411 The Walters Bunch

Our yard is dangerous to walk around on. I am surprised none of the animals have been hurt.  We are really tired of the hot, dry weather. We do have a routine for dealing with it though. We get up no later than 7:30 am and immediately dress and head outside. We feed the horses and rub them down. If we don't get all the sweat and dirt off from the day before then the horses cannot sweat properly, i.e. they could die of heat stroke. Now that we do this everyday it only takes about 15 minutes, where as before it was about 30 -45 minutes twice a week. After we clean and feed the horses, we fill up the trough with cool water. We do this everyday also because it is hot and they drink a lot of water. By overfilling it everyday, it helps keep the water clean and we only have to scrub the trough about once a week. After the trough is done I water my baby tree and refill the water I leave out for the rabbits. Yes, the same rabbits that are over running our house, but it just seems heartless ...

  So close, but of course it went around us. It seems that our house is in some weird bubble that rain just goes around. I can see dark clouds forming. I can smell rain. I can even see it pouring not more than a quarter of a mile from our house, but it NEVER actually rains at our house! It just goes right around us. We are in dire need of rain. The last 3 years I have watered my yard all day long pretty much everyday. As a result, we were FINALLY getting the beginnings of a lush front lawn. However, since my water is run from a well the problem with watering all day long everyday is that it was burning through my well pump. We have replaced our pump TWICE since we moved in 6 years ago and it costs a few thousand dollars each time. Therefore, this year I decided I would stop trying to have a city front yard. I would admit I live in the country and have a country yard. So of course, this is the year of insanely hot and dry weather. I have been watering my trees and the area around th...

  It is crazy hot here. It is so depressing to look at the 10 day forecast and see no chance of rain and that everyday the temps will be between 102 and 106. I am so tired of waking up and immediately starting outside chores. We make sure we are finished no later than 11am outside since it is so hot. We have also hooked up misting systems in both the chicken coop and horse barn. We have used the misting system in the chicken pen during the summer since we have had chickens and so far have never lost one to heat. This is the first year for us to put one out in the horse barn, but with the temps at 106 with heat indexes of  115 for the foreseeable future, I thought the horses might appreciate some help cooling off. It helps it stay about 15 degrees cooler which could be life saving. So far they seem to like it. I also give all the farm animals cold cantaloupe in the afternoon (including the baby bunny who won't leave my garden. I feel for him since it is so hot.) Since we are fi...

  Many thanks to our wonderful son for bringing COVID home to share with his family!❤️ D was the second one to get it, then came A, and finally me. Somehow L never had it. We just assume that she will catch it about 4 days after we leave quarantine and then we'll get to go back into it! We have gone nowhere for the past two weeks and while we probably wouldn't go do much anyways since it is so scorching hot, the inability to leave at will has made this time drag by. Basically, since we all had fatigue and the lovely COVID sinus headache, we just watched movies and played games (when we could muster up the strength to think). Our Aunt recommended a tv series called the Murdoch Mysteries that we really like. At almost an hour for each episode, I am a little embarrassed that we are almost to season 3.  The intense heat has not helped us feel better faster. In fact, I think it prolonged it since after about 20 minutes of dealing with animal chores in the heat we would need to go i...

  The kids have been practicing their card tricks, probably to show their friends from camp. We missed the two youngest kids like crazy during the week they were at camp. Everything just felt strange while they were gone and we were super excited when the day came to go pick them up. Unfortunately, their bus broke down on the way back and they had to transfer to another bus so they ended up being a couple hours late. They were both so tired! T could barely stay awake on the drive home and while L seemed more awake even she came home, unpacked, and then crawled into her bed to sleep. T crawled into bed too and we did not see either of them really until the next day.  We also learned that my friend who took the kids to camp tested positive for COVID-19 when she got home. I decided to test both kids since they were with my friend all week. Ironically, T tested positive, but L did not. Because of D's work policy regarding COVID once T tested positive then he had to stay home for 1...

 I only had 2 barely started zucchinis before we left for vacation. No rain. Six days with temperatures around 100 and no water ....AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED! We only were home a week before L and T left for church camp. I will say that saying church camp is probably misleading. You might imagine a vacation bible school kind of camp. You know, snacks, art, and a Bible verse. Well, this is that....on steroids....times 10000. This camp is an experience. The camp is called Falls Creek. It is in Oklahoma. It is legendary. This is THE largest faith camp in the country and it is easy to see why. It is basically its own christian based city. Activities are ALL day. Literally. Breakfast is at 8am and 11pm is bed. They not only have morning and evening worship, but also content specific sessions the kids can pick to attend. There is probably 50 different sessions they can pick from. There is also a ton of recreational activities. They can play on the basketball court, which T and his friend...

  D and I were surprised at how much we enjoyed our time at the beach. After such a busy Day 3, we decided to take it easy on Day 4. This is turned out to be a good idea since the site next to us was under construction and having a fire pit added. The workers basically just blew sand ALL over our stuff, including the towels and swimsuits we had drying outside. Our trip was fantastic except for this. We did complain to management about this, but just got an I am sorry response. Since everything was covered in sand D and I decided to go ahead and do some laundry. This was the best laundry experience I have ever had! The kids stayed in the camper to play games so D and I headed up to the main area by ourselves. We got our laundry started and decided to give the resort's frozen margaritas a whirl. It was so nice to sit on the deck in the shade with fantastic views, enjoying the breeze and listening to the music from the pool below. The hour and a half we were waiting on the laundry jus...