The vacation, or worcation.......lol

Well I have to say if I could have gotten one of the cats to help out things would have gone a whole lot faster.

I have been extremely busy the last few weeks at work so I have not been on here at all and I apologize for that.

At work they informed me that I needed to figure out some dates to use up my vacation time by the end of the year so I didn't lose them.  After checking the schedule to make sure no one else asked for the week I picked this last week of July.  It worked out really well pay wise.

Last week I kinda made a small checklist of things to get done here at the homestead since we had decided that we had not saved up enough yet to take a vacation.  Well it seems that things keep slowly getting added to the list as we go along but it has been going well.

The first major thing was I went and borrowed my father-in-laws tractor and brush hog to mow the knee to waist high grass and weeds on our twelve acres that we live on.  About 4 acres is wooded so that left me a decent amount to mow.  Our ground is pretty hilly so its not so easy to mow.  It has been a while since I have ran a brush hog and I quickly found out why its so labor intensive lol.  

One of the additional things that we did was use the front end loader to help boost me up to do some tree trimming.  This is when I showed the DW how to run the tractor.  She then decided she wanted to work on the driveway filling in a few potholes that we had.  She did a very good job doing it.

Now one of the unexpected side jobs we got to do is that the DW found out where our water line was when she was scraping some rock off the hill to put on the driveway.  It seems the water line had migrated up, along with the hill being washed down some.  The plus side was since the water was off to fix the line I was able to fix a water hydrant in front of the house that had been broken for quite a while.

The other thing we used it for was to cut up and move a rather large fallen tree out of the way so we could get to the barn at the backside of the property.

Now other than normal chores such as mowing the lawn, garden etc the only other project for the week will be finishing the siding on the back of the house.  I'm hoping this project doesn't grow like the others but if it does, I will tackle it like I always do.

I will say though I hope to take an actual 'vacation' on my next one and get in some rest and relaxation.  The problem is that I don't know if it's in my nature.

Update On The Strawberry Patch

Here is a picture of the strawberry patch we had started this year.

I think its off to a pretty good start.  Most of the plants have now sent out runners out from themselves so I'm hoping most of this area will be covered by the end of the season.

I will say I can't wait for that to happen so I can see how much I can harvest off of these next year.

I know the rain we have gotten this year has helped them out very much.  Also putting down the cloth and mulch helped to keep out the grass and keep in the moisture.

The rest of the garden has been doing very good.  I think we are getting an idea of what we want to plant and how much for next season.

So how has your garden been doing this year?