Month: July 2005

July 31, 2005 – Strange Days

highhopesgardens July 31, 2005

Today was a strange day. We had a small chance of rain, it started about 6:30 am and I ran out to get the laundry. At about 10:00 I checked the radar and there was only a narrow band. By one the narrow band was still there and the last drops fell at 5:00. Two people said the clouds today were the weirdest they had seen. A neighbor called and left a message to look at the clouds to the north (I love the neighbors who alert me to this stuff) and my Mom sent me an e-mail saying they saw some weird clouds north of Ames. Here’s what they may have looked like, as I received both messages a bit after the fact.

April flipped out today. The lightning, although not frequent, dragged on for most of the day. She freaks out is storms ever since she was caught in a hailstorm that dropped hail big enought to break windows a few years back.
door
This is what she did to the back door before we heard her! This was an ouch on the paws as the broken wood is sharp!

July 30, 2005 – More Corn

highhopesgardens July 30, 2005

I have not yet mentioned Emma’s return home. She was very homesick (you may have seen some recent comments from her at late hours of the night communicating with us when she was a way and sleepless at night). She is home for a couple of days before going to 4-H camp.

Yesterday, we set up the outdoor kitchen and got about 25 bags of corn frozen.


We had a little help from my mom who helped husk and my sister, who brought all the kids in town to see a movie! I also tried freezing some onions. I have not tried it yet and am curious as we had some onions that were damaged or had soft spots that would not store.

July 29, 2005 – Only in Iowa?

highhopesgardens July 29, 2005

This week, I’ve been fighting the internet service. It’s been slower than dialup, fails to load web pages, refuses to send attachments in e-mail, or upload photos. I updated my spyware, anti-virus, and did a full system scan all to no avail. Called my internet provider to see if they were having problems on their end. Said, he could not “see” my connection on the tower and was surprised I had service at all. I’ve got a wireless connection from a small antenna on the first floor roof to the tower in Melbourne, three miles away.

He asked if the antenna had moved. It looked like it was in the same place. Then he asked if I could see the tower, and my answer was this week – no. We had been commenting how walled in we felt with the tall corn across the road and we could no longer see the Melbourne skyline (water tower and grain elevator) from the yard. The corn is so tall, we no longer have a line of sight to the tower and thus the degraded internet service. So, how many people can blame their poor internet service on corn? So, my options are to wait it out until the corn starts to die back, or pay them 95 dollars to move the tower to the 2nd story. That is complicated by the fact that we want to re-roof and build a dormer this fall and there is a big tree that would need branches cut. So, if there is inconsistent entries and a lack of photos for a while, you can blame the corn.

July 27, 2005 – Cart-o-Veggies

highhopesgardens July 27, 2005


Today was root crop day at High Hopes. We dug all the potatoes, and the remaining onions and garlic. Just as importantly, pulled all the weeds and planted buckwheat where everything was pulled. The weather is still pleasant and it was a good day to work.


We moved the turkeys out of the cramped chicken tractor and got our first electric netting fence up and they had a good time stretching their wings. They were quite hilarious flying up and discovering what the fence does.