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I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow, July 25. Here’s what I’ll have:

Veggies: Tomatoes, okra, cherry tomatoes; 3 kinds of potatoes: German Butterball, Carola, & Rose Finn Apple fingerlings. Onions – red, sweet and cipollini. Garlic, purple and mini eggplant, green peppers, basil, tricolor snap beans mix.

Beef: hot dogs, beer brats, corned beef and bologna all made from our Angus beef with no added nitrates or nitrites.  Ground beef, stew meat, short ribs, oso bucco, brisket, liver, soup bones, oxtail, bone-in chuck, sirloin tip roast, eye of round, sirloin steaks, NY Strips, ribeyes, filets, skirt, flank, flat iron.

Oh my gosh. Abby and Moo got into a huge fight on Monday. I had to run out there and break it up. When cows fight they put their heads down and push each other hard, trying to knock each other down, and they swing their giant hard heads at the other one, aiming for the soft part in the underbelly.  I could hear the WHAPS all the way to the house.  Moo’s head must weigh 150 pounds; when he lays it on my lap my legs die within moments. It’s like being trapped under a car.

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I was terrified someone was gonna break a leg so I went running out there screaming and calling the dogs when I could not get them apart. They were pushing each other down the pond dam and carrying on so, I’ve never seen a cow-fight like that. I finally got them separated by startling Abby with my insane behavior and ran her through the gate and shut it. Abigail stood across the fence and GLARED at Moo while he pawed at the ground with his front hooves, flinging chunks of grass like 3 feet. He never charged though. He cracked me up because steam was literally blowing from his nostrils, but when I’d touch his head and say Moo, calm down you’re gonna overheat, he’d turn and touch my hand with his nose with the sweetest face, then turn back to Abigail with a RAGE face. In a while I brought them a bale of alfalfa and they reunited peacefully.

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Silver Queen Okra

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Grain Sorghum (milo) I planted as a cover crop in one of the hoop houses. It’s supposed to be drought tolerant. I ran the sprinkler in there a couple days before I sowed this, that was in May. No water since and it’s been over 100 degrees in there most days. Uhhh I’d say it’s drought tolerant. That’s the seed head just starting to form.

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Strawberry popcorn tasseling. See the little ears below the tassels forming silks, there are 2-3 ears per stalk.