What did you do in the garden today?

[Silviaschicks]

Getting the last tomatoes and cucumbers, saw a hummingbird pollinate my nasturtiums too. Unfortunately the squash still have no female flowers, but I have 7 squash from a different plant

 

[gtaus]

About hay and straw prices, I had one of my pastures cut and baled for hay, regularly, for a Dollar a bale up till four or five years ago

Back years ago, when I had rabbits, I used to buy a bale of straw for $1.00 per bale. A few years ago, when I was getting my first batch of laying hens, I think our local prices were about $5.00 per bale of straw. After looking around, I found wood chips for free and have never looked back. For chickens, I prefer the deep litter method using wood chips as the base. IMHO, straw gets too dirty and smells with chickens. You need to constantly clean up and refresh the straw. I don't have to do that with wood chips and the deep litter method.

Also, I have a gas wood chipper and a smaller electric chipper at home. It's a real pain in the backside to chip up wood at home. I much prefer to hitch up the trailer to shovel in wood chips at the county landfill. It takes me about 20 minutes to manually fork in a full load at the landfill. At home, it takes maybe an hour to chip up a full bag. To get "free" wood chips at home, that is a waste of time. However, I only use my home chippers for lawn cleanup and I would rather chip up those fallen branches then haul them off to the landfill, or burn them in a pile.

I don't know how much it costs a farmer to bale straw or hay, but I'm sure that they need a profit to stay in business.

 

[SusanMc]

I planted my fall garden the other day. No time this spring, but this year trying a garden now. Just watered it

 

[Sally PB]

I have my first 4 quarts of tomatoes in the canner. That's all I had tomatoes for.

I've started a thread about my tomatoes from this year. I'm doing varieties I've never done before, and wanted to document the good, the bad, the ugly, and all the rest of anything I can think of. It's in this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/2021-tomato-harvest.1488366/

If anyone wants to share how their 'maters did this year, stop by and post.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

We finished butchering the last 8 meat birds yesterday. 24 in total. Next will be turkeys but now its time to focus again on harvesting and processing.

 

[Sueby]

@gtaus just I use a couple bales over the winter to put down on the snow - cuz you know chickens, they won't walk on the white stuff. I use bagged leaves too, but I can't seem to collect enough leaves for both the compost & the chickens.

I canned 5 jars of dilly beans & 2 jars of sandwich sliced pickles. I sliced em too thin so we'll see how they do.

& the purple beans turned the canning liquid pink.

 

[WthrLady]

Hey all. Back from the thumb doc. He was nice enough, but I don't think he was focused on me while I was there. He just grabbed my hand poked it, made me cringe and slap away his hand, looked at my xrays and said, yup, you broke it in two places 18 months ago, but it's healed now. But arthritis has set in in all thumb joints and the joint at the wrist is bone on bone. Told you it hurt like hades.
Tylenol and steroid shots every 3 months until I can't stand it any more, then they'll cut it open and shave the bone. Oh joy. (forgot, he actually mentioned taking ibuprofin, nice reading of my file dude, I"M ALLERGIC TO IT.)

I told DH the dog was treated more thoroughly than I was. How long do I have to suffer? My primary doc is the one that did the xrays in November and he didn't see the breaks, I saw the xrays today, and even I could see them!

Tylenol doesn't even touch it, let alone not being able to actually USE my thumb. No pens, scissors, I drop things. OMG and the headache I have now after the shot, which was also not comfortable.
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Garden gets watered today and if I feel like it I'll get some gypsum and aspirin on the tomatoes.

The pizza sauce made and canned yesterday has been liberated from the jars and is simmering to thicken again all day. Then I'll recan it tonight.

 

[Elyrian1]

Hey all. Back from the thumb doc. He was nice enough, but I don't think he was focused on me while I was there. He just grabbed my hand poked it, made me cringe and slap away his hand, looked at my xrays and said, yup, you broke it in two places 18 months ago, but it's healed now. But arthritis has set in in all thumb joints and the joint at the wrist is bone on bone. Told you it hurt like hades.
Tylenol and steroid shots every 3 months until I can't stand it any more, then they'll cut it open and shave the bone. Oh joy.

I told DH the dog was treated more thoroughly than I was. How long do I have to suffer? My primary doc is the one that did the xrays in November and he didn't see the breaks, I saw the xrays today, and even I could see them!

Tylenol doesn't even touch it, let alone not being able to actually USE my thumb. No pens, scissors, I drop things. OMG and the headache I have now after the shot, which was also not comfortable.
======
Garden gets watered today and if I feel like it I'll get some gypsum and aspirin on the tomatoes.

The pizza sauce made and canned yesterday has been liberated from the jars and is simmering to thicken again all day. Then I'll recan it tonight.

My understanding is that steroid shots are actually extremely painful. I'm sorry you're having to deal with other peoples' ineptitude. You're right though. The dogs get better treatment, I swear. Did they recommend any after-the-fact home exercises to help out with long-term outlook?

 

[WthrLady]

My understanding is that steroid shots are actually extremely painful. I'm sorry you're having to deal with other peoples' ineptitude. You're right though. The dogs get better treatment, I swear. Did they recommend any after-the-fact home exercises to help out with long-term outlook?

Nope.
But I get a lot of movement in working the day at the ranch and then I wear a brace, from my own dime and decision, to protect it from further damage while working hard. Doesn't make it better when hours of shaking during mowing or tractor.

 

[gtaus]

I use a couple bales over the winter to put down on the snow - cuz you know chickens, they won't walk on the white stuff. I use bagged leaves too, but I can't seem to collect enough leaves for both the compost & the chickens.

Yep, my chickens won't walk on snow either. I use bagged leaves because I have more than enough for both the compost and the chickens. My real goal is to make a small sized cattle panel hoop house for the winter to put over the portion of the chicken run by the pop door. Just big enough for the chickens to get outside and the hoop house would be enough to shed the snow.