The drought seems to be breaking ... we're still a little deficient in our area but it's better. Things are actually growing again! However, our pond is still really low. We'll need quite a bit more rain for that to return to it's normal level. What's impressive about the pond is even with all the water we were pumping out if it for the garden and livestock we still had water. I don't know if we would've made it another month though.

In other news, we've been butchering poultry free loaders in order to get rid of some mouths around here. Organic grain is expensive. And I'm trying to be more aggressive about canning. I dislike pressure canning but it's a necessary evil. I like to eat and I don't have freezer space. What's evil about it? The pressure and heat destroy some of the nutritional value of the food being canned. It does provide calories though. We bought an All American 921 5+ years ago so I already had one to use. I never did much pressure canning with it prior to this but my mother is an excellent resource in that she has canned for years. I can happily say I'm getting the hang of it but it sure puts a dent in my wood pile!

The garden is still putting forth fruits so I have more to do yet. I'm wondering if I plant some carrots if I'll actually get some this year. My tomatoes faired awful in the heat and drought. So we ate tomatoes but canning has been nill for now. Corn was a failure. Potatoes were successful but not as heavy of a harvest as could've been. Beans kept getting ate by some critters. Watermelons have done okay, at least one variety, the other variety has yet to give us fruits. Pumpkins are doing alright.