Longest

It's been a pretty sparse week for blogs on the Genuine Faux Farm blog and I actually have a pretty good reason for it.

June is filled with days with the most daylight hours.  If you don't need further explanation, then you have either worked on a farm like ours or you have enough familiarity with what we do here that the mention is good enough.

With the long string of hot days with strong sunshine, we've been getting up fairly early to try and do as much of our outdoor work as we can before it gets to the hottest part of the day.  Of course, our poultry like to be let out of their buildings early, it is important to get high tunnels open to prevent them from heating up too much, and if it is a moving day for the broilers (every other day) it is best to get their buildings moved as soon as possible.

On the other end of the day, we need to close everything up.  But, since the days have been warm, the poultry aren't too anxious to go inside.  After all, the temps are finally nice and the brutal sun is not baking them.  They want to hang out until the last drops of daylight fade away.  They don't really care if the farmers are pretty tired and just want to finish chores so they can clean and then catch some sleep.

Mid-June is also the point in time when the turklets make their appearance on the farm (Thursday).  The prelude to their arrival requires a thorough cleaning of the brooder room, feeders and waterers.  We often realize the day before that there are some supplies we need (including turkey starter food -which is much higher in protein).  Or, if we realized we needed these things earlier, we still end up going and getting them in the days just prior to their arrival.

We usually get a call around 6:20 AM from the post office telling us they want the noisy little creatures taken away and getting turkeys situated becomes the top priority..... um... after all of the other top priority things get completed.  Normal June day.

In any event, this has been a bit of a week for us.  Lots of balls in the air and we're trying hard to not let any of them fall.  On top of that, we're starting to figure out adjustments for the lack of rain.  While some folks reported rain in the area, we only had a rumor of it. 

Well, ok, the weather station claims we got .01" of rain.  Our sum total for June so far? 

.02"

So, we got half of our rain for the month so far in yesterdays little display.  We saw more lightning than anything from this thing.  Since I am writing this the day prior to its publishing, it is possible we'll get something overnight.  But, I'm not counting on it.

To make our long story less long - we're a little tired right now.  It's a combination of working in heat, which we've noticed has a cumulative effect on us and the confluence of lots of things needing attention at the same time.  But, the biggest issue is just the fact that the days are LONG.

That's ok.  Longer days just mean there is more time to enjoy living.  Maybe not so much time to write a blog - but plenty of time to live.

Have a good day today!