"Life on the farm is ANYTHING but laidback!"

The year continues to be a weird and wild one! Our weather here has been from one extreme to the other with temperatures being way cold to over the top HOT! And of course, right in the middle of the hot spell, our 30+ year old window AC unit decided to call it quits! Every year we wonder if this is "the year" it dies and sure enough, this was it. Our daughter had a small window unit she wasn't using anymore that we installed to replace the old unit but try as it might, I don't think its big enough to help a whole lot. Really, out here in the woods the goal is not so much to cool the house as it is to take the humidity out of the air. High humidity and the problems accompanying it are more pronounced in the woods and hollars than when we lived in town. (At least the dehumidifier in the basement has held up and I'm doing "stair laps" 2 or 3 times a day to empty it!)

Snakes continue to be an ever present problem this spring and early summer which is not normal at ALL! Even the cats walk through the yard as if they are about to step on a mine. We usually don't have to be this cautious until later in the fall when they begin their shedding and get much more aggressive.

Most of the garden is in but for some reason nothing seems to be growing! I'm not sure what to attribute that too but we should be picking our first tomatoes by now and yet they are still only a matter of a few inches tall! The cotton is just sitting there and about the only thing that looks like it's doing anything are the lima beans. (While the garden doesn't seem to be growing the grass is growing JUST fine!)

On the fiber scene, I had a printing supply salesman stop in the shop a few months ago that I found out raised Alpacas. Last week he brought in 4 bags of samples from this years clip for Susie and I to look at and try out. I scoured them this past week and combed them last night so tomorrow I will take them back to the shop to weigh on the digital scale and see what percentage of loss we had. These are some REALLY nice samples and I'm looking forward to not only Susie spinning them up, but also driving over towards Nashville to visit this breeders farm. Maybe we will have to buy some more fiber....after all.....it's IMPOSSIBLE to have too much!!!!