Prepping for Rain

It does not often rain during the summer in Western Washington. This is one of the biggest challenges of farm management in the PNW, the 60-90 days of drought that we get every single summer. However, last week we had rain forecast for Friday, and not just a little drizzle, but a good inch of rain.

In the last post we talked about fixing up the rain catchment system and making sure the overflow was ready to overflow properly.

Thursday we set out to fix the gutters on the chicken houses. They did a decent job, but because the roof was not installed by a professional (and neither were the gutters, the overhang wasn’t the best and there were some wrinkles here and there in the back wall of the gutter. This means that while most of the rain runs through the gutter to the downspout, some of it runs behind the gutter, between it and the facing boards.

Seppie and Winnie and Daddy fixed that with some glue and roofing screws. While doing this job we stopped to chat with some chicks.

And Seppi spotted a snake!

Handsome little feller with a yellow stripe. Most likely a common garter snake.

This gutter is now sealed and should catch all the rain instead of most of the rain.

We then picked up the long 2×4’s that have been lying in the yard of the second hen house since spring, (and longer than that on the floor of the barn) and installed them. They will be the roosts and the base of the nesting boxes for the second hen house.

Next we took a trip to the garden to pick the tomatoes so they would not split and rot on the vine when they got an inch of rain in 24 hours.

This is the only speck of blossom end rot we have seen so far this year. Liming the row last year certainly seems to have done the trick.

We have cabbage sprouts!

They are coming up thick. We will have to thin them a good deal, but we should have a good cabbage source this winter.

We picked elderberries as well. As it turned out, we thoroughly underestimated the sheer volume of elderberries we were going to get this year.

This is a good place to hide out from the sun while Daddy harvests the berries.

This is our halloween pumpkin. It’s the first time we’ve gotten a decent sized fruit from the Big Moose variety.

Next on our agenda was feeding the animals. Seppi loves cutting willow for the livestock.

And the sheep definitely appreciate the effort.

If they do not eat all their hay, Winnie picks it up and throws it on them and says, “Here, sheep! Eat your food!”

Riding back to the barn in style.

Iris is getting quite used to being fed snacks. She really likes the old, tough, overgrown beans

At first Seppi was nervous that she would eat his hand. She does have some pretty big teeth after all.

But he got comfortable with it eventually.

Meanwhile Winnie just throws hay over the gate. Or tries to, anyway. It’s hard when the gate is taller than you are.

This is the stock of tomatoes being frozen for sauce making after the tomato season is over.

These are coming home with us for other purposes.