A Lesson in Humility {aka, One Crazy Week!}

Hubz and I are both blessed with ample vacation days at our full-time jobs.  We have several projects we’re working on around the homestead and decided to take off work the whole week of Independence Day.  We had a list a mile long of what we hoped to get done.

We quickly learned however, or rather, were gently reminded, that we are not in control.  We can write up as many lists and make as many plans as we want, but He decides what will and will not get done. 

Here’s how the week went…

First off, the blazing heat.  It was record-breakingly hot.  Unbearable doesn’t even begin to describe it.  We kept saying, ‘but we live in Indiana, not Phoenix’.  It’s not normal to see days and days of triple-digit heat in Indiana.  It was unreal.

Pay no mind to the dust.  Focus on the temp!

We had a hail-acious storm.  I’ve never seen hail that lasted 15 minutes.  It was wicked.

We ended up with holes in the siding, dents in the flashing, a crack in my windshield along with other dents in the car, our hostas are shredded and the garden took a serious beating.  I was too upset about the garden to even take a photo.  Every tomato plant had broken limbs, seeds that hadn’t yet germinated were washed up.  The beets were smashed down to the ground and the peas were knocked off the trellis.  That’s what we get for bragging that it was our nicest garden yet.  Lesson learned.

We saw these nice little paw prints one morning on the egg hatch. 

And, since it couldn't get in from the top, it tried digging underneath.

We ended up catching two of these buggers.  Luckily, neither raccoon was able to get into the coop or the chicken yard, thanks to Hubz’ hard work and predator-proof tactics. 

We tried our best to keep the chickens cool during the sweltering heat.  We changed their water a couple times a day to keep it cool.  I put ice in their water pan, ice in another pan, tossed them frozen treats and big ice chunks, let them have access to shade all day, but it wasn’t enough.  In the end, we lost our last Silver Laced Wyandotte.  Although, I’m pretty sure she lives on in 2 of this summer’s little hatchlings. 

One of her babies

So, as you can see we may have planned the time off, but that was as far as our plans went.  He had other things in store for us.  It was one crazy week. 

Temperatures have been back to normal this week and we have a good chance for some steady rain over the next couple days.  That will certainly help the garden in its recovery.

I certainly hope your 4th of July week was better than ours!

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