I'm Still Here!

Many Thanks to my imaginary internet friends Nancy and JJ, who poked me with very long sticks, one from Texas and the other from Australia, to see if I was still doing the blog and still around.

Yup, I sure am.  I've just been busier than ever.

Winter lingered well into April, and even though it wasn't snowy anymore, the cool temperature and insanely wet weather made the normal Spring routine around the ranch nearly impossible.

The weather did a number on all the started plants.  The far longer than normal wait to get into the ground killed almost 90% of the starts from the new greenhouse. The new garden is lovely though.  I had the guys on the next farm over dig holes for my fence posts and then spent a week getting that set up.  All dressed up and the wrong weather to do anything about it.

I normally plant the 3rd week of May.  Nope, it was FAR too cold.
We then had a major hailstorm that sat over us for an hour and 11 minutes.  Most of it was pea and dime sized, and while it spelled doom for any and all baby fruit and blossoms in the orchard, the garden was still empty and it didn't bother me.  Until the almost 2 inch hail started to fall.  It was a band of large hail that was only about 20 feet wide, but by looking at the line of damage, it hit the hay shed (missed the steel barn) went across the lower orchard, the garden then across the workshop roof, and then yup - the house.  It wasn't wind driven, so the siding and windows were fine, but the asphalt shingles were toast on both buildings.  I was on the phone with the roofing company while the hail storm was still in progress.  Getting a new roof and gutters is a pain in the wallet in hail country, now multiply that by two.  Deductibles and a roof upgrade to a more hail resistant and wind resistant roof cut my premiums by a crazy amount, but I was still down $10,000.  No one wants that.  Upside, my class IV roofs will now outlast us all.

4th week of May - still too cold
1st week of June the tomatoes go in - NOPE too cold
2nd week of June - this is ridiculous- TOO WET - darn it - you're gong in the ground anyway

Did I mention it was too wet?  We have several instances of 4-5-or even 6 inches of rain in ONE DAY. 

Then came the heat and the lack of rain.  I had the dry conditions covered with in-ground drip irrigation installed in the garden to every plant.  But the heat was out of my control.  Daytime temperatures were in the 90s and the lows in the lower 80s.  The humidity was off the charts causing heat indexes of 118 for two weeks. 

The plants were all stunted, and many died and had to be replaced.  They couldn't handle the stress of mother natures mood swings.  We JUST harvest our first tomato last week.  Usually I'd be canning some already. 

Speaking of canning - I'd normally be done with pickles by now. We are still waiting for our first cucumber.

So needless to say, I have nothing to enter into the fair this year.

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The weather was so crazy our bees even came later than expected by 6 weeks. Then they  were rushed to us to beat a late season snowstorm in California!

I picked them up in town, brought them home and installed them in their new hive with hopes my California bees wouldn't take one look at the weather hell Nebraska was, and start to fly towards home.

Let me tell you, there is NOTHING normal or natural about shaking a box of angry bees into another box.  If they could sense fear, they would have no problem sensing sheer terror.

I harvested the first of our honey three weeks ago, a second batch this past week, and this week I will check their process to see if we can rob one more time, or if they are slowing down and will need what they have for winter.  We don't want to take too much.



It is amazing, light, fruity, barely sweet, heaven in a jar.

I already plan to build a second Top Bar hive this winter.






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But what about the alpacas?!

They're still here!

They too had to wait for the weather.  Normally they are sheared at the beginning of May as it gets harder and harder to keep them cool.  When you're wearing a 6 inch thick vicuna coat in 80 degree heat, getting your legs and belly hosed off with well water only cools you down so much!

Before

Our shearing team is in Missouri and flooding and rains postponed their normal routes until the last day in May.

After

But came they did.  They boys all got their summer haircuts, pedicures, teeth trimmings, and a dose of wormer.  It was funny to watch them right after shearing.  They acted naked and embarrassed for about two hours.  They relished in the fact that they could feel a cool breeze after they played in the kiddie pools and rolled in the mud.

They have been an incredible source of entertainment.

Three weeks ago I delivered all the fleece to the mill 4 hours away in Kansas to be made into worsted 2ply yarns and fleece cloud under our yarn brand of Koselig Yarn.  100% pure alpaca yarn, no dyes, 5 colors, no blends.

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Other events that I'll go into more later:

2 Scandinavian festivals where I demonstrated Norwegian band weaving.



I was the sports director for a Cornhusker State Games sport pistol event.


I designed and built a floor inkle loom and a warping board.


On top of keeping up (or trying to) with writing, reading, language lessons, the house, the mowing, building, remodeling (the great bathroom saga), broody hens, not broody hens, chicks, more chicks, predators, mice-mice-and MORE mice, endless piles of manure, baby birds taking up residence in the weather station - IN the rain gauge, trying to build up inventory to finally stock my etsy.com shop (TheInspiredViking), all while keeping Doc and The Boy going in the right directions.

So until the next time I find a few minutes, or someone has to poke me again, thanks for visiting the ranch!