Waving the White Flag

Waving the white flag in battle is universally recognized as a symbol of truce, a desire to negotiate or most often, a declaration of surrender.  We had a 'white flag' of sorts flying in the back yard on Saturday on the clothes line.  This is the muslin cloth that we use in milking the cows and goat.  We tie this cloth around the top of the milking buckets and it acts as a filter to keep hay, dirt, hair, and bugs from falling into the milk while we are milking.

Once we come back indoors to pour the milk into jars and chill, we first remove the cloth and wash it real good with vinegar and hot water.  We then put it on the clothesline to dry, but more importantly, to sit in the sunlight.  Sunlight, you see, is a natural disinfectant.  The sun's ultraviolet rays kill pathogens and naturally disinfect items. In fact, the sun will bleach or brighten your whites and freshen them up.

Milking rag that has been disinfected by the sun all day

While we're talking about the sun, it has been a hot and dry summer.  If you look at the chart below (an old 4-H record book), the numbers tell the tale.  Each day we track how many eggs we pick up.  We use the same form to track rainfall.  The circled numbers denote the daily rainfall amounts.  If you look at the very bottom, you can see we show the total number of eggs collected by month, the number of dozen eggs, and finally the inches of rainfall per month.

Notice how April was our top month for egg production where we gathered 935 eggs, or 77.9 dozen.  It trended downward in successive months and in July, April's number has been cut in half!  The hot weather takes its toll on the hens.  As far as rainfall, you can see that January was our wettest month, with a little over 14 inches.  Well, in July, we had only 2 inches and in June only 3.4 inches!

Egg Production (and Rain) Records

Have I mentioned that we're hot?  And dry?  And we're ready for summer to end?

I guess if we're gonna surrender, lets put out two flags... or how about three!

The Goat Milking Rag and the two cows' milking rags hanging on the clothesline

C'mon Fall.  C'mon Rain.