Coasting

We’ve reached that time of the season when all the hard work of planting the garden is done but nothing is quite ready for harvesting yet. My irrigation system is all laid out and working well. The potatoes have been mulched. The garter snakes are doing a stellar job of keeping the bugs under control. I reached into one of the big lavender plants yesterday morning to pull out a weed and noticed a snake curled up at the roots.

The brassicas look great (mulched with grass clippings):

And so do the tomatoes:

Pig manure is a wonderful soil amendment, and black plastic makes the more tender plants happy. The herb garden beds are planted and starting to fill in, too.

The pigs look nice and healthy and are gaining weight appropriately. When it’s hot like this, I give them some spa time every afternoon, which means I stand there with the hose and spray them with water. They have a nice wallow, too, where they can roll around and cover themselves with mud. Pigs do not sweat, so they have to find creative ways to stay cool.

The husband put the shade cloth up over the chicken yard on Sunday and took down the fence separating the chicks from the big chickens. Everyone is together now.

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I’ve been spending time this week trying to get social media under control. Social media is a monster continually demanding to be fed, and with regard to the podcast, I’m not doing such a good job. I hate Instagram, mostly because I don’t like working from my phone. I’ve got Apple developer tools installed on my desktop, which allows me to fool the desktop into thinking it’s an iPhone so I can post to IG from here, but that’s kind of clunky.

I’ve got multiple accounts on all platforms because I don’t want to mix up my personal accounts with podcast or knitting accounts. I also have to monitor and post to the social media accounts for the homestead foundation. At Nicole Sauce’s recommendation, I subscribed to an app called Metricool. It’s very powerful and has the potential to streamline a lot of this work. I just need to go up the learning curve and figure out how to use it. This week, I set aside a block of time to watch some YouTube videos and begin playing around with different features. Theoretically, I can create one post in Metricool that will post to all of my linked social media accounts, including IG (yay). I hope to be able to do that for next week’s episode.

I’m making progress, slowly. If anyone reading this is subscribed to the social media accounts for the podcast and sees any of the posts, feel free to send me feedback about what works and what doesn’t.

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Am I sewing? Yes, little bits here and there. I’ve been making a few quilted pouches in an attempt to use up smaller remnants and leftover batting. I’m waiting for some supplies to arrive so I can finish the Haralson bags. (I’m making two.) I could knock out a few more Déclic tops and rayon tees because wear those constantly in this hot weather. Or I could rearrange and organize. I have no shortage of projects.