OMG, is that the SUN?!

Anyone who's been in our part of the country this spring knows it's been a wet one so far. I've lost track how many inches of rain we've received, but I bet it's getting close to 10inches since beginning of May.

We had a LOT of fog in February, and my grandmother always said, 90 days after will be rain (or snow). Well, she's been proven right this year.

We are a farming family, like many others in Saskatchewan. Rain is needed for the fields to grow, but the farmers also need dry fields to get in to seed. I know, another whiny farmer here, we're never happy with the weather. LOL

Unfortunately we can't order weather-on-demand like you can some pay-per-view movies. You live with what you're given, and if that's a month of rain (or more) with few warm sunny days thrown in, then you deal with it. You adjust. You diversify (rice anyone?). No sense wasting your time whining about it.

Dave's almost done seeding. He just needs a couple good days of drying weather (sun, wind) and he can get back into the tractor to finish up. We're just putting in Oats this year, for cattle feed. It doesn't have a long growing season, so we should be safe at harvest time.

I have two oak barrel planters in the front of the house. The poor plants are swimming in about 2 inches of water! I should have emptied the soil from the planter and replaced the drainage material this spring prior to planting. But I didn't. And now they're suffering. Time to put it on my "spring 2011 to-do list".

As for my garden, it's not under water yet, but it sure is muddy. I had some old carpeting from my mother's house when she put in laminate flooring. I cut some strips and used them in my garden as my main walking path. It sure is great to walk on when the garden is muddy. It also helps control some of the weeds. My kids love walking on the carpet too!

I can't wait until the garden is ready to start harvesting some yummy vegetables. With the help from Dave and the boys, we planted sunflowers (the birds LOVE these), corn, potatoes, tomatoes (beefsteak, cherry and roma), peas, green peppers, onion, carrots, celery, cauliflower (my first attempt), cabbage (another first), lettuce (romaine, leaf, head) and radishes.

We make our own spaghetti sauce and freeze the peas and corn. With my food dehydrator I dry the green peppers and onions. I might try making french fries with all the potatoes this fall, and then freeze them for later enjoyment. We don't eat a lot of mashed or baked potatoes as a family, and usually by springtime, the potato supply has gone soft. (hmmm, perhaps I need to try making perogies from scratch?)