103 degrees and months of drought = Devestation to the Garden.

Made it to the second night of the PHISH show, had a blast!

I left about ten days ago to head back home to Va Beach to hang out with friends and also hit up a Phish concert. The concert was sick and I really enjoyed just hanging with my other Phish heads and close friends at the show.

While I was home, I did a lot of things including trying to get a missing persons file really started at the police station for my Brother (kinda hard since he is over 18 years old). In the governments eyes, he isn't missing because he is an adult. As an update for those concerned about my brother, he has been out of total communication since March, so no news. :(

Trains are everywhere in Arkansas

Also helped my parents clean house, and downsize a lot to the point where we had a really classy garage sale. I'm talking things new in the box going for pennies on the dollar. Actually I was very happy I wasn't a costumer, because I would have bought the whole lot of it. Not trying to joke other peoples garage sales, but mine didn't have crap in it. I threw the crap out in the trash and only sold nice quality stuff. Thing is, people are really cheap when they garage sale, to the point I was getting frustrated when people would (for instance) turn down my $200 guitar I was selling for only $40 and was willing to take $30, but the highest offer I got was $20... I mean really, you want my guitar for 90% off of retail?? Americans can be disgustingly cheap, I didn't mind losing a huge profit on every single item I put out, but I didn't want to just give it away. I was selling DVDs (good titles that people want) for a buck a piece and people were still griping about that, and I had over 500 out there for sale! Kinda makes me want to never do that again. A lot of it was my life in a nutshell, again, with this whole trip to Arkansas and also my life experience as of late, I feel all this material stuff just weighs you down in the long run, so I had to just let it go. All in all I sold between my moms stuff, Drew's Stuff, and my stuff probably around $4,000 (or more if you really take into account the DVD prices) worth of material items, but walked away with around $750 that I split with my mom and dad. Then donated another $500 or so worth of stuff to my friend who works as a prop master and art director for a lot of different TV shows (who was elated to get it all), so who knows, I might see some of my stuff in an upcoming edition of "Murder Investigation" or whatever shows he works on for Discovery channel. :P

Fastest tour of Washington DC EVER! Final approach took me right past the mall and reflecting pool to see the Senate, The Washington Monument, and Lincoln memorial

At my friend Erin's Farm from Virginia Intermont College!

I now officially fully own my truck and trailer. Made my third trip to DMV this last trip home and got all the red tape fixed and cured to get proper ownership, tax titles and licensing fee's out of the way for another year too, so that took 240$ of my garage sale profit, so realistically I only made about $120 after everything was said and done after DMV was out of the way... so much for making the garage sale pay for my trip this time around. One further sad note from DMV is now I no longer have my T1-3VOOM license plate tags that I have sported since I was sixteen years old. (it says MOOVE-IT, when I am riding your butt in your rear view mirror, for those who don't get it, nobody ever did, it was my own inside joke...lol) I had to turn them in to DMV because they were past the expiration date and have to reapply to get them again, so maybe I will later on in life.

She runs her own equine school. I'm impressed!

Among other things helping my parents out with, and just cleaning up lose ends in Virginia Beach, once again my free time to hang with friends evaporated quicker than water in a hot skillet on a 103 degree day. I had a botched open house on the Sunday I was home due to the fact I don't think it was properly advertised, but that was supposed to be for people who get ticked off at me for not seeing them when I come home, instead, I just hung out with neighbors and some good family friends that came out to it (including the Ballentines and Chris and Shieryl!! Thanks guys for coming out, now I know who my REAL friends are...lol, just playing for all the rest of ya...). So alas my time at home ran out, spent good time with good friends and family but had to get back to the farm....

What was once a Banana Pepper plant.

While I was away, the drought that has been going on for months continued and a scorching heatwave also rolled through like the day I left, and has continued to be hot since, averaging 103 degrees daily for a while now, plus the next three days are all set to be 103, finally after Tuesday, it is supposed to calm down to 99 degrees... I am not sure Ill be able to tell a difference. But while I was gone, within a few days, one of the Cornish Hens died from a heart attack and my garden went from struggling, to wilted and brown. The goats kept getting out of their side of the yard and invading the chicken coop, and the Guineas are now more grown and have left the coop to wander the yard, eating bugs! So yeah, the Guineas are the only happy part of the past paragraph, but that is farm life for ya in a nutshell. What a year to take up farming as a career! lol. Just keep smiling, just keep smiling... yeah, look at the pictures below to get an idea. Some of my plants are just done, gone, wilted and at the point of no return... but for some reason, some are still kicking and screaming refusing to be put out of their misery... I will keep those babies alive if its the last thing I do!! :P

Corn, all dead and dried up

My poor little Cornish Hen that died from the heart attack is a double whammy, because they were the ones that ate the most, so cost the most to grow, and also turned out to be the most friendly. That is so typical, the ones I have to cull off in the next few days turned out to be the friendliest creatures on the farm.... really in truly, life is not fair some times, but again, they at least got a awesome life here at the farm, versus being stuck in a cage no bigger than they are their entire life, so I think it is a fair tradeoff for them... just not for me. Who ever would want to kill off a friend? The Chickens and Goats literally are my friends here, I have my neighbors and my roomy too, but I think I spend the most time with the chickens...lol!

I do have more to say, but for now, I need to go to bed, long day ahead tomorrow. As usual, Ill let the pics do the rest of the talking!

I think the roots on this Tomato plant are going to be strong enough to pull through! Might salvage this guy.

The almighty potato box was no match for the heat and drought

Whats left of the Romain Lettuce plants

My poor head lettuce. Once again, still to this day have not had success with head lettuce. :(

Potato tire... might pull through, been watering since I have gotten back nonstop

Another Banana pepper plant, again, this one might make it... maybe

Sunflower is a now a brown stick protruding from the ground. But the (what I thought was a cucumber) now gourd plant is actually looking strong!

My first (and probably last) Zucchini!!

Most of the watermelon plants burned out, this guy was toast (but still tasted descent... the whole two bites I got out of it) gave the rest to the chickens... which loooooved it!

This watermelon might pull through!

Cantaloupe plants are now off the menu :(

One last look at my corn, the little tiny bit we were able to pull off the plant was actually really sweet.