless.