Archive for The Gathering Place "The Gathering Place" is a web community where people can gather and make new friends, share ideas, enjoy a few laughs and learn about many interesting things together. It is a safe place where friends can correspond with each other about what they love.
This is just another continuation of parts 1-3. I think 7 pages with a lot of pictures was getting too slow for folks with dial up, and so now you get a new page.
Today Patch gets shoes and I get to go riding! The first ride I plan to attend is less than 3 weeks away, and Patch needs a lot of miles to be ready for it. Well I do too, but we get them together. Most years I start riding in early February so this year we have about half the time. Hopefully the weather this month will be nicer than it usually is in Feb and March. It's a sunny day, and by noon when I get on the horse, I hope it will be warmer than now.
This morning AmandaPanda made herself at home on my soft bathrobe. She kneads for a while, then settles down for a nap, but when I start to type she protests and I boot her off. I thought you would like to see her. That is scar tissue in her right eye, it was completely clouded over when we got her, and mostly cleared up with some cortizone medicine we got from the vet. The remaining cloud was probably near the site of an injury and does not affect her vision.
Mary
Patch and I took another ride today, this time for about 2 1/2 hours and a few more miles than yesterday. The weather was perfect! We saw 42 deer yesterday and 50 today, plus one coyote each day. The only wildflowers in bloom now are buttercups and something else that is yellow. In the next few weeks there will be others in white and several shades of pink and purple.
I saw the antelope again today, and I'm sure it is the same one we saw on Sunday morning. This was at the same time of day and in the same place. This evening we watched as the same ? animal explored the edges of the cleared field. We had the same idea at the same time, it's about time for them to be giving birth and we might be watching a mother-to-be picking out just the right spot to have a little one, or more.
Several years ago I watched 2 young antelope playing at the edge of a meadow while their mother grazed nearby, so I hope we will see some action there soon.
The great horned owl babies must have hatched by now. We have been hearing a lot of owl talk during the day for the past couple of weeks. Normally, they are only talking when they are waking up about dusk, or while they are awake. So now they are awake in the daytime, and I think it could only mean that the kids are hungry and won't let mom sleep! She hoots to papa in the other tree and says they need another delivery of fresh mouse.
Today on my way home from my ride I stopped to let the neighbor know that one of his cows had a new calf, he said there had already been 3 today. And he was trying to get his backhoe started so that he could stir up and pile up the big pile of barn cleanings from lambing season. I mentioned that I needed to get a load or 2 of it soon, and he said if I could be there in a few minutes he could load it for me with the front end loader. And so now I have a heaping pickup load that I need to wheelbarrow to the old asparagus patch tomorrow.
Mary
The load of barn cleanings is still in the truck, due to weather and life getting in the way of projects. I did get the grape vines pruned but the pieces are still scattered all around. I saved some of the longer ones thinking that I might try my hand at making a basket. We had hoped to get some pruning done on apple trees, but there aren't enough hours of daylight for everything. Hubby did get the fawcett in the greenhouse repaired, and I am very thankful for that convenience! He also pulled the pasture harrow over several acres in three pastures to break up manure piles and scratch the surface allowing moisture to penetrate easier.
We hauled a bunch of old tires to the garden so that I can fill them with new soil from barn cleaning piles that are very old and looking like soil, plus some bagged potting soil. Hopefully my potatoes can be grown in them without picking up diseases from my garden soil. Last week I found a website that shows pictures and has written descriptions of some of the more common potato diseases. My garden soil is loaded with bad stuff; fungus, virus and bugs! I knew I had problems but not that many. Tomatoes and peppers are susceptable to the same problems, so they will also be grown in the tires for a few years.
Our son and daughter in law came out after church yesterday with dinner to be cooked on the grill. They even brought the briquettes! We ate too much and visited until almost dark. The Lord is doing some exciting things in their lives, and also in the lives of some of the people in their circle. We all have a different circle of friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc, and it is wonderful to see God working. They have been witnessing to a young couple with a new baby. Our son told the young father that his life would be a lot happier if he was cooperating with God instead of rebelling against Him. Now he just asks "are you cooperating?" and the young man knows what he is talking about. They can see signs of turning, but no definite committments.
This morning I loaded Patch into the trailer and took him to the vet for a vaccination and a blood test which is necessary for obtaining an interstate travel passport. The weather is sunny but windy and cold with intermittent snow squalls. I hope to be able to ride today, but if I can't, I think I can get some work done in the garden. Maybe I will try to start the rototiller, and if it will start, I could stir up a lot of dirt!
Cajun, I will try to get the rhubarb start on it's way to you in the next day or two. It grows in full sun here, but would tolerate some shade if you don't have a full sun spot for it.
Mary
I thought you might like to see a couple of pictures of the rhubarb. That metal can is a 5 gallon bucket! When I harvest the rhubarb and trim off the leaves, I often use them for mulch next to small plants or even over them if frost is expected! They are BIG!
Mary
Every gardener needs a helper, and Neut claims the vegie garden as his territory. He often naps under the edge of the rhubarb, possibly thinking he is hiding because his head is in the shade. These pictures are not from this year, at this point the rhubarb is just breaking through the mulch and there is no green grass, only yellow/brown.
CajuninKy
I am looking forward to trying them and I very much appreciate your generosity. You are too kind.
It looks like you have been very busy. Don't overdo it. LOL
Mary
We woke up to snow again this morning, but with a couple of hours of sun it is gone except in the shade. The temperature was 24 this morning at about 6am.
Yesterday I rode Patch for a while, but cut his workout a bit short because the wind was strong and cold, and I could feel an earache coming on. The sun was out and I had foolishly gone without a hat that covered my ears. A baseball cap doesn't do the job. It's funny because last week I wore a stocking cap on a sunny day and got my face sunburned, so this time I wear a ball cap and get an earache! Next time maybe I'll wear a headband and the baseball cap so if it gets too warm I can take off the headband and still have shade for my face. Even with a shortened workout, I can tell that Patch is getting into better shape, and hopefully, so am I. He trotted all the way up a very long hill without wanting to slow down.
My vegie garden is half rototilled now, and I hope to finish the other half today. Then, I can put manure down along the rows, till that in and begin planting. While rototilling I found a few volunteer peas, but they are history because I grew 3 kinds last year, and besides not knowing what kind they were, they didn't come up in a row. I really don't like doing things like that with vegies that volunteer. Weeds now, are a whole different story and I destroy those with glee, or possibly malace!
We are still seeing the antelope almost every day, and are more convinced than before that she has picked out that place we can see from the dining room window to have her young. I saw her again this morning, and yes, this animal is definitely female. I search the edges of the field with binocculars from about 1/3 mile away to see if there is a baby, but so far have not seen any. They often have twins.
Yesterday when I rode past my neighbor's place I saw that there is a cold frame next to the south side of the house. It is made of straw bales and old windows. One window was off for ventelation. The young fellow who lives there is the pseudo son in law of the owner. He is taking the Master Gardener course from the Extension Service, and is busy putting his new knowledge to use. They are going to raise some chickens for eggs, so I will probably be able to buy some of their excess. Presently I can buy eggs from a neighbor who lives about 2 miles away but it is out of my way to get them. Fresh farm eggs are so much better than the grocery store variety.
Cajun, your package was sent yesterday. I'm hoping it will get to you before the weekend. Let me know when it arrives. I'm sure it will grow successfully in your area, as I was reading an article from somebody in Florida or Georgia recently who had rhubarb growing.
Mary
Spring is continuing to spring forth! We have a few daffodills and one little group of tulips is in bloom. The snowbanks and even the huge drift that covered the fence allowing the horses to escape from their pasture a few weeks ago, are all melted. I have started watering flower beds, some of which were already quite dry from the wind and bright sun.
Over the weekend I have been babysitting several flats of plants for my new gardening neighbor who was away for the weekend. Today they get to go home, and I'm sure he will see differences in the growth of his baby plants. He is the one who is taking the Master Gardener course, and is very enthusiastic about putting his new knowledge into practice. And, he has offered to help me when I need it, so I think this will turn out to be a good working relationship.
The garden is all rototilled, and the load of strawy manure that I brought home over a week ago is now providing a thick layer of mulch over multiple layers of newspaper to try to smother quackgrass along the old asparagus row. I left a strip about 1 foot wide down the row, and when the surviving asparagus sprouts I will snug the mulch up to them. Meanwhile, it might just look like one of those Mowhawk haircuts when the grass along the plants starts to grow. This mess is my own fault.
Tire planters for the potatoes, peppers and tomatoes are in place in the garden row, and the ones for the potatoes are partly filled with soil from a big pile of really old manure and soil that we have. It required an afternoon of shoveling into a wheelbarrow and then getting it into the tires. Maybe today the potatoes will get planted. I have them next to a window in the basement to encourage them to sprout.
Today I will add some manure and bone meal to the garden, making stripes where the rows will be, then stirring it all in with the rototiller. Maybe I will get some peas planted and the little cabbage, brocolli, and lettuce plants out of the greenhouse and planted in the garden. I can cover them gently with handfulls of straw to keep them a bit warmer at night. The soil should have enough heat now to prevent frost from settling and the straw covering would just be for insurance, and peace of mind for me.
My hubby borrowed a ditch cleaning tool from the neighbor this weekend and spent several hours on the tractor cleaning our irrigation ditches. Just in time, because overnight the water came running down through them. Unfortunately, he didn't get the dead grass on the ditch banks burned and the shovel work done where he can't get in with the tractor, and now today I have been pulling dry grass and sticks out of the water where they pile up and make little dams. I could spend all day monitoring the water and digging silt out of shallow spots in the ditch, but I think hubby should share the fun when he gets home from work.
Yesterday I rode Patch again. Last week he was running from Breezy who was chasing him quite agressively, and ran him into the corral fence. I had closed them in there while I was doing the mulch project because they kept getting in my way as I was going through the gate into the pasture with the wheelbarrow, and then through the gate into the garden. So, when they went to stand in the corral I just closed the gate. A while later I heard a commotion and WAM! Patch hit the fence hard. I think he may have still been a bit stiff and sore from it when I rode him yesterday. The ride I planned to go to is next Saturday, and I am still wondering if he will be ready.
CajuninKy
Mary,
Reading about all your work is making me tired. LOL Would love to see some pics.
Sorry to hear about Patchs' mishap. Shaq was giving Cream the what for a few days ago when they were out in the lot. She had pushed him onto the hot fence and that is something he will not forgive for quite a while. He had it out for Buddy for months after Buddy made the same mistake.
Cream got a few scrapes from his big old yellow teeth before I got them apart. I try not to interfere if it can be helped as he is the top dog in the herd and always keeps good order among the ranks.
I picked my rhubard up from the post office today. It was in great shape. Only 2 small mushy spots so I cut them back to hard wood. I planted them in a half barrel full of top soil and amended it with compost and rotted hay. I added a few earthworms for luck. I planted them with just the very tops sticking up. The spot gets full sun most of the day. Does this sound like a good deal for them? Thankyou so much for sending them. I am really excited about them and am looking forward to trying them. Will they be ready to harvest this fall or should I wait until next year?
Cajun
Mary
The barrel sounds like a good home for the rhubarb. It needs a year to get a good start, so you will have to be patient and just think of it as an ornamental for now.
My sister called and is coming to town today and we will meet for lunch. She lives 40 miles or so on the opposite side from where I live and only comes to town when she has to, or about once a month, whichever comes first. It's 20 miles for me, so we try to meet in the middle. When I was cleaning a flower bed I dug up some volunteer parsley to give her, so I will take them when I go to town. She says they only have about 9 cows that haven't had their calves yet, that's out of about 150, so she has been busy checking cows in the middle of the night for several weeks.
Yesterday was cold and we had strong wind all day. I stayed in the house as much as possible. My neighbor came to get his plants, but it was so windy we decided that if he tried to carry flats of plants out to his truck they would be scattered everywhere. The steel framed roof vents on the greenhouse were flapping and so I wired them down to the center greenhouse bench. Just opening the door and going through it was tricky because the wind was trying to tear it out of my hands.
This morning as my hubby was leaving for work he called from his cell phone to tell me that something was clogging up the irrigation ditch and water was going everywhere. I went out with a shovel and a potato hook and pulled junk and lots of ice out of the ditch. It still overflows into the neighbor's pasture in one place, but I need to find my rubber boots to do anything about that. One shoefull of icey water is enough to cure me! I looked at the temperature when I came back inside, ah, no wonder I was cold, it is 25 with a strong wind, kind of decieving when I look out the window and see bright sun.
Mary
Nip, the neighbor's Border Collie, gets bored and comes to play with me. She loves sticks and is not fussy about the size. While I was trying to get pictures of her she would put the stick down, wait, move the stick toward me when I backed up, put it down, wait, move it again. I try not to encourage her although that is difficult because she is so cute.
Mary
I tried to get a picture of her looking up at me with the stick in her mouth, but she puts it down very quickly.
God's Warrior
Now that is a STICK.. She probably thought that you were pretty sure to see that one.
Mary
That wasn't the biggest stick she's brought us, but this seemed to be her favorite that day. Often she has more than one in her mouth at a time, I have counted 4! My hubby says she must think that if she brings a lot of sticks, we will find one we like to throw for her.
A couple of days ago my sis and I met in town for lunch and to exchange some things we had for each other, then I had a bunch of places to go. Got some feed for Patch, and another thistle seed feeder for next winter at one store that gives a senior discount on Tuesdays, went to the health food store, thrift store, discount store to check my unlucky number, then 2 grocery stores to get everything I wanted, and also a couple more stores trying to track down some onion sets.
Finally, I did find a store that had the onion sets and had an interesting finale to my shopping trip, a very tame squirrel greeted me when I got out of my pickup, and begged all the way to the door of the store! This critter was just one step ahead of me and I kept telling her that I had nothing for her and would step around her and she would just get right back in my way and stand up on her hind feet and look right at me!
When I went into the store one of the clerks was coming toward the door laughing, and carrying a bag of peanuts. She said the squirrel showed up that morning. While I was inside, the squirrel finished her peanuts and came to the door to beg. Of course the glass goes almost to the sidewalk, so there she sat with her double row of lunchboxes looking at us through the glass, tilting her head from side to side to get a better view of the people inside who might have more food.
Before I left the clerk went out to give the squirrel a few more peanuts. Nope, this squirrel was not hiding them, she ate them right there! I never saw one so tame.
Anyhow, I got home just before 5, unloaded groceries, and started dinner which was chicken and dumplings. The chicken was frozen, but about 30 minutes in the pressure cooker made it fall off the bones! Then after I got the carrots, onions, celery and spices into the pot, and the chicken deboned, I couldn't find my dumpling recipe, so I guessed at it and they turned out ok!
Yesterday I was helping my neighbor with his cattle. The vet came to vaccinate the heifers for bangs disease. We brought them from the pasture to the corrals, sorted heifers from steers, put the heifers through the chute, recorded all the eartag numbers as they were vaccinated and then took them to a different pasture. I had planned to give Patch a workout while I had him saddled, but I noticed that the pads under the saddle need to be changed again because he has lost some of his winter chubbyness. The saddle wasn't fitting as well as when I put the thin pads on about 3 weeks ago.
My new asparagus roots came yesterday, have been soaked in water and are ready for planting. I forgot to add bone meal to the row, so I need to do that today and then run the rototiller over it again. I would also like to get my onion sets planted, and the lettuce, cabbage, brocolli, etc that I started in the greenhouse. Seeds for those same things plus radishes could be planted now when I have rows ready for them. Everything is needing to be done at once!
I'll take time this afternoon to switch those panels on the saddle and go for a ride. The first endurance ride I had planned to go to is this weekend, but I don't think Patch is ready for 50 miles yet, and I am not ready either.
My neighbor moved his sheep to our pasture, and this morning we found a lamb that a coyote had killed. Our pasture seems to have a wildlife route through it.
Mary
When I was in town I bought another thistle seed feeder for the gold finches. It looks just like the one we have outside the kitchen window, but this one is designed for the birds to hang upside down from the pegs. Hubby put it up this morning and they were confused for a while, but now some of them have caught on. I've seen them eating upside down on sunflower seed heads.
The asparagus is planted, I took a ride, and the weather has changed yet again. Cold and windy, but also sunny. It was almost shirtsleeve weather the yesterday. I checked the weather forecasts at the 2 endurance rides I could have gone to this weekend, and they are both cold! Somehow I am not missing it, getting wimpy I guess. Having ridden in all kinds of weather except tornados and hurricanes, I am enjoying being able to slack off a bit and choose the conditions.
This morning after getting chilled in the wind, we went out to breakfast, and I sat with my hands around a mug of hot tea. A conversation near us was about global warming, and where is it? Later, our son called from Alaska, nope, he says it's not there either. I finally got warm when I spent about half an hour in the greenhouse watering everything and transplanting a few things.
We had hoped to prune some fruit trees today. Last week and the week before it was also put off for a warmer day. Just looking out the window, one would guess that it is warm out there, but the wind lowers the temperature to the point where it isn't comfortable. However, 2 months ago we would have called this a heat wave!
No more coyote kills amongst the sheep, but an old ewe died of natural causes and the coyotes are eating her, so the others are probably safe for one more night, or maybe two, it depends on how many coyotes are coming to dinner. We want the sheep to stay here long enough to eat the tender cheat grass and the thistles. It sets them back a ways and delays their going to seed. In a few weeks they could return and do it again if conditions are right. The cheat grass will go to seed when the moisture is out of the top few inches of soil. Right now it is down about 3 inches.
Mary
So far the sheep have stayed safe, the old dead ewe is disappearing but not very fast, so the danger level remains low for another night. We think that it is only one coyote eating her because even with help from a lot of ravens, she is lasting quite well. Sorta gruesome I guess, but it is the reality of life here. Other coyotes in the area appear to have somewhere else to dine for now, possibly eating beef since it is calving season and there are always some losses.
Last night we got snow again, and this morning's low temperature was 11º which is just too cold for April 21. The sun came out and the snow went away quickly although some is left in the shady places because the temperature is only 30º. I can see another snow squall coming toward us now, and several around us in other directions. This may be remembered as the winter that just wouldn't go away.
My young (well much younger than I) gardening neighbor came over to check his plants that are in my greenhouse. I sent him away with a stack of 4 inch pots to use to repot some of his plants, and also a seed pod from one of last year's snapdragons, and a small pot of small amaryllis. Last year my sister gave me a whole bunch of amaryllis babies from her old plant, which I potted up in 3 pots according to their sizes. One plant in the larger group bloomed this year, it is orangey red. The others just grew, so I have quite a few extras, and gave him the potfull of the smallest ones, 6 of them! He has never grown them before, and was delighted.
The wind is blowing hard enough that the house just creaked and the bird feeders are swinging. I have laundry ready to go on the line, will hang it out and hope it gets dry because the sky doesn't look very happy.
I took a walk in the pasture a few days ago and got a few pictures of the sheep. Some were posted on the "Lambs are Coming" thread, and here are more. I started in the house, taking pictures through the window, then walked down into the pasture and took more.
Mary
This is almost the same view but taken from the porch. Two of my horses were napping flat on their sides, and the sheep are in the background, with mountains beyond them.
Mary
Today I was playing cow games. We brought them into the corrals, sorted the calves into another corral, then brought out the small table and the syringes, bottles of vaccine, and all the stuff that goes with it, just got it set up and the
syringes filled when it started to rain before we got the first cow into the chute. Carried the stuff back into the barn and waited for the rain to stop. We talked about this and that and listened to the rain on the metal barn roof until the rain stopped and we carried the table and things back outside.
We got a few cows done and one of them lurched forward at just the wrong time and crushed the syringe gun against the head catch gate which broke the barrel that contained enough vaccine for the next 5 cows. So another delay while another syringe was located, not the stab and shoot type, but the one dose at a time kind. it's slower but it works. We finished the cows but the calves will be branded either Friday or Saturday, depending on when a helper is available. The helper we had today had to go pick up his baby chickens before the feed store closed.
There was another casualty in the sheep flock, so the neighbor takes the sheep 1/2 mile home before dark, keeps them overnight in a secure pasture, and brings them back to my place in the morning (hopefully) after the coyotes have caught mice or rabbits and gone home.
We had about 1/10th of an inch of rain overnight, and then the shower today, so the garden is just a little bit too wet for getting any work done. Showers are in the forecast for the next 2 days, but we don't really expect much. April rainfall averages about .89 of an inch! The neighbors are happy for it because many of them have seed in the ground that needs moisture to germinate. As my neighbor said today when we were waiting in the barn while it rained, "we need moisture so badly, I won't complain about any kind we get any time we get it".
The antelope we had been seeing has not reappeared for about a week. I miss seeing her.
Yesterday I did some weeding and spent time in the greenhouse potting up some amaryllis that were multiplying in their pots. I will have several colors to trade with people for other pretty ones. I was ooing and awing over some in a catalog, but it is more fun to trade for them.
Mary
Yesterday was the day we choose to get the cows and calves in from the pasture to brand calves and be pretty much done with cow work for this spring. The 3 cows who are without calves will be vaccinated and their calves worked in a separate bunch.
The cows were very uncooperative and refused to go through a gate, escaping around us and back into the pasture multiple times. The pasture is about 40 acres, mostly hilly. And I hadn't thought I would need to be on horseback, so I was doing a lot of walking and jogging. We finally decided to adopt plan B and take them though a different gate and they went fine. Got to the corrals and half of them turned back but thankfully I had closed gates behind us so they were only able to take a short detour. We finally got them all in, sorted cows from calves and took a break for lunch.
After lunch we branded, elastrated and dehorned the calves then turned them back out into the pasture with their mothers. Meanwhile, there was a cow in another corral that was starting to have a calf. We moved her to a cleaner spot, but she wasn't happy about that, since the other place smelled right. When some of the prebirth fluids get on the ground, then that is "the place" as far as the cow is concerned. From a human standpoint, some of those places are rediculous!
It was a beautiful day, much warmer than yesterday and no wind. It would have been a perfect day for riding or gardening. Hubby wanted to trim fruit trees today but we might get it done tomorrow.
A few days ago I planted most of my vegie starts into garden rows, watered them and covered them with remay, a floating row cover. I anchored the edges with some dirt, and also with a hoe and a rake because the breeze was trying to move it around. Other edges have rocks and a few of my miscellanous pipes that I use for my goofy garden irrigation system. So far even with a couple of windy days, it has only needed one end anchored better than it was with my original quick job. I think that tomorrow I will have my young(ish) gardening neighbor help me fold back the remay so I can water them again, then cover them up again for a few more days because a 22 degree night is in the forecast for next weekend.
Mary
The largest and best apple tree is partially pruned, as much as could be done using the tractor bucket as a platform. Now it needs a ladder because some of the main branches are too close together to get between them with the bucket, and my hubby says he is too old to be climbing around in trees. We also took some branches off a leaning willow tree near the garden and cut the bigger ones into firewood chunks, loaded them into the tractor bucket and stacked them next to the south end of a shed to dry for the next couple of years.
Yesterday my young gardening neighbor and I uncovered the vegie starts in the garden and found a lot of damage to the leaves which was caused by the movement of the remay fabric after several windy days. I had only intended to fold the cover back, make a better basin around each plant, water them and put the cover back, but it was necessary to get the fabric off the leaves, so now each plant has a crisscrossed pair of wires that makes a little dome over it. Thankfully, there was only a gentle breeze which wasn't a problem and the sun was warm. It was so good to be working out in such good conditions.
After we were finished with that I saddled Patch and took a ride, first stopping to help a neighbor move some animals to another pasture. He had 3 frisky horses, one lazy bull, and 3 confused and insecure rams. All are together and get along, but do not mix with the other species, so they do not travel as a group.
Patch got a limited workout because of time slipping away from us, and also because many gates are closed and there are cattle everywhere we go. I was careful not to hassle the cows since I am a guest in their pasture. The cattle will only be out there for about 3 months, and then I will have the place to myself again until hunting season.
Today's weather is much cooler, with a lot of wind and a few rain showers. We do need the moisture, but I would have liked to mow the grass before it started. In some places the grass is about 6 inches high, and in others I don't think the mower blades would even touch it, but at least mowing it would make it look even. The only gardening I did today was in the greenhouse, repotting my few tomato plants and peppers.
The paper has a coupon for $10 if I spend $50 at the grocery store, and I need other things in town, so today is my shopping day. The recycle place will get cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles and jars, then I will stop at the thrift store and see if there is anything there that needs to come home with me, and when hubby gets off work we will have dinner at the Chinese restaurant. That is making the best of a kind of nasty weather day.
Mary
We've had a couple of cold days with plenty of wind from the north, resulting in 2 inches of wet snow covering everything this morning. Daffy flowers are bent over almost touching the ground but by mid afternoon they will probably look normal again. Now I have a really good excuse for not mowing the grass!
One of my orchids is sending forth a bloom spike! I don't recall if it is the white one or the purple one, so I guess I will be surprised when it opens and will be sure to give it a label. Orchids don't look impressive until they bloom. This plant spent the winter in the greenhouse but was getting too much sun and I took pity on it and moved it into the house. I lost a couple of orchids before I got smart(er).
Today might be a good day for hauling manure to the vegie garden, but first enough snow has to melt so I can see where the rows should go. I haul the good stuff in a wheelbarrow and go along placing it just where I want to grow something, then run over it with the rototiller to mix it into the soil. There is a bar on the rototiller between the tines that makes a line in the soil, a handy thing which I use as a guide for planting. I gave up on stakes with a string, this is easier and the rows are almost as straight. About 3 weeks ago I got the whole garden rototilled and prepared a couple of rows but the majority of it still needs to be fertilized.
Neut, our cat who got into a fight with the feral cat a few weeks ago, still has a sore leg. I try to catch him and doctor it with antibiotic ointment twice a day. A few days ago I found a pocket of infection, got that cleaned out with poor Neut doing a lot of squirming, yowling and scratching, and it has looked better since then. I don't put the cat food out until after I catch and doctor him.
Mary
This morning I took this picture of my neighbor feeding his sheep a bit of hay since the grass was covered with snow. About 3 hours later the sun had melted most of the snow and the flock was moved to my pasture for the rest of the day. He fed them the hay in his own pasture because I also have horses in my pasture and they would have been delighted to see the hay. The sheep got it all this way.
Mary
I've been playing in the dirt and about half of my vegie garden is planted. These are the things that will stand a light frost. The plants under the row cover look fairly good for the most part but I probably lost a few of them. I still have to haul more manure to the open rows and be ready for the warm loving vegies in a few weeks. Our last frost is usually before June 1.
The lawn (really just miscellaneous grass and weeds) finally got mowed and looks much better now. This weekend I worked on a very weedy flower bed, one that got no attention last year so it is bad. And that is my own fault. I'm trying to get it done right away because the Western Kingbirds will be showing up any time to take over that side of the yard for their nests up under the eaves of the house. They dive bomb me and the cats and make lots of noise, so I prefer not to work there after they arrive. After this one is done there is another that is worse because that one has wild roses popping up all through it plus the quackgrass and an invasive soapwort and way too many clumps of tall phlox. Of course I need to keep up with the weeds everywhere else while I am playing catch up.
Tomorrow I will trailer Patch to a place where I will meet up with two other endurance riders so we can ride together. We are all planning to go to a ride in Idaho this coming weekend. I hope Patch and I are ready to do 50 miles. This is the latest that I have done our first ride of the season but I think he needed the extra rest time, and it has helped me to have more time to do early gardening.
Mary
Often plans can change quickly, and that was the case with my planned ride with friends. My neighbor asked me to help move the yearling cattle to a new pasture about 5 miles up the county road. The rascals found an open gate into a large hayfield on the way and most of them went in, so we had cattle on both sides of the fence. There was no way to get them out farther down the fenceline, so we had to turn all of them around. It wasn't as easy as it sounds.
I was the only one on horseback, and the only one who could cross the ditch full of irrigation water that the yearlings had crossed. Motorcycles don't do such obstacles well. So Patch and I crossed the ditch while Paul went down the road to bring back the ones who hadn't discovered the gate. Ryan, his pseudo son in law, stayed near the gate to help them turn and go back through it. Good plan, it didn't quite work that way.
When they came back up the fenceline and made a little detour to cross the ditch, they made a hard right turn and went exploring more of the field. Paul and I went after them and Ryan, who was having problems keeping his motorcycle running, stayed near the gate but this time on the side near the ditch so they wouldn't go that way again. And just as we got them heading straight for the gate, a neighbor drove past with a big tractor.
One free thinker steer decided he was going back home, and he took off faster than I have ever seen him run, down the county road ahead of the tractor. Patch didn't want to go on to the road with the big, ugly noisy machine right in front of him, but I finally got him past it and we went in hot persuit of Dumbo. Yeehaw!
After we ran past him and got Dumbo turned around, the neighbor on the tractor stopped and we all went past it, rejoined the herd which were going nicely down the road like nothing had happened, and we made the rest of the trip without further incident.
The fresh pasture has lots of hills, so I made Patch climb a few of them and then we came home. Not a real good workout but better than nothing.
Other home activities in the last few days have mostly been related to weeds, hauling manure, rototilling fresh rows for planting, packing for my endurance ride weekend and trying to keep up with the laundry that multiplies every time I turn my back.
We have a new bird variety that has shown up in the past week, Lazuli buntings. They are small birds, feeding on the seeds that spill from the niger seed feeders we have for the gold finches. The males are a bright blue with an orange breast that becomes creamy colored about half way down. Their wings are black with white barring. So far we have counted 7 males and at least 4 females. Yesterday I also saw a grosbeak, yellow-orange with a black head and a little smaller than a robin.
Yesterday afternoon and evening we got a bit of rain, not much but just enough to make me wonder if I can get the lawn mowed again before more showers come today. God watered the vegie garden and flower beds for me, gently and evenly. Some of the weeds will be easier to pull today.
Owls roost in the tree at the corner of the garden. I saw a young owl roosting next to one of the parents and took some pictures. If you look right in the middle of the photo you will see two owls side by side on a limb. It may take a minute to find them, this was as close as I could get.
Mary
Yesterday as we were on our way to town for our Saturday morning breakfast (cheaper than going out for dinner) we kept watching for Pronghorns (antelope) and saw several that were quite distant, but then we got lucky. There was one about 300 ft from the road near a spot where we could pull off and look. And she wasn't alone! She was three!
Hubby pulled the spotting scope off the back seat and fastened it to the window, and we both got a great look at the twins. Both were on their feet, and they are still small enough to walk under their mother, but appear to be about a month old. One of them had a quick drink of milk before Mom got a bit nervous and wandered down the hill.
We have recently seen the antelope that explores and naps in the neighbor's pasture, but haven't seen her babies. Cattle are in that pasture now so when we saw her she was nervous. I would guess that her babies are hidden in the sagebrush.
After breakfast we stopped by our son and daughter in law's house to visit for a few minutes and see the fence he is building. He was just cutting out a cross in the gate that will go next to the house facing the street. The other side will have one like it. Their front door has a natural wood grain design that looks like angel wings. The door was a leftover they got somewhere, as I recall, a customer of the company that employs our son rejected it because of the strange grain in the wood. They knew it was for them! The visual effect of two crosses with angel wings between them should be eye catching.
Our weather has turned hot quite suddenly. Remember about 2 weeks ago we had 2-3 inches of snow on the ground one morning? Well, yesterday's temp was 92 and today 85 is forecast. Since it was calm yesterday we put the shade cloth on the greenhouse, and hubby got the battery charged and flat tire fixed on the riding mower so he could mow along the driveway and around the buildings before a lot of weeds go to seed.
Midway through his mowing he managed to take a turn around the burnbarrel and snagged it with the mower. It went over and ashes went everywhere. Hubby looked gray and fuzzy when he was through with the job, and although he looked funny to me, he was so hot and sweaty and dirty that he saw little humor in it, he just wanted to get out of those clothes and take a shower.
On Friday I helped my former neighbor and another couple dig a lot of plants. Due to failing health, the yard and big flower beds had been more than she could take care of for the past two years. When their church offered them a house in return for caretaking and maintenance, they decided moving was the right thing to do. He will be retiring this summer, so free lodging will certainly help their budget.
Anyhow, the 4 of us spent about half a day digging plants, loading up the picnic table, bagging up a big pile of bark mulch they had made from the bark that comes off firewood when it dries or is split, collecting pots and things from sheds, etc. The former neighbor didn't want too many plants, but she still had more than a carfull. I brought 2 boxes of iris home with me and will meet her in town to transfer them next week. I don't want her to have to drive an extra 40 miles with the price of gas increasing almost daily.
The other neighbor and I dug a lot of plants for ourselves, and now I have a row of bags, boxes and buckets sitting on the north side of the shop and I am making a place to plant them temporarily on the north end of the house. It has taken me a couple of days to remove the dead and dying shrubs that the deer and the snow have ruined. This was a job that I intended to do anyhow, just not now. I have to haul dirt/manure to it from the old barn pile, add peatmoss and then I can get those plants into it.
Mary
The wind is blowing quite strongly from the NW, making the pole on the clothesline bend a bit, and if we don't get another shower, the laundry will get dry in a short time. I have another load to hang up but will wait a bit, the pole will only take a certain amount of strain and I don't want the whole thing to land in the yard, or somebody else's a mile or two away. We had a small thunderstorm this morning and lost power.
A few days ago I soaked about 60 corn seeds, then planted them in toilet paper tubes standing on end in a deep pan in the greenhouse. I do this to get a jump start on the corn season. We love corn on the cob, and will eat it every day from the time the first ears are ready until the frost gets the last planting. Corn has a root several inches long by the time the little green sprout is visable, and that is why I use the tp tubes. I plant the whole thing and hopefully will not disturb the roots. The forecast for the next few days is cool and showery, not good for keeping the soil warm, so I will put down black plastic to help.
I need to haul manure to fertilize the rows where I will plant my corn. All the tubes have a sprout, and they need to get into the ground soon. The manure is dry and fluffy, kind of like peat moss, and working with it takes a day without much wind. And so, the corn tubes will stay in their tray for another day, and I will pull weeds instead. There are plenty of those waiting for my attention.
Three days of working on the front flower bed put me a bit farther behind everywhere else, but those ugly/dying shrubs needed to go, and my new plants needed a home. Many of them will be relocated this fall or next spring, they just needed a shady place for now. I got almost all of them planted before dark last evening, and just have a half dozen miniature iris to put somewhere.
Here is a partial list of my new plants. Yarrow, iris reticulata, tall bearded iris, mini iris, columbine, lupine, Shasta daisys, snow in summer (or something similiar), a fuzzy leaved sage plant, a bleeding heart, a delphinium, red hot poker, phlox, and probably more. They all went into the bed where the ruined shrubs were, after I added a whole bale of peatmoss and about 10 wheelbarrow loads of soil with ancient manure in it. All of that was watered as I planted, and then I put a sprinkler on for an hour to soak the dry parts of the bed. Information on a couple of plants says to plant them out of the wind, well, that isn't possible here so I hope they make it.
The spray from the neighbor's wheel line (sprinkler system) is going horizontal in the wind and ending up at our place. Some from the far end of the line must be doing his field some good. The line is 1/4 of a mile long, and he has 5 of them in various fields.
Yesterday the cows and calves got moved to our place, and will probably be here for about 10 days. This year most of the calves are light brown, a color I call peanut butter. They are running around with their little tails in the air having fun in the wind. They did the same thing yesterday when they came into our pasture, a new place is always inspiring! The calves have never been here before, but the rest of the herd comes here to graze about twice a year.
Mary
We have a housefull for the weekend. Our guests are more like family than guests, having a history that goes back to when the father of the family was a teenager whose mother and sisters went camping with us as part of our church group. Now he and his lovely wife have 4 beautiful and talented daughters who are all college students. Two of them will graduate in June. Fritz, the Jack Russell Terrier whom we dog sit when the family is in Romania doing mission work, brought them to visit, but somebody else has to drive because Oregon will not give a drivers license to a dog no matter how cute and talented he may be. They arrived at about midnight Friday night and will stay until Monday morning.
Yesterday afternoon while I planted my corn tubes, thunder was rumbling in the distance, rain showers were hanging over the valley below us and it was all moving toward us. I asked the Lord to let me get them all planted and get myself back to the house without getting wet. As I walked back up the hill after they were all planted, a few drops of rain started falling, and we had a pretty good shower a few minutes later. After that the sun came out again and warmed the ground. One of the girls helped me place wire hoops over the corn sprouts to protect them, and remay cloth over the newly planted rows and get it all anchored down. In a place with less wind the remay could go right over the plants, but here the wind moves the cloth too much causing damage to tender plants from friction. The hoops hold the cloth up off the leaves. and the cloth gives enough shelter from the sun and chilly temperatures that I can take plants out of the greenhouse to the garden without the usual hardening off period to accustom them to real world conditions. In about a week I will remove it.
Today we are celebrating the birthday of one of the girls whose birthday is actually tomorrow when they will be traveling home. Another birthday party will take place tomorrow evening with friends. There is never a dull moment with this family!
Mary
My neighbor's bull went through a fence and then another fence and just kept going. I rode for almost 3 hours in the rain yesterday trying to find him, but he had gone through another fence to who knows where. Usually they go visiting the cows on the other side of the fence, resulting in some four legged surprises nine months later, but this guy is just wandering by himself. When last seen he was several miles from where he started, and still going.
The owner put the word out among the ranchers in the area, so it's only a matter of time before someone sees him again. I will ride tomorrow if the weather is better than today, and see if I can find him. He will have to come home in a trailer and be kept in the corral until it is time for him to do his work sireing next year's calf crop. Maybe he will stay with his own cows.
Today I put on my rain jacket with a hood, rain pants, and rubber boots and went out to battle the weeds. They are coming out of the ground quite nicely after our rainy spell which is continuing today. I'm making good progress but my bender-overer is getting tired, so when I go out again I think I will be hauling dirt for my row of tires that are soon to be planted with tomatoes, tomatillios, and peppers. The potatoes are already up and will need more soil as they grow so that their stems will become roots and make more tubers.
Late yesterday afternoon, after I took a long hot shower to warm up after getting soaked in spite of wearing rain gear while riding, I went to town in search of plants for the whiskey barrel planters. The discount store had several racks of them out in front, but what a disappointment they were when I looked closer. I went to the farm store and bought enough petunias and lobelia for 2 barrels, the ones next to the gate leading into the back yard. The color scheme of these two will be blue, white and purple. We always use the back door, so those are the ones we will see. On my next trip to town I will get more plants for some of the other barrels.
Mary
On Saturday my neighbor asked for my help to bring his bull home. Another neighbor had spotted him, and Paul wanted to get him home before he disappeared again.
I quickly saddled Patch, Paul got on his trusty motorcycle and we went out into the hills to get Rocky. He apparently had decided that the grass (and the company) on the other side of the fences wasn't all that great, and was trying to get back home. Once we got him to a jeep road he just followed it home like a good boy and all we had to do was follow him.
We kept watching a storm that was coming our way, so we hurried a bit to get the bull home without getting wet. It was a cold, wet, windy little storm with some lightning and thunder, but by the time it got here, Patch was back in his pasture and I was in the house.
Today I will set out my tomatoes, peppers and squash plants. They have been spending days out in the sun and breeze and nights in a cold frame I improvised from straw bales and plexiglass. I also need to plant more radishes, more corn, the green beans, and maybe a few other things to keep the harvest going as they mature. The corn plants I started in tubes and set out a week ago need to have the soil hilled up around them soon. And of course there are always weeds to pull.
We have been enjoying chard, spinach, lettuce, green onions and radishes that go from the garden to the table in just a few minutes. It's easy to eat healthy at this time of the year, and much cheaper, too.
Mary
I like to think that the weeds are loosing the battle. It's something that keeps me pulling them. Besides that, I want to see other kinds of plants in my gardens. Sometimes I find baby volunteer plants, so I try to be careful, but sometimes I find one in my hand along with the weeds. Some of them get relocated, but others are too far gone to save.
Yesterday, after an early dental appointment, I drove another 15 miles to where my former neighbor has moved, to help her plant some of the same plants I helped her dig up a couple of weeks ago at her old house. They have been sitting in buckets, tubs, boxes, plastic bags and even an old ice chest in the shade, patiently waiting to be put into flower beds. So we dug holes, removed weeds, added compost, and planted quite a few of them. We also looked at seed catalogs and took a little walk into the woods behind her house. She has a book on native plants where we found pictures and descriptions of some that were new to her.
Later, back in town, I stopped at a nursery to ask about getting a pickup load of their chopped tree trimmings, but couldn't get any yesterday because the irrigation water from the field above their storage area has seeped or run down the hill, making it impossable to drive into the area to load anything. Of course I looked around and bought some plants. Did I need more plants? Well not really, but they are pretty perennials and I wanted them. I looked at rose bushes and decided to wait to see if they go on sale.
And today it's back to doing laundry and pulling weeds. Our weather is cold, sunny, showery, windy and unpredictable. Yesterday morning there was even a little frost in places. My poor little tomato, squash and pepper plants will probably survive but will grow more slowly after the weather finally warms again. It is hard to believe that just about 2 weeks ago we had two days in the middle 80's and one day when the temperature reached 92. This cold spell has me wondering where is this global warming? Certainly it is not here this week.
Mary
The fox kits were out playing like little pups when we drove past our neighbor's field this morning. We counted 5 but there might be more. Last year there were 10. The sun shining on their red coats with green grass all around made quite a colorful sight.
Our weather is still quite cold overnight, but will be improving now if the weather forecasters have it right. I was planning to plant green beans today, and have the ground ready, looked high and low for the packet of seeds that I know is here somewhere. If I don't find it I will have to buy some. Summer without green beans would be like summer without corn on the cob.
A gardening neighbor from about 6 miles up the road came to visit last evening. While our hubbys sat and visited, we walked around looking at flowers, then walked down the hill to the vegie garden and picked a bag of lettuce, one of spinach, some green onions, a few radishes, and enough rhubarb for her to make a cobbler (she took my recipe home with her) and put some in the freezer. They live at a higher elevation than we do by about 900 ft. which makes their gardening season even shorter than mine. A thousand feet can make 10 degrees difference.
After we got the vegies, we dug up some columbine babies. As we went along with trowel, pots, marker and labels, we noticed that some of the columbines appear to have been polenated by the bees, resulting in some spectacular new color combinations. Soon it was too dark to see what we were doing, so we came into the house to continue our visit. These folks are Christians, so we have a lot to share.
Mary
This is one of my original ones, and still my favorite.
Mary
One of the alpine variety, only about 8 inches high but just as colorful.
smokey the dog
We have columbines popping up in areas we never planted. Actually we never planted them! Maybe the previous owner did, and they went wild. Sometime we have to go dig them up and put them all in one area and let them take over!
Mary
Yesterday Patch and I went for a ride, about 2 hours with lots of hills to climb. On the way home we yielded the right of way to a small rattlesnake who was crossing a jeep road. They have quite a bit of color variation. This one was quite yellow and easy to see. I have seen them almost black, and kind of red, but mostly they are brownish and blend well with the dirt and dry grass. We have the diamondback variety here.
My young gardening neighbor has bought two female goat kids that look like the Alpine type that I once had. When I rode past yesterday he was building them a pen. This spring he also bought 25 day old pullets that are now about 2 months old and have grown enough feathers to look like miniature red hens. He had to clear out an old woodshed and make it critter proof, and also build an outside pen for them. Livestock raising is new to him, but he is young and enthusiastic, and having fun.
This morning I was taking pictures of some of the new columbine colors that have resulted from the bees being busy carrying pollen from plant to plant. It's fun trying to guess which of my older ones might have been the parents. Here is one of the new ones. The parents might have been the two shown above.
God's Warrior
Those are so pretty. Do you ever collect the seeds from them? Are they pretty easy to get to germinate?
Mary
I picked a few seed pods to take to a friend, but haven't done any seed saving or starting myself. They just pop up near the momma plants. The mystery is who was the poppa?
In another bed, I have yellow and white ones. This year one of the volunteers has a pinkish tinge on the outer petals. The nearest red one is about 30 ft away. Those bees sure do get around!
Mary
Yesterday afternoon I was down on my knees weeding in the vegie garden and suddenly there was Nip, the neighbor's Border Collie right under my nose. So I came back up to the house before she made very many big footprints (compared to the kitty footprints that are everywhere). Apparently I didn't latch the gate behind me, and this morning I looked out the window and there was something much bigger in the garden. A horse!
I ran out and put hay in the feeders, and both of them came running to it. Before I could get to the garden gate (have to go through the pasture) Breezy had run back into the garden. Patch was on his way but I managed to stop him and close the gate. I hadn't thought to take a halter and leadrope with me so I lead Breezy by his mane and put him back in the pasture.
And now I have really big footprints through the whole garden. It appears that both of them were in it, doing a bit of celebrating! I've straightened up a lot of plants and surprisingly, they managed to miss most of them. The latest planting of corn might be planted a bit deep in places now, but it could have been much worse. For instance, if it had been raining, they most likely would have rolled in the soft soil. They were in it long enough to leave me 3 piles of fresh manure that I put on the compost pile. You can bet that they won't forget and will be looking for another chance to get into it.
I was just thinking that when a friend's horse got into her yard one night and left big deep footprints in her newly planted lawn, I told her she should buy a lot of bulbs and plant them in the holes for a naturalized effect the following spring. I don't want that effect in my vegie garden!
Mary
We'll be leaving in the morning to go across the state to our granddaughters graduation on Saturday morning. In the afternoon the family is having a big barbeque at their house. Sunday mornings they have a college age Sunday school class that meet there, it includes breakfast with juice, coffee, fruit, muffins, etc. We will leave for our drive home after that. I know we will be very tired because we are not late night people and they are. Fritz will be coming home with us for a couple of months while his family goes to Romania to conduct group camps.
Today I am watering, weeding, getting things set up for our neighbor to do chores while we are gone, and of course wondering what I might be forgetting. There is always that nagging feeling.
Our weather is nice again, warm, sunny, and calm. In the past few days we had cold, windy, rainy, and one day it snowed like crazy but didn't stick. That's right on June 10 it snowed! Hard to believe. I covered up the little squash plants with nursery pots and they all survived the 32 degree night that followed. The corn looks unhappy, kind of yellow, but with warmer temperatures that are forecast now, it should be looking better in a few days. I think the little bit of warmth coming off the soil kept it from freezing.
This morning I added soil to my potato planters (the tires). My neighbor helped me place a tractor tire on top of the tractor tire that was already there. It's a big one, it fits a 38 inch wheel and will take a lot of soil to fill it. I'm thankful I have a big pile of good stuff to use, and don't have to be buying potting soil. I added 24 and 26 inch tires to the other potatoes and added a bit more soil there too. When I take them apart in the fall, I hope to have them full of potatoes for storage. Next year I will plant them in the ground in a new place where I have not ever grown potatoes, tomatoes, or peppers. I'm not hauling soil to fill tires next year it is too much work! Some things I only want to do once!
Mary
Our trip for the graduation is over. Three days later we are still a bit tired but life goes on, maybe just a bit slower than before. Two of our granddaughters graduated from Western Oregon University as Summa Cum Laude! They worked hard for those almost perfect grades! We sat in the sun on the infield of the stadium and my poor hubby sure did get a sunburn on his head and face. We didn't think of sunburn, so didn't have him slathered with sunscreen. Later, when it started hurting we applied white vinegar several times. I kidded him about smelling like a pickle, but he said that was ok, he likes pickles and the white vinegar does take the sting out of sunburn.
The open house barbeque/party at their house after the graduation was attended by 60+ people over a 5 hour period, and then when everyone had gone home the girls opened their graduation gifts, followed by hot tubbing under the stars with their mom and aunt. Sleep sounded better to me, but I will take a bathing suit next time we go over and hope the hot tub is warmed up.
It won't be calm enough to be working with newspapers and mulch today. Patch is happily mowing the driveway and might be asked to take me over a few miles of hills today, depending on what I need to do in the garden. My breakfast oatmeal is cooking, a few pictures taken, sprinkler going, and I will soon be ready to accomplish something!
Yesterday I used my scuffle hoe, aka hula hoe, stirrup hoe and ?maybe wire hoe?, in the vegie garden pathways and then watered the rows walking along them with the sprinkler wand, pulled a few weeds that were close to the plants and decided where I need more mulch. Then it was time to clean myself up and go to town.
On my way I stopped to thank my neighbor for tending my animals and plants last weekend, and looked at his garden. He is keeping up with the weeds for now, and the watering, but we haven't had any hot weather to really test things. The high ridges he planted on might not be the best idea for this climate where it gets blazing hot.
When in town I bought some bean seeds (because I couldn't find the ones I know I bought a few months ago), plus more summer squash, and more Sparkler radishes. This is the first year I have grown that variety, hubby likes them better than the all red ones. All together I made about 6 stops, then met my hubby at the Chinese restaurant for dinner, and I got my groceries after that. Stopped to take a sympathy card to my daughter in law, who should be back from California, but there was nobody around. Plans might have changed and delayed their trip home. Her father passed away over the weekend.
AmandaPanda is busy patting a spider to death. Cats are so funny, they can be so serious. Yellow kitty left me a mouse on the doormat, how thoughtful. We had a cat years ago who caught a cottontail rabbit and brought it inside to us. He was tripping over it while trying to carry it across the field to the house, and then he jumped 3 ft up to the windowsill and brought it right inside. Thoughtful guy. He was so proud of it. AmandaPanda has never caught anything bigger than a grasshopper.
Mary
Patch is happily grazing along the driveway, the sun is shining, wind is not blowing today, the birdies are tweeting excitedly because some little fledgelings are learning to fly. I see a nestfull of them all lined up on a fence wire, and momma encouraging them. After a lot of hopping around and fussing at them, she finally just bumps them off the wire if they are reluctant to go. Next time they'll know she means it.
We had thundershowers a couple of days ago, of course they came over the mountains right after I had watered the vegie garden. Now that the surface has dried out for a day, I need to get the scuffle hoe after the weeds again. Some of those weed seeds last for decades, and I was reading just the other day that redroot pigweed seeds can last 100 years! There is no chance that I will ever get rid of them. Yesterday I found one bean that had emerged, so today there might be a whole row of them.
Last week I used up the last of my pile of lamb pen cleanings, so now I need to get on the tractor and go down the road to get a few more scoops. They are being used over newspapers to smother quackgrass in the old asparagus bed, part of which will be next year's potato patch. Hopefully next spring I will be able to rake the mulch cover to the side, dig some small holes, plant the potatoes and not have much work to do there. While I was working on that project I found 2 more asparagus plants that have somehow survived the competition with the quackgrass. I will relocate them this fall, but meanwhile I just mulch around them, and have put fiberglass electric fenceposts next to them to mark their locations.
The potatoes and tomatoes in the tire planters are doing quite well. Today I need to add more mulch around the potatoes, and since I am tired of hauling dirt, I will use bags of leaves. I have to paint the tires with some old white paint to keep the sun from heating them up too much for the plants to survive.
My grape vines have tiny grape clusters already. I hope I can beat the deer to them this year. It has been 3 years now since I got any grapes, and while I enjoy the deer, I do not appreciate that they just help themselves as soon as the grapes are ripe. Maybe I need to build a scarecrow.
Mary
Today I am hurrying around trying to get everything done so that I can leave fairly early tomorrow morning for an endurance ride. Yesterday the list was long, but not too many items remain. I work better from a list because I am easily sidetracked.
I did take time for a quick garden walk and noticed a few things in bloom that were not blooming a few days ago. Among them are gailardia, coral bells, a red rose, a pink rose, campanula, penstemon, oxeye daisy, a daylily similiar to Stella D'Oro, orange oriental poppies, and several clumps of sweet William in various colors. The iris are almost finished and I am glad that I took the time to make labels for them this year because many are needing to be divided or moved. The wild roses next to the fences are blooming giving great bursts of color. Some are in more sun than others and I have 4 different colors, so the wild rose show will last about a month before they are all gone.
Buds on the lilies and daylilies are growing daily, so it won't be long before they will be starting to open. Some of them need to be labeled and moved to better locations. Gardens are never the same two weeks in a row which I think is wonderful. Several years ago I had nothing that bloomed in late summer. I drove around town and took note of what was blooming in other people's yards and made sure I bought some of those plants to keep the show going longer.
Mary
A two tone rose, yellow on the outside, orange when it opens.
Mary
This painted daisy looks like somebody with no teeth because it has another bloom growing out of and behind it to the left. I thought it would make somebody smile.
Mary
I was only smelling the roses, not eating them. Honest.
Mary
After my hot weekend trip (read about that on the endurance 2008 thread) and a full day at home, I am mostly caught up with some things and still way behind on others. Yesterday I spent the morning watering and doing more mundane domestic tasks like laundry. About mid afternoon the clouds were moving in and there were showers hanging from them, the humidity was up and the gusty winds started, so I rescued the dry laundry from the clothesline and took Fritz for a quick walk.
Yesterday morning he had been very interested in something in the Virginia creeper that grows on the rail fence. When we passed between it and the truck and trailer, he stuck his nose under it and was trying to climb up the fence. I decided there must be a bird nest in it, and so I pulled him away. He is always on a leash when outside, because he gets so focused that he will not come when called.
When I took him for a walk before the storm came, he was interested in something under the horse trailer about 3 ft from the Virginia creeper. I kept him away from that because I can't see under it, and there was not much time for explorations. When he finished his duties we came back into the house using the back door, and since the rain hadn't started yet, I went back out to see if a peony had opened. I was only gone about a minute.
When approaching the back door again I saw the rattlesnake, he was slithering toward the door beside the 5 gallon bucket on it's side that hides the cat food dish from the starlings. It is only 3 feet from the door! He saw me and changed direction.
Garden tools were handy so I grabbed a shovel and put it right in his middle, anchoring him to the concrete walk before he could get to the lattice that hides the ugly space under the porch. He wiggled and I kept the pressure on him while I decided what to do next. Several more tools were within reach on the opposite side of him, so I made sort of a pivot at arm's length around the shovel and selected a rake, held him down with that and dispatched him with the shovel to his head. He was about 20 inches long, quite dark in color, and his rattles were wet from my yard watering. He did attempt to rattle when I had him pinned down, but I could hardly hear it. Wet rattles are quiet and that makes a wet snake more dangerous than one that can be heard. Usually they rattle a warning, coil and continue to rattle, and then strike.
It was starting to rain so I put the snake in a nearby bucket, showed him to my hubby when he came home and then took the bucket out to a bank behind the propane tank where we never walk, and dumped him. I'm sure he was in the Virginia creeper vine, possibly had climbed up into it to go after a bird nest or a mouse, and lurked in the flower bed next to the clothesline, moving under the trailer when I took the laundry down, then moving back toward the house when Fritz went for his walk past the trailer. I wonder how many times I was within about 10 feet of him throughout the day?
Both the outdoor cats and all the horses are fine. I was concerned about one of the cats that I couldn't find when the rain started, but to my great relief, she showed up a couple of hours later. Snakebite would kill a cat in just a few minutes. Horses get very sick but will survive with antibiotics to fight the infection when the enzymes in the snake venom kills the flesh.
I have been very careful outside today as you can emagine, and don't feel inclined to do much weeding where the plants and weeds are tall and wet. Even when I was in the greenhouse to water plants, I kept a watch for snakes. I have seen small garter snakes in there, so why not a rattler? I want to put screens over the air intakes which are at ground level and could easily be a doorway for a snake.
The rain we got yesterday was hard but didn't last long. However, all the neighbors have hay cut and in various stages of drying and being baled and hauled to stacks. I hope it didn't damage the hay too badly. More thundershowers are forecast for the next few days with temperatures in the 80's. I probably won't have to be watering anything.
Mary
Ninety six degrees today! Just a bit too hot to be doing much work outside, or even taking Fritz out for very long. I got the lawn mower out of the shed, put gas in it, brought it into the yard, parked a wheelbarrow nearby to hold the grass clippings, and decided to wait until tomorrow morning about 6am when it is cool to do the mowing. That is one of the blessings of having no neighbors closer than half a mile away.
My youngish gardening neighbor is going to be gone for a couple of days so I am doing chores for him. He has young pullets that need to be fed, watered and let out into their yard every morning and have their door closed at night before dark, and two goat kids that also need to be fed, watered and let out into their pasture in the mornings and put to bed at night. Very easy for me and I hope he enjoys his holiday at the lake. He did my chores when we were gone to the granddaughters graduation.
I may not have painted the tires where my Yukon Gold potatoes were growing soon enough. After looking great and becoming nice bushy plants, they all suddenly died. I don't think they made any tubers since none of them had bloomed. Yesterday I put squash seeds in the middle, partly just to see if there is something there that kills plants, and if they survive, to see if the heat from the tires will keep the plants alive and growing longer in the fall and help the squash mature. One experiment turned into another almost overnight. Plants growing in other tires look fine.
Happy 4th of July! God bless America. Here is a half barrel with patroitic flowers for you.
Mary
The lambs are weaned and have quit complaining about being separated from their mothers. A lush pasture is a good distraction. Some of them are almost as big as their mothers. Lambs grow at an amazing rate, going from about 8 or 9 pounds at birth to 100 pounds in about 5 months.
Rocky the wandering bull met the butcher a few days ago. He had been happily romancing the cows for several weeks, and then injured his leg badly on a fence and was very lame, so the neighbor called the butcher before he lost a lot of weight. That's the second bull in 2 years to become hamburger. We hope that all the cows are settled (pregnant) but will have to wait and see. Sometime this winter the vet can check them and will be able to identify any who are open. Those can be sold. He might be planning to buy another bull right away, or may borrow a bull from a neighbor as he has in the past, just to clean up the leftover cows who may cycle again.
Hay is being cut, raked and baled in almost every field now. We had a couple of hard quick showers which delayed things for a while, but now the weather is perfect, sunny and breezy. My hay supply will be easy to procure this year, my neighbor has plenty of grass to cut when he is finished with the alfalfa. On one or two fields he will also get a second cutting of alfalfa. Mostly the fields do not grow enough to get a second cutting, but do grow enough to be good pasture for the sheep and cattle.
My young gardening neighbor has been on a weekend vacation. He has chickens and goats, but all are young so they only need to be fed, watered, and let out into the proper enclosures every morning, then fed again before dark and put back inside. The chickens are Rhode Island Reds, and the goats are Alpines. I took my accumulated dog bones for their dogs and left them in the referigerator in their utility room. We don't have a dog anymore and I hate to throw out a bone that a dog would enjoy. Fritz is here with us for the next few weeks, but he gets nothing like that because he has an extra sensitive stomach which sometimes causes him to either barf or get diarrhea, or both. I don't want to add to his troubles although he certainly would enjoy having a bone to chew.
We went out for breakfast this morning, and church was the annual God and Country service in the city park. It is always well attended. Following that is a grilled hamburger and hot dog lunch which is a fund raiser for youth activities. Several churches are involved in putting it on, and many folks who are just out for a walk on a nice summer morning will stay to listen to the gospel either in music or preaching, or will buy the lunch because who can resist the smell of food cooking on a grill? The volunteers start cooking it before the service is over. It's kind of like priming the pump!
My flower gardens are changing color, going from the blue and pink flowers to the yellows and orange. The shasta daisys are blooming, adding a splash of white here and there. I just wish I could keep up with the weeds. This was going to be the year when I could do that since I am not going to as many endurance rides as I have in the past. Maybe my problem is that I do not feel so pushed to get it all done. It couldn't possibly be that I just have more flower beds and vegie garden than I can handle. That is something I will consider as I make another small bed for the ditch lilies which are becoming too numerous.
Mary
Yesterday was firewood cutting day. We and our Christian friends who live up the road a few miles worked all day to cut 2 full pickup loads, 2 cords. We have a USFS permit that tells us what we can cut. All the trees we are allowed to cut are dead, so the wood is dry and we can burn it this winter.
It takes more water than food to keep us going on a day as hot as it got yesterday. The four of us went through 2 1/2 gallons of water and juice, and could have used more. The area where we were cutting was burned a few years ago, leaving many trees dead or dying slowly. There isn't much shade.
Our friends have a hydraulic wood splitter mounted on a small trailer, so we split the wood before loading it on our pickups. This way the bark comes off up in the woods where it can decay on the forest floor instead of coming off when the sections of log are split at home. It took us a lot longer in the woods doing it that way but now all we have to do is stack it. Our friends truck was unloaded last evening, and ours still has the load on it.
We left 2 trees that are already on the ground, so our plan is to go back this weekend and get another load, but this will not be split in the woods because our friend who owns the splitter will be working. That's ok, I can put the bark through a chipper and make mulch for the flower beds.
Mary
This past weekend we cut more firewood. Our son and his wife came out early and had breakfast with us before we went, and we were back here with our load before it got really hot. Before they left, I loaded them down with fresh broccoli, onions, zucchini and other garden goodies.
My neighbor's cattle and the ewes are all in our pasture for a few days. I think the cattle will be moved down the road a mile or so today, and I will probably help with that, then go for a ride in the hills because Patch needs a workout. The neighbor bought a new bull to replace the one he had to have butchered, possibly before all the cows were pregnant. This new one is a Black Angus, and will be used this year to attend to any of the cows that are still cycling, and also to breed the heifers for calves with low birth weights. Angus are known for that, and many beef producers use an Angus for their heifers even if they are raising another breed, like my neighbor.
Next spring another Piedmontese bull will be bought for the mature cows and this Angus will be kept to service the heifers. It means wintering an extra bull, but the cost of maintaining him could save vet bills, lost calves and things like the potential profit that is lost by having to sell two first calf heifers last year that required a c-section. Essentially, those two heifers were raised for very little if any profit, and they could have produced calves for the next 8-10 years. It takes about two calves to recover the cost of raising the mother.
The grasshopper population is large this year. Some of the ranchers in the area have reported that the hungry hordes of them are eating the grain heads before it has a chance to mature. We haven't seen any spraying in our immediate area, but I expect that to happen soon, and last week I was hearing a heilicopter that I couldn't see, so maybe someone over the hill was spraying them. A neighbor who owns property that adjoins ours has cut his grain crop for hay. He probably will get it raked and baled today or tomorrow.
We noticed a lot of white smoke coming from a farm in the valley this weekend, and since people are making hay while the sun shines, and in a hurry to bale it and get it stacked so they can irrigate to produce another crop in a few weeks, sometimes they get into too much of a hurry, bale and stack it with too much moisture, and spontaneous combustion causes fires. Often 200 or 300 tons are in one stack so they could have lost a lot of hay. I have no definite information on this particular fire, but the smoke was the wrong color for a house fire, and it was still producing smoke from a small area (viewed from a couple of miles away) the next day. Hopefully, the farmer had insurance to cover it.
So far we have no forest fires close to us, but this morning I see a lot of smoke to the north and west of us, brought in by the wind probably. It hangs over the hills and probably has filled the Baker Valley which is over a high ridge from us. Most of the Forest Service fire crews have gone to fight wildfires in California. I sure hope we don't get dry thunderstorms here, because we just don't have adequate manpower to fight fires at this time.
My main tasks for today are to irrigate the vegie garden, and do laundry, then saddle Patch and ride, all hopefully before it gets into the mid 80's. Last week on a cooler day I did some extra cooking so our dinner is partially assembled and cooked, and maybe I can take it easy when it gets hot.
Mary
This morning while I was walking along the county road with Fritz, we scared up a nice 2 point (4 point Eastern count) buck who ran up through the field and jumped the fence, crossed the road and another fence and disappeared over a hill. It's a good thing Fritz was on a leash! He nearly choked himself trying to follow it and has been sleeping ever since!
The garden needs to be irrigated again today, and I had hoped to ride Patch but that will wait until tomorrow. I'll reward myself with a ride for doing all the mundane things today, things which include laundry, lawn mowing, weeding, and processing some brocolli for the freezer.
Yesterday I got a very weedy bed cleaned, and decided to plant some Blue Queen salvia and a few gailardia plants between the shrubs in a couple of months when they could survive the transplant. Gailardia are gold and orange, and the salvia is dark blue/purple. If all 3 bloom at the same time it should be spectacular! Meanwhile it will look kinda bare, but better than it did.
This bed is on the south side of the greenhouse in a semi raised bed, bordered on one side by the greenhouse foundation and a log on the other side, making it more or less one of those inferno strips! Whatever grows there can definitely take the heat. The shrubs are a Russian Sage type of thing, they get about 3 ft tall and wide, reseed like weeds and the bees love the pretty blue blossoms. I first saw them at a church in town. It was love at first sight! The ones I have were transplanted volunteers from one I bought as a little bitty thing in a gallon pot.
Breezy got a cut on the outside of his ear a few days ago, probably caught it on the barbed wire fence while trying to get to the greener grass on the other side. Horses find so many creative ways to hurt themselves! He is fairly patient with me putting medicine on it and wiping the inside and outside of his ear with flyspray on a paper towel. I wipe both ears and his face, and he is ok with that. He does not particularly enjoy having the rest of his body sprayed, but I do it anyhow, and then he gets a treat for being a good boy.
Mary
It's Miners Jubilee weekend in Baker City. This is our local annual festival. Every town seems to have one celebrating something they grow, something in their history, etc. Baker City was a rip-roaring gold rush town back in the late 1800's, and still has active gold mines in the area, some as close as 5 miles from town.
Booths with all kinds of interesting displays fill the city park, a parade was held this morning, a street dance either tonight or tomorrow night, sidewalk sales, and all the usual stuff to get people to come into town, stay in town, eat in town, spend money in town, etc. We walked through the park this morning and spent a bit of time looking around, but didn't buy a thing. Usually I am gone to an endurance ride on Jubilee weekend, so this is the first time I have been to it.
Yesterday I gave Patch about a 2 hour workout and while we were out there in the hills I hunted for some wild flower seeds to send to somebody half way across the country. The lupine plants grow wild out there in the sagebrush and were still in bloom a couple of weeks ago, but now have made their seed pods which are like little fuzzy pea pods which curl and break open as they dry, releasing their seeds. Most of the pods had already lost their seeds, but I found an intact pod here and there, and eventually collected about 15 pods which will yield about 40 seeds.
Some pods only had 1 or 2 seeds, and some have 5. The plants are annuals and are dieing as the seeds mature. Two weeks ago they were very easy to see, but yesterday I had to hunt for them. Birds and mice eat some of the seeds, and some are trampled into the ground by deer, elk, cattle, or my horse, or by hunters. Out in the wild maybe only a few seeds will survive to make a new plant next year, but it is enough.
While I was riding I saw what I believe is the same buck Fritz and I saw a couple of days ago. The poor guy isn't getting much sleep. We also scared two does out of their bed under a big juniper tree, and I watched another one watching us as we passed, motionless under an overhanging sagebrush. Often it is just something different that catches my eye, or sometimes something moving. In this case it was two big ears with sagebrush behind them.
A red tailed hawk spends a lot of time in our field catching grasshoppers. We can't decide if he is lazy or smart because he just stands in one place and they hop too close and he grabs them. Flocks of blackbirds hunt them too, and there are still so many that when we drive down the road they are bouncing off the road surface and also hitting the sides of the car and the windshield.
Mary
The farrier came yesterday and put new shoes on Patch, something that needs to be done every few weeks. Some horses feet grow faster than others, and with shoes on they cannot wear down as they would without shoes. On the other hand, I ride a lot of miles in rocky places, and horses feet cannot keep up with the wear. So, shoes are a necessity.
After the farrier had finished his work and Patch had finished his breakfast, I saddled up to take a ride out into the hills. We only saw 2 deer, but I am sure more of them saw us. In the summer I am focused more on the trail watching for rattlesnakes. They kept out of sight yesterday but I know they could be anywhere. Two of our local foxes got surprised on the road when we came over a hill. They both ran along the road for a while, then one went through a gate into a field and disappeared into the tall grass. The other one kept running to a corner where we lost sight of him.
I'm glad we went yesterday because today we are having rain showers, and I do not enjoy riding when I am getting wet. Sometimes the first few minutes feel good on a hot day. After that, when my clothes are wet, I want the sun to come out again. I see myself as being like a chicken, not like a duck!
A fledgling robin has had my attention for the past 3 days. I first saw him on the porch railing when I was going out to fill the hummingbird feeder, so I waited. He finally moved, then moved again. I filled the feeder when he was behind a post beside the porch steps. It wasn't a safe place to spend much time and momma bird knew it. She got him to fly to the top of the arbor above the front gate just before dark. He was still there in the morning, but later flew to the porch roof. I lost track of him for most of yesterday but this morning he is at the other end of the yard on a fence rail. Usually we see 2 or 3 together, but this little guy seems to be all alone. His mother is feeding him grasshoppers.
The public tv station had something on it a couple of days ago about the grasshopper epidemic. It isn't my imagination, they really are much more numerous this year. I wish I had seen the program. It is my understanding that there is some organic spray that will make them sick and eventually kill them. I need to look into that, but with this many over so many thousands of acres, it is doubtful that I could have much of an impact since more would just hop into the yard. And then of course, there are the pastures, so infested that just walking through them produces a cloud of hoppers who will even fly into my face in their confusion to escape.
Last year, with our drought conditions, was a perfect year for the grasshoppers to produce extra eggs. They like it hot and dry! The heavy snow cover preserved the eggs, and now we have them by the billions. Last week I counted 8 hoppers in one square foot on the side of the greenhouse when I was weeding. Of course, I was disturbing them by pulling the weeds, so they hopped and landed on the side of the greenhouse. I'm enjoying my flowers and the produce from the garden before they eat everything.
Mary
Tomorrow I will be leaving for another endurance ride, so that means I am in fast forward until I climb into the truck. Actually, the fast forward started yesterday as I have to be sure everything has enough water to last until Sunday or Monday. Yesterday's hot temperature and brisk wind dried things out about as fast as I could water them, and the laundry dried on the line in about an hour.
I processed the last of the brocolli last evening after dinner. The blanched and chilled spears were spread out on cookie sheets to spend the night in the freezer, and today will be sealed in vacuum bags. This morning there was no brocolli smell left in the house because the windows and front door were open all night and we had a nice cool breeze. We have more than enough brocolli in the freezer to last the winter. The hot weather is making what is left turn bitter, so even though the plants are still producing, there will be no more that is fit to eat.
When I went riding a couple of days ago I noticed that the bee keeper who brings his hives to my neighbor's place every year has brought them again. Most of the alfalfa has been baled, the wildflowers already have bloomed, and that makes me wonder what blossoms the bees will find. Usually they have arrived before the alfalfa is cut, and some of it is already blooming, and when there are still wildflowers in bloom.
Today I need to irrigate the garden again. The 3rd planting of corn has doubled in size in just the past few days. I think I should have started the flood irrigation sooner, since a good drink seems to have given them and several other plants a real boost. Every year I think I will remember to start it sooner. Watering with a wand and hose just doesn't give them the same amount of moisture as running a small stream a few inches from the roots and letting it really soak in before moving the water to the next row.
My early cabbage is giving us some nice small heads now, and I need to bring some in before they split open. A cabbage salad is on the menu for tonight. Last evening we had steamed beet greens. The beet roots went into a pickling solution. We love pickled beets and rarely eat them plain unless they are tiny and are cooked with the greens. The earliest corn is making tassles now, but I haven't noticed any little ears forming yet. Baby cucumbers are about 2 inches long, and of course we have enough zucchini and yellow summer squash. The garlic and onion tops are starting to dry and fall over, so no more watering for them. I should pull them out of the ground today and put them where they will dry before I store them for winter. There is always something to do.
Mary
This is the short version of my weekend endurance ride. If you want the long version, it will be on the endurance rides thread in a day or two.
Patch did fine on our ride, it was a hard one, and the day was hot. I wore a cooling vest for most of the day. It's a water absorbent material, just dunk it in water for a couple of minutes and it soaks up a lot of water, then wear it and it cools by evaporation like those old canvas bags people hung on the radiator cap of their old cars back in the 30's. I have a little skull cap that I soak and put under my riding helmet that keeps my brain from baking.
From time to time Patch got some water sponged onto his neck and shoulders as we had it available on the trail at about 5 mile intervals at streams and water tanks. Half a mile later the sun and low humidity would have dried him off, but at least he got some temporary cooling. Horses have a lot of surface area, and with hard work over a few years time, the blood vessels near the surface enlarge to help with cooling.
We climbed and decended mountains all day, with magnificent views from the ridge tops, and an occasional breeze. Last year there was too much smoke in the area to see those views. There was still about an hour and 45 minutes left on the clock when we crossed the finish line. After we finished I took Patch wading in the stream that runs through camp, and gave him a good sponge bath while standing in several inches of water which sure felt good to my hot feet, and I'm sure he liked it too because he stood very still.
The stream is small but at one point is about 10 ft wide where we ford it to get into the meadow where most of us camped. We were in a very large cow pasture, and the first day there were several of them hanging around, some were very vocal, others snacked on people's hay even through they were knee deep in green grass. By Saturday morning they were bored with us and moved on to somewhere else.
Yesterday morning I left camp pretty early but didn't make it home in time for church. We got together with our son and daughter in law for dinner at the Chinese restaurant about mid afternoon. Their cook must be on vacation and they have a fill in because what I ordered was not the same as it usually is and my hubby said his meal was a bit different too. The same thing happened last year, but was back to normal a few weeks later. So we will take a vacation from them for a while.
As usual, we had plenty of sun and heat and a little wind while I was gone, so today the sprinklers are running in the flower beds and lawn, and I flood irrigated most of the vegie garden this morning. Nothing appeared to be suffering.
The zucchini and yellow summer squash doubled or tripled in size from Friday morning to Monday. I need to find people to give them to, it hurts to put them on the compost pile, but that is where a lot of them end up. The corn has pollen on the tassles and lots of bees collecting it, and making it drift down on to the little tufts of corn silk that are sticking out of baby ears that weren't visable about 5 days ago. This morning I stood near the corn rows and closed my eyes and just listened to the buzzing! It's quite a pleasant sound, not alarming because they are very intent on their job and not agressive. Green beans are almost ready to make blooms, so it won't be long before we will be eating fresh green beans!
Mary
We got outside early this morning and worked on splitting the small mountain of ugly looking firewood that has been taking up space between the greenhouse and the woodshed for the past couple of weeks. I have worn a path detouring around it. With the help of our neighbor's hydraulic wood splitter, we made a sizeable dent in it, and filled the old blue pickup with chunks that will be stacked in the sun beside another shed to dry. The pile is still blocking the way between the sheds, and while I could detour around the greenhouse, which is the short route, or take the longer route around the shop with a wheelbarrow load at a time, it was much easier just to throw it into the truck. Hubby estimates there is at least a cord in the pickup.
Most of this wood is hardwood which dries slowly, it will be dry enough to burn by about February if we need it. This wood is some that we bought from a couple of teenagers who were trying to earn some money. Several kinds of trees were involved, cottonwood, elm, pine, fir, and birch. The pine and fir will go in the woodshed with the wood we cut a couple of weeks ago. These trees might have been salvaged because of storm damage, or possibly somebody was just needing to thin out a woodlot, or make room to add on to a house.
After the sun got hot, and we were tired, we showered and went to town to have our usual Saturday morning breakfast. Then, with tummies full, we went grocery shopping. I had a coupon that would save us $10 if we spent over $50. No problem. I had gone through the newspaper ad and found several things on sale that we normally buy, and with the addition of regular items like bread and eggs, could have used 2 coupons! Even the ice cream was on sale!
This coming week will be a busy one. On Tuesday we will drive about 300 miles to Portland International Airport to meet Fritz's family on their return from Romania where they have been doing summer camp ministry. We will then drive about 60 more miles to their home, visit and stay overnight, and return home the next day. Fritz will be overjoyed to be back with his family. Then on Friday, I plan to leave for another endurance ride if I can get everything watered in one day between trips. If not, I really can't leave because the plants would dry up and some of them would die.
Mary
The week was busy but we all survived the long miles on the road, and now are back to our regular daily activities. At the moment I am taking a break from watering everything and having a refreshing drink of tea with honey, letting the water do what it will for a few minutes. All the flowers and vegies seem to have done fine while I was gone this weekend, they all got a drink on the one day when I was home between trips. One cabbage that I thought would be ok growing for a while longer split while I was gone. I picked another one this morning, and there is still one more that is the size of a softball and will be ok for a while longer.
So what am I going to do with 7 or 8 cabbages each weighing from 4 to 6 pounds, well, for one thing I will make some sauerkraut, but certainly not that much! It's a good thing they keep well in the referigerator. We are going to be eating a lot of cole slaw, boiled dinners and I might try my hand at making cabbage rolls like my hubby ate in Romania.
My endurance ride went well until the very end when I presented Patch to the vet for his final inspection. He was suddenly quite lame but had felt like he was traveling quite evenly when I was riding. I only had an hour after crossing the finish line to make him look better, and you can bet I was busy. You'll have to read the rest of the story in the endurance journal, but I won't have time to write it for a couple of days. As Paul Harvey says, "stand by for news". I know, it is mean of me to string you along like this and just leave you hanging there.
On Friday, I have to take Patch to the vet and get an ultrasound done on his leg. I hope it is not as expensive as I have heard. While at the ride I asked a rider who was camped near me how much it cost when he had his horse ultrasounded for a lameness problem, and the price he quoted made me gulp, but then I remembered that he is from California where everything costs a lot more. However, at this point, I either need to find out what is wrong and fix it, or sell Patch to somebody who wants to do 25 mile rides once a month and buy a different horse for endurance if rest and time off won't take care of the problem.
This morning I found a very scarry looking spider under a rock, (one of the reasons I do not go barefoot). There are many other reasons as well, snakes, stickery things, and my uncanny ability to stub my toes on rocks and other obstacles that appear out of nowhere. Anyhow, the spider was captured in a jar that I kept shaking gently to keep him from climbing up the sides as I hurried to transfer him to a coffee can with a lid. The prisoner was photographed as he circled the bottom of the can and tried to dig to hide himself in the bit of dirt that came with him. He is about an inch long, his body being quite elongated for a spider, with red legs, and he looks like he would inflict a painful bite. I will take him to the extension office when I go to town on Friday, they should be able to identify him, dead or alive.
Mary
Patch had his leg examined by the vet this morning. The diagnosis is that he has a tear in the superficial tendon, not too bad and partially healed. As of now, our endurance season is finished and he will have plenty of time to heal, and I can ride him at a walk or a trot, just no tight turns or fast stops that would stress the tendon, and not many miles at a time. Cold water therapy will also help it heal. Years ago a horse with tendon or ligament injuries was given forced stall rest for weeks, but the new thinking, similiar to human medicine, is to keep them moving. Patch moves a lot in his pasture, he has never been one to stand around doing nothing.
This morning's trip to town included a stop at the county extension office for identification of a scarry looking spider I caught several days ago and kept in a coffee can with a lid in the shade. It turned out not to be a spider after all, but a wind scorpin, a variety without a tail stinger. He is considered a good preditor bug, so I brought him home and turned him loose near where I found him. I really hope never to see him again, or anything similiar. Chances are that I won't because they tend to be nocturnal. But, now I know he (and probably his family) are there.
Our big pile of firewood is all neatly stacked where it will finish drying for winter use. We plan to get more, but not while the days are so hot. It's in the low to middle 90's every day.
Yesterday was wool shipping day at last. There were 7 bales weighing about 400 pounds each that have been stored in our hay shed for a couple of years, and two more down the road in the barn where the lambing activity and shearing takes place. Loading was quick and fairly easy, thanks to our tractor with a front end loader. Paul (neighbor) put a chain around each bale and I lifted them, backed out of the hay shed, lined up with a pallet in the truck, set the bale down following hand signals from the driver, and went back to get another one. The driver wrapped clear plastic around 2 bales at a time and moved the pallet with a motorized handtruck to the front of the trailer while Paul set another pallet in place and we went after another bale. When we were all done, the driver complimented me for doing a good job. I'm not sure what he expected from a woman driver, but apparently I surprised him. I didn't drop any bales, or collide with or squash anything.
The wool will go to California to a variety of places to eventually be processed into bedding. It's organic wool, something fairly new in the marketplace, but many people want everything possible without any chemicals. The first time I heard about somebody wanting or selling organic wool, I laughed. Paul might be laughing all the way to the bank because the price for it is good, and the buyer paid the shipping charges on about 3600 pounds.
I read an article about freezing summer squash in chunks for use in casseroles and soups, so I now have several bags of that in the freezer. It's pretty easy to do: blanch chunks of squash for about 5 min in boiling water, dump them into cold water to chill them, freeze the pieces in a single layer on cookie sheets, bag them up the next day using my food saver machine that vacuums out the air and seals the bag. Having them frozen before the vacuuming prevents water from being pulled out with the air which would keep the bag from sealing. I processed 3 cookie sheets full and have more squash staring at me from the kitchen counter today.
Tomorrow Patch and I will help move the yearling cattle back to the ranch from the pasture 5 miles up the road. We will do that job fairly early in the morning, and I need a head start to get up there because the rest of the crew will be on motorcycles, so I will get a very early start. Tonight I will give Patch extra food so he will not be preoccupied looking at the grass beside the road.
Mary
We are having a bit of a heat wave with temps in the middle to upper 90's, and thankfully, after today, we will get some cooler air coming to us. With that we will get some clouds and possibly a shower, but I am not holding my breath for a few drops of rain. We will be more likely to get thunderstorms with no rain, storms that will start fires in the dry countryside and mountains. As of yesterday the fire danger was rated at high, but could go to extreme at any time. So far we have no big fires in Oregon or Washington, but there is some smoke making pretty sunrises and sunsets over the mountains.
My garden will be irrigated again today, I'll do it early to beat the heat. Yesterday I checked the corn again to see if we could have some for dinner, nope, it's not quite ready. I did pick a couple of small ripe tomatoes. Waiting for fresh vegies is an exercise in patience, and the eating season is so short. I really thank God for the bounty of the garden, and although I have shared more with a hungry gopher than I cared to, we have still had more than enough. When I walk through the produce section of the grocery store, I look to see what the prices are, and am always impressed with the value of the produce from my garden.
The cattle were moved without any problems except that I spent some time hunting for 3 head that had let themselves out several days ago. One neighbor found them on the road, and because they are branded he knew who the owner is, so he followed them down the road toward the ranch for a ways, then later his son pushed them a ways farther, and finally the owners daughter and her boyfriend brought them the rest of the way home. The owner had just forgotten about them, and told me how many he had put into the pasture several weeks ago.
Nip, the Border Collie, helped with the cattle, and when they were safely in the pasture with the lambs, she hopped into the low sheep water tank to cool off, and we could see nothing of her but her head. Where's my camera when I need it?
Mary
A cool front has moved into our area bringing rain, but first bringing a thunder storm and strong gusty winds. We could see big clouds of dust moving along horizontally at a rapid speed just before the lightning started and after that a quick hard rain shower. Thankfully, there was no hail, I don't need hailstones shredding my plants. The grasshoppers are doing a very good job of that already, leaving just the ribs of some leaves and making lace of others.
Yesterday was cloudy and then sunny. The moisture in the air and in the ground made it feel like a sauna. I checked to see how far the moisture had soaked into the ground, and found that the top 2 inches are moist. I spent a couple of hours cleaning a flower bed, and am happy to report that I have one that looks pretty good now. The problem is that it continues around the yard next to the fence, with only a couple of sidewalks to break it, so I have to keep going. It never all looks good at one time, and then there is the one next to the house, smaller, but also continuous except for the sidewalks leading from porches to gates. I'm never out of work!
One of the rose bushes that I pruned and fertilized about a month ago has produced one lone bloom, but it gives me hope for the rest of them. I've always known that roses are heavy feeders, but never did much about it. They got an application of homemade compost and a feeding of Miracle Grow to give them a shot in the arm, er, branch, or more likely, root. Anyhow, it seems to have helped, and they will get another feeding soon.
It is raining this morning, very lightly. I'll get wet if I do any weeding today. My neighbor has some hay in windrows that needs sun, not rain. He was delayed about a week with a swather breakdown, and just got it fixed about 3 days ago, so being behind with his work, and optimistic about the weather, he went out and cut several acres of hay. Meanwhile, with haying on hold, yesterday he hauled some lambs to the slaughterhouse that customers are buying for locker meat.
Today I have some work to do in the greenhouse, always a good job for a cooler day. Yesterday I repotted a few tomato plants that hopefully will produce ripe tomatoes for our salads this winter. It was hot and sunny when I transplanted them so I put them on the floor beside the shady side of a greenhouse bench. They need a cloudy day or two to get adjusted to their new quarters (pots) and today is perfect for that. The forecast is for rainy conditions again tomorrow. Our normal rainfall for August is something like 3/4 of an inch, so we aren't getting a lot, but just enough to keep things wet and cool. It feels good after several 95 degree days and I am enjoying having the window shades rolled up and not feeling like I am living in a cave.
Mary
The green beans finally produced enough for picking! I got about half a plastic grocery bag full. It was our dinner last night, cooked with a Polish sausage and potatoes. Yummm, very tasty! There is enough left for tonight if I add a side dish of something like fried squash. For some reason only about 1/3 of the original planting of green beans even came up, and then some of them fell victim to a gopher. I planted another package but they are not mature enough to produce anything yet. It's a good thing I have plenty of canned ones left on the pantry shelves from other years.
The weather isn't helping the garden much lately. After being so hot for a couple of weeks, now it has been much cooler for the last week. Yesterday morning the back porch thermometer registered only 38, our high was about 75 yesterday, and last night was back down to about 40. Hopefully it will get warmer again before fall really falls. Our first planting of corn is almost ready. I started the seeds in toilet paper tubes on May 14, set them out into the garden on Memorial Day, and our 65 day variety still isn't ready in almost 100 days! The wind has blown some of it over, making it look a bit like a jungle.
Yesterday I helped my neighbor move the cows, calves, and the bull. They came through our place, a shortcut to where they were really going. Breezy was moved temporarily so he would not try to join the fun, that was ok with him since he got to snack on Patch's leftover hay. I took a short ride on Patch afterward since I was already on him. He still feels a little bit lame at a trot but sure wanted to go faster and probably farther than I would allow.
Flower bed cleaning continues, endlessly.....
Mary
We are having corn on the cob for dinner tonight! It's finally ready! I think we miss corn on the cob from the day after we eat the last little nubs in the fall until our corn is ready again. A fruit and vegie stand in town has corn, but it sells out long before my hubby comes home from work. We never buy it at the grocery store, it is probably a week old before it even gets there.
Yesterday my hubby helped me shred cabbage for sauerkraut. We have a 3 blade shredder which we put over the bottom part of a broiler pan to catch the cabbage. The whole thing sits on the kitchen counter where it needs somebody strong (hubby) to hold it in place while I slide half a cabbage over the blades again and again, making shreds about 1/16th of an inch thick with each pass. The blades are very sharp, but I was careful and managed to shred 21 and 1/2 pounds of cabbage without shredding my fingers! The shredder was an ebay purchase, and sure beats cutting that much cabbage with a knife.
The shredded cabbage is dumped into a bowl, salt is added and I mix it with both hands, then it is put into a crock and pounded with the bottom of a jar until it produces liquid. Layer after layer is added, then I placed a large plastic bag of water on top of it to keep the air from the cabbage, and the crock was put in a cool place to ferment. The cool place is the landing on the stairway going to the basement. Our house is a bit too warm, and the basement a bit too cool, so in between should be just right. In 5 to 6 weeks we should be able to eat some of it, and I will can the rest for winter.
This morning I weeded some of the newer asparagus rows while I had the hose there to water them slowly. About noon I came inside for a quick cool off, and to do some laundry, but had I known that an hour later the wind would be this strong, I would have worked on those weeds a while longer. The laundry on the line is flapping wildly, and will soon be dry if this wind doesn't bring us a shower. Our high temperature yesterday was about 90, today might have reached 80 before the wind started blowing and brought it down to 65.
I always seem to have more than one project in progress, it keeps me from becoming bored! Last week I started cleaning flower beds, something I do every fall, vainly hoping to get them all done before the ground freezes or is covered by snow. Following is a couple of pictures of my present work in progress.
Mary
Neut was helping and was almost covered with the sprouts I cut away from the bottoms of the lilac bushes. I just threw them out on the lawn without looking, and when I was finished, there was Neut, happy as can be. Do you see him? He is near the edge of the flower bed.
Mary
He stayed right there purring while I removed all the branches. Everybody needs a good helper.
Mary
It's wasp hunting season again. Last week as I was closing a gate made of metal pipes, I noticed a lot of wasps were unhappy with the vibration the gate made as it swung closed. I guessed there was a nest in the hinge end of the gate. And when I latched it, a couple of wasps crawled out of a hole where the pipes join on the latch end of the gate. They weren't happy either but I didn't get stung. I was too busy that day helping my neighbor move cattle, so they didn't get sprayed. It's better to get them early in the morning when they are all at home.
Yesterday I declared war and went hunting wasp nests with spray can in hand. I found 4 in addition to the ones in both ends of the pipe gate, and also a black widow spider. Fssst! All dead now. After the can was empty I found more nests.
The wasps compete with the hummingbirds at the feeders, so I have found a way to deal with that without harming the birds. My vacuum cleaner is a canister type with a nice long hose. It takes a bit of luck, plus hand and eye cordination to catch them on the bee guards on the feeders, and even more to catch them in mid air, but it is fun! I slurped up a lot of wasps yesterday between my other activities.
This morning, with the temperature at about 45 degrees and all the wasps still in or on their nests, I went out with my new can of spray and zapped about 6 nests. It's good to start the day with a victory!
My flower bed weeding project continues with a few feet being cleaned every day. Some parts are easier than others. I am presently working where I installed a plastic barrier along the edge to prevent the quack grass from creeping into the edge, so I have no edge to dig out there. That part is easier, but the wild rose bushes grow in from the other side, and I have big clumps of asters that will bloom in another month or two, so I have to reach in carefully to cut the rose sprouts at ground level, and carefully pull the grass and weeds out of the asters, lilies and a few other things that I don't want to disturb. It reminds me of that old game of pick up sticks with the addition of being watchfull for snakes, spiders and wasps. Last year there were nests on the fence rails just beyond the roses. I checked carefully and haven't found any there this year.
Yesterday afternoon I quit weeding when the wind got strong and the weeds were blowing out of the wheelbarrow. The wind was strong from the north well into the night so I think the deer probably stayed out of the garden, but they'll be back, so today I need to put up some netting to try to save the grapes.
Mary
The netting is over the grapes and "pinned" to the ground with fiberglass fenceposts that were intended to be used with electric wire. I find a lot of other uses for them. After a one night test, the netting is still in place.
I sprayed 5 more wasp nests this morning before the sun came up, and have spotted one more that I can't reach without a tall ladder. There are several under the roof of the hay shed too. Maybe we will get those with the aid of the tractor bucket tomorrow.
Yesterday evening as I was husking corn and putting the husks in the hay feeder for Patch, he came limping slowly toward me. I took a quick look, a cut on his hind leg just above the hoof. It was so dirty I couldn't tell more. After dinner I brought him out of the pasture to a grassy area where he could eat while I hosed it off. I was running out of daylight, so cleaned it up the best I could, squirted Betadine (disinfectant) on it, put a big gob of Furazone ointment (antibacterial) on a 4x4 gauze pad and wrapped it up to keep it clean and soft overnight.
He was put in the pasture with Breezy, and they were given hay, a little more than usual for Breezy since he is on a diet, and a bit less for Patch who is not. The short ration caused Patch to wander around looking for food during the night, the Furazone kept the wound from becoming dry, and the swelling is gone, so he was moving better this morning.
I unwrapped his leg and hosed it off again, squirted the cut with lots of Betadine, waited for it to dry while Patch ate fresh alfalfa in the edge of the driveway, then when he wandered into the hay shed I tied him to the trailer and gave him some hay. When the wound was fairly dry, I applied another 4x4 gauze pad with Furazone. He will get another fresh bandage tonight.
The cut is below the fetlock joint and above the hoof. It is a horizontal cut mostly on the heel. He also has a couple of small cuts on his leg, one in front and one in back, the result of kicking at Breezy through the fence while they were playing. I still have to repair the fence.
Patch now has the upper pasture all to himself, and Breezy has a change of scenery too, the pasture where I have kept Patch for the past few months. The upper pasture is dry, and relatively clean compared to the middle one where there is a spring that feeds a little stream where they love to nibble green stuff that grows there, but also wade in the mud. Another feature of the middle pasture is a small shed with dusty dry manure in it where they stand to get out of the sun and away from the bugs. It is certainly not what a horse with a cut foot needs.
Mary
The corn was getting ripe faster than we were eating it, so rather than have it get starchy and become horse feed, I blanched about 20 ears of it, cut the corn off the cobs, packed it in plastic zipper bags and froze it. I also pulled up about half the beets and made pickled beets, a job that makes the house smell wonderful. My neighbor gave me peaches, so today I made jam from the ripe and damaged ones (some were windfalls) and still have a lot of underripe ones ripening in a box which I need to check about every second day.
The wind blew for about 3 days and nights. When it finally stopped the temperature dropped and we had a touch of frost last night! It is about 6 weeks early for frost. The only damaged plant was the winter squash with a few leaves looking burned, and a couple of the runners at one edge with that sort of transparent look frozen foliage has. Tonight's forecast is for 39. The sky is overcast and so I think the garden is safe. Last night there was no mention of the posibility of frost.
Patch's wounded foot is healing slowly. It is in an area where the blood supply is not as good as it would be above the knee, so healing will be slow. He has become more active and the bandage won't stay in place, so I have just been hosing the wound to clean it, letting it dry enough for the ointment to stay in place, and applying antibacterial ointment to the wound. This keeps the wound soft and clean for a few hours. Plenty of dirt sticks to the ointment, but the wound itself stays fairly clean. He is quite comfortable as long as it stays moist, trotting around and even running across the pasture.
My hubby is in his first week of official retirement. He has a lot of big and little jobs that need to be done before winter, so he has started on them. Early this morning, before the sun came up he ran the tractor while I stood in the bucket and sprayed wasp nests high up in the hay shed. I lost count of how many nests, but I think there were about 10. These wasps make a flat disc about 3 inches in diameter with cells where they lay their eggs. Some of them have 25-30 wasps tending the eggs, and early in the morning most of them are sleeping, so that is the best time to spray them.
After breakfast, he started working on the riding mower which needed to have the battery charged and a tire pumped up again, cleaned up and started our chipper/shredder that hasn't been used in a couple of years, worked on the rototiller which needed some adjustment so it will go into reverse, and puttered around cleaning the shop. There are several projects we will work on together this fall, but while I am busy canning and freezing produce, he will work alone on most of his stuff while I do mine.
Mary
Fall is in the air. We haven't had more frost but it has been close and now has been a little warmer for the past two nights. I shovel pruned the winter squash, cutting off the long runners, small fruits and blossoms so the plants will be diverting all their energy into ripening the larger squash that are already turning a yellowish green. They should be brownish yellow to be fully ripe so they will taste sweet and store well in the basement this winter. I've also stopped watering them. All of this together should shock the plants into ripening the fruit. We usually don't think of squash as fruit, but I guess technically it is, like a tomato, because the seeds are inside.
The first planting of green beans is still producing a few pounds of beans per week, enough for our dinners. The second planting is blooming and had better get busy soon or it will be a lost cause. I planted them when only about 1/3 of the first batch even came out of the ground, and the gophers ate some of those, leaving big gaps in the rows. The soil was warmer and the second planting had good germination and wasn't bothered by the gophers. I still have about 50 quarts from previous years on the shelves in the basement, so I didn't need to can beans this year anyhow.
My tomato plants aren't anything to write home about, but we are getting a few to eat, and my neighbor who borrowed greenhouse space from me last spring, brought us some for slicing, and some marble sized yellow ones that are very tasty. I don't need to can tomatoes this year either, the basement shelves have plenty to last through the winter.
The second planting of corn is ready for eating. It was planted about 2 weeks after I put the greenhouse started plants in the ground. The third planting went in about 2 weeks after that and now has tassles which the honey bees are enjoying, and silk on the tops of the immature ears which is recieving the pollen that floats down. The top ear on every stalk gets the best supply of pollen and is usually well filled with kernels, the second one not so good, and the third, if there is one, has almost nothing. I should walk through the plants and pull the bottom ones off to save energy for the good ones. We usually have corn on the cob until the frost kills the plants, and this year I think it will be a race to the finish line. I might just have a lot of horse feed or crop residue to rototill into the ground.
A couple of days ago we moved the cows, calves and bull to a fresh pasture about 5 miles up the road. Patch got the job even with the cut on his foot, he runs around in the pasture and looks comfortable so why not? I cleaned up the wound, put plenty of medicine on it to make sure it was soft and he was fine. When we put the cattle through the last gate, I squirted water on it from the water bottle I carry on the saddle to soften it again, and he was happy trotting most of the way home.
Yesterday my neighbor brought our first load of hay, and will bring another one today. Sometime in another week he will bring the last load. There are 78 bales to a load, each weighing about 100 pounds. He picks it up in the field with a mechanical stacker truck, then just backs into our hay shed, tips the load on end and sets it down! That part is always a hold your breath and pray that everything goes right operation! Now and then some bales fall off the top of the end row at the wrong time but most of the time it works!
Also yesterday, our daughter in law came out from town for a day of canning peaches and pickled beets. She brought along her grandson who is the happiest 5 month old baby alive! He played and slept, and we canned and visited all day. Today after church she is coming back to can some spiced pears. She has no canning equipment or jars, but I have all of that, so she just brought lids, vinegar, sugar and spices yesterday. I decided I have enough pickled beets in the basement, and enough peaches, so I just gave her the rest of it. The jars are returned over the winter as they use the contents.
Mary
Our hummingbirds have left us. We haven't seen any for 2 days. I always leave the feeders out for a couple of weeks in case some that are migrating from farther north come through, but I have yet to see that happen.
After cleaning more of the easier sections of the flower beds, I have come to the very worst part. It's about 30 ft long by 3 ft wide, choked with quackgrass roots, vinca minor which I regret planting, wild rosebush roots, and tree roots. I'm going to cut the roses back to the ground, dig out the good plants and just tear into the rest of it as if I was starting all over. This is a job I have put off far too long, and this year, since I have no more rides to take up my time, there is really no excuse for not doing it. Neut the helpful cat is supervising, and seems to be satisfied with my work because he finds a comfy spot nearby and just goes to sleep.
Hubby and I went to the woods one day this week to cut another load of firewood, but the chainsaw wasn't running well and it finally quit, so we loaded what we had and came home. We got about half a cord. The saw has been taken apart, cleaned and put back into running order, so we will go again this weekend, this time with a friend and his sons to help us, so we will take both pickups.
My neighbors are gone for a few days so I am doing their chores mornings and evenings. I can help myself to tomatoes (since mine didn't do much this year) and pick up apricots and pears that are starting to fall, and also keep any eggs the chickens produce.
Mary
This weekend we added two more cords of wood to the pile that is waiting to be split and that will be plenty for this winter with what we already have split and stacked in the woodshed. We really like to have at least a year's supply in reserve but that may not happen this year since the saw quit again. It worked until it got hot and then took the rest of the day off. Our smaller saw finished the job but then we were limited as to the size of logs we could cut.
Hubby and I went out for breakfast this morning since he needed to go to the bank and a couple of other places, and take the sick chainsaw to the shop. This is the time of year that they get way behind because a lot of people wait to get their saws in shape to cut wood at the last minute resulting in a few weeks wait for some, and I'm glad we are in no hurry for a repair. We won't know if it will be repaired or replaced for about a month. It's about 20 years old and has cut an amazing amount of firewood.
After we got home I irrigated parts of the garden and picked the green beans, checked the corn, and the grapes. The wasps are saying the grapes are ripe, so just after daylight we will go carefully pick the clusters, put them in big buckets and bring them up near the house, then fill the buckets with water and capture the wasps as they come to the surface. I'm out of grape juice so I am glad to be getting grapes this year. The elderberries are also ripe, so I might mix some with the grapes, about 25% is enough. We also need to process more corn for the freezer, it is getting ahead of us again. The netting I put up for the deer has saved the grapes, but they are biting holes in other things. Just one or two deer from the looks of the tracks. I wish they would at least leave me some fertilizer.
Mary
After spending 2 days in the kitchen with big pots, jars, bags and things to put into them, I am tired of it. Tomorrow we will be splitting wood with our friend's hydraulic log splitter. We will start early, soon after daylight and work until we are tired or the sun gets hot, whichever comes first. The splitter is ours to use until Sunday, then we have to return it. Three mornings should be enough time with it.
Nine more bags of corn are in the freezer for winter dinners, and the grapes yielded 16 quarts of juice. I wish I knew somebody with more grapes who doesn't want to use them. I should ask a few people and maybe I'll find some. My neighbor has apricots and offered me some of them but I think they aren't quite ripe yet. Apricot juice would be nice. Last week when I was doing chores I saw wasps all over them so it won't be long. They'll have to be picked right after daylight on a cool morning.
Hubby helped me take down the netting that protected the grapes, and roll it up on a long cardboard tube. This evening before dark I saw 3 deer headed for the garden. Surprise! All they will find are the leaves of the grapes.
Mary
My horses changed color today, but only because it rained and they rolled. Rain tickles so they roll to blot it. A thunderstorm rolled through last night bringing us some showers which continue today, with some wind but without the electrical display. I'm glad we got all that firewood split and stacked in the woodshed before the rain started. It was a big job but we got it done in 2 days instead of 3 that we expected to be working on it.
Yesterday after we finished with the firewood and returned the splitter to our neighbor and visited for a while, I got back to the flower bed cleaning project. It's a long slow job but is looking better all the time. As I go along I keep thinking of changes I could make, and I think that keeping the volunteer rose bushes outside the fence will help a lot. They look good from the driveway side, too. I will move some of the tall phlox to other places and maybe just eliminate it altogether in that bed because I have another invasive plant growing among the phlox that has similiar leaves, making it hard to tell what to pull and what to leave when I am weeding in the spring. Cosmos might be my replacement choice. They come in a variety of pink and pink with stripes, bloom longer, and the leaves don't look a bit like that invasive thing. A packet or two of seeds will be on the list for spring planting.
Back in the corner behind the big tree I might let a few of the roses come back and stay because they seem to be one of the few things that wants to grow back there. The other plant that I am allowing to stay in limited quantities is sweet violets. They are pretty much toast this year because I stopped watering that corner a few weeks ago knowing I was going to rip everything out. If the violets don't survive this, their offspring surely will. A few weeks ago I cleaned out another flower bed where I had taken the violets out last fall. It had a solid green carpet of violets that sprouted from the seed that was left in the ground.
The leaves on the Virginia Creeper vine that rambles over the rail fence have turned bright red and are falling. I can actually see the fence now, and also the clusters of dark purple seeds that look a lot like grapes. I think the plants might be related. Grape leaves are a different shape and the tendrils on my grapes are thicker and stronger. The Virginia Creeper will get a pruning when I get about 30 feet farther down the fenceline with the flower bed cleaning project. It roots everywhere it touches the ground so every year it gets trimmed to keep it where I want it and not everywhere it wants to be.
Just now I looked out at the rain on the window and happened to think that God is washing my kitchen window so maybe I won't have to do it. (Well, it never hurts to dream!) The bird feeder that never was taken down is swinging in the breeze, empty because I don't think the tweety birds need help at this time of the year with all the weeds having gone to seed, but they'll know where to find dinner when times get hard. All the hummingbrids have gone south. We miss the little guys, they are so entertaining, but now they have gone to entertain somebody else. They fly like little bullets, so I wonder how long it takes them to get to their winter homes.
Mary
Snow has fallen on the high mountain range to the north and east of us. It's a bit early for snow, even up there. We would still like to get another load of firewood but with early snow this year, maybe we won't. We have plenty for this winter and a good start for next year.
The forecast for tonight says 28 to 35 degrees, so I covered the winter squash patch with old blankets, just in case. Some of the squash are looking about half ripe. I picked the last few tomatoes of this year's dismal crop, looked at the summer squash to see if there was anything that needed to be rescued, picked the last of the cucumbers, checked on the last planting of corn which still isn't ready and may never be, and noticed that the deer have been snacking on a few of the grape leaves. I didn't even look at the green beans, having picked some just a few days ago. The weather has been too cool for anything to grow much since then.
Breezy helped while I stacked some irrigation pipes that run through his pasture. I'm sure I have watered everything down there for the last time this season, so it is time to pick up pipes and stack them next to the fence, coil up hoses and bring them to the shed, and be ready to rototill after the frost kills everything.
We got the chipper running and it took us most of a day to gather and chip all the bark that fell off the firewood when it was split, plus rose bush trimmings and other miscellaneous tree branches. The chipped material was directed into a makeshift bin, but it flew everywhere. The bin is beside the greenhouse, and there is chips and bark dust up there on the roof. The rain we had softened the bark but it is still dusty when ground up. We were so filthy when we finished that we blew the dust off with compressed air in the shop, shed clothes just inside the back door and immediately headed for the shower.
I want to buy more crocus and small dafodills for some of the flower beds. Today I bought more pansys to go along the sidewalk leading from the front door to the gate since those strips have been cleaned already. It's been a few days since I had time to work on the flower beds, but I'll get back to them, maybe tomorrow. The new mulch will go on the flower beds, but I would like to have the pansys and bulbs planted before I put it down so I don't have to move it to plant things. That's just extra work and I have plenty already.
Mary
Our recent rain plus a little warmth put a slight green tinge on the brownish hills again. We probably got about .5 of an inch, but in an area that has very little rain, that is good.
We took a quick trip to the other side of the state this week, our first priority was to see my hubby's sister who had been in the hospital recently. She is back home now and in good spirits. Her husband is in a nursing home with Alzheimers. He still recognizes her, but doesn't know his children. His memory has receeded back to his childhood.
From the sister's house, we went to friends for dinner about an hour away and stayed overnight with them. The next day we did some shopping for things we can't find without a trip to a city. Our hostess was happy to drive us around. The highlight of my day was visiting a large nursery and loading up with bulbs of lilys, daffodils, crocus, hyacinths, three new iris, some shaggy tulips in wild colors, and a few bargain plants in 4 inch pots. Most of those will be part of a succulent mosiac that I started about 3 years ago. It is just starting to fill in nicely. These plants were so nice, and there is still room for them along the edges. Most of the bulbs will go into the flower bed I am cleaning.
Our second evening included a missions meeting and dinner next to a nice bonfire. We stayed up late visiting with one of their daughters who attends college about 30 miles away.
The next morning we left after breakfast to start home, but stopped to do more shopping at a big box store. I went in looking for special flower pots for orchids that allow for air to reach the roots, didn't find any but came out with 3 bags of potting soil and 5 gold mums. My hubby was waiting for me on a bench near the door and laughed as I ducked down behind the mums when he saw me.
We stopped for lunch at a country style restaurant where they have an old John Deere tractor in the dining room and all sorts of interesting farmy things decorating the walls. There is also a small train that circles around inside. A big tank from a boiler has been made into a fireplace with multiple openings which I assume they use in the winter. If the place hadn't been so crowded I would have liked to look around more. There'll be another time, now that we know about the place.
We got home just before dark. My neighbor fed the critters for us while we were away, but of course they were all glad to see us again because it was mealtime. AmandaPanda, our full time indoor cat, was especially glad to see me. She was a good girl while we were gone, she didn't knock any flower pots off the windowsills. Three days alone in the house was a bit of a stretch for her I think, but she did just fine.
Today it was back to the regular stuff, doing laundry which dried nicely on the line in the sun, watering the greenhouse plants, and cleaning a bit more of that messy flower bed that will be home to many of my new bulbs.
Mary
We had another beautiful sunrise this morning, the sky was a peachy color with wispy grayish clouds, then turned pink just before the sun appeared from behind it's hiding place. Every day it comes up a bit farther to the south.
I'm making progress on the flower bed, have chopped out all the rosebush roots, rescued tulip and narcissis bulbs, hauled a tractor bucketload of dirt and manure from the big pile and dumped it over the fence, spread it with a rake, and now have iris and tall phlox planted in one end of it. These plants come from farther down the bed, so when I dig them up and clean the quackgrass roots from them, I'm actually making more progress. The challenge, besides just getting them out of the ground, is deciding what color the iris are. Last spring I put some labels around them when they bloomed, but with 2 colors growing together, about 12 plants and 3 labels, you can see there is the potential for surprises next spring.
My new mums have not yet been planted, but I dug out the old plants and potted them up, hopefully they will revive to be replanted somewhere else next spring. I raked up the mulch and saved it in a big plastic tub, then dumped a scoop of dirt over the fence onto that bed too. The new mums got a good soaking yesterday, and planting them where the old ones came out is a priority for today.
A couple of nights ago I was husking corn right outside my back door when I heard a strange noise. It sounded like a cat in distress, although there was no yowling that typically happens in a cat fight, this sounded more like a cat choking. When I went to see, there in the middle of my driveway was a dying cat, actually he died about 10 seconds after I saw him. This was not my cat, and although we see strays from time to time, I had never seen this one. My guess is that he was somebody's barn cat that took a long walk. He didn't look sick although he was thin, and there was no blood around or under him. I think he probably ate here at night for the two nights when we were gone and was coming back for another meal. It's sure a mystery. I hope he didn't have some contageous disease. My cats seem to be ok so far.
We checked the sauerkraut last night, and had some baked with sausage. It's not sour enough so we'll taste it again in a couple of weeks. Right now, even with rinsing, it is too salty.
My neighbor brought more peaches, not enough to can, but enough for eating several per day until the bucket is empty. Maybe I will make a cobbler if they ripen faster than we can eat them.
Today we need to go to town to take care of some business and do some grocery shopping. If I play my cards right, we might also have breakfast. Then this afternoon I will be back to the flower beds.
Mary
Signs of fall are everywhere. Some trees are starting to look gold or red. Tumbleweeds are turning from green to pink and orange, ripening their seeds as the plant dies. Wind will break them loose from their stems and send them bouncing across the countryside scattering seeds with every bounce. By the time they start breaking loose from their roots they dry to a tan color. One year I found a small perfectly shaped one that I put into a box and mailed to hubby's cousin in Virginia who had been visiting us when the plants were still green. She decorated it like a little Christmas tree and hung it upside down in the corner of her dining room, way up close to the ceeling. Nobody guessed what it was.
Canada geese are doing practice flights and squalking loudly. After a lazy summer they need to build up their stamina for the long flight south. I remember thinking they had some kind of Bermuda Triangle experience, being confused about which way was south, but then realized they need to get in shape and some of them will be making the migration for the first time. Last week a flock of them went over me, close enough so that I could hear the noise their wings made.
It's time to take the hummingbird feeders down and put them away for winter. We did get a couple of loners coming through, each stayed for 2 days and went on, but I haven't seen any for a week now.
Coyotes killed one of our neighbor's ewes, so now every evening he brings them to a pasture that is safer. We are on coyote watch but haven't seen any.
Hubby has started work on an unfinished closet in the guest bedroom. It has old boards on the walls, so he plans to sheetrock it after he moves the light and runs a wire to install a switch instead of turning it on with a pull string. It shines right in our faces now, but the new location will have the light above the door. He will build shelves to hold our extra blankets and comforters, and make a small section beside it for hanging clothes. Before it is finished we will also replace the flooring in the bedroom and the closet will get the same. The goal is to have it all finished before Thanksgiving when we will have as many as 9 overnight guests for 4 nights.
Today we went to town for electrical boxes and several other things for the project. We looked at the vinyl that is available locally and picked out one that looks like a multicolored carpet. It will be much easier to keep clean than carpet, and won't be harboring dust mites. I will look for some area rugs to use next to the bed so people won't be stepping out of a warm bed on to a cold hard floor.
Yesterday I planted 2 blueberry bushes. Hubby dug the holes for me and put the soil in a wheelbarrow. I added an equal volume of peat moss, and mixed it with my hands, partially filled the holes with the mixture and then planted the bushes. We have 2 varieties and want to get a couple more plants of other kinds, but the nurserys won't restock until spring.
We had some wet stuff fall out of the sky on us this evening. I had laundry on the line, so I stopped my flower bed cleaning and rescued it before they got wet again. Showers are in the forecast for the next couple of days.
A couple of days ago I got a wasp sting on my neck just where the neck of my t-shirt rubs on it. I think the wasp rode inside on my shirt as they are looking for places to get inside for winter and there were several near the back door. Stings always get red, swollen and itchy, so I started taking antihistamine right away. They make me very sleepy. Today I nodded off while riding home in the car. Good thing I wasn't driving. It usually takes 2 weeks for a bite to quit itching. Next week I can back off on the pills a bit as it settles down.
Mary
Horses don't drool, but that's just what Breezy was doing yesterday morning when I went to feed him. He looked like he had a mouthfull of soap, and was licking, chewing although his mouth had nothing in it, and blowing bubbles! Very odd. I dropped the hay outside his fence and went to see if I could tell what was the cause of this. He seemed to be normal otherwise, hungry, a bit impatient because his breakfast was on the wrong side of the fence and I was trying to look into his mouth. He didn't seem to be in any distress and I could see no blood.
I called the vet's office as soon as they were open, and made an appointment to take him. Since I didn't know what the problem was, I decided not to feed him in case there was a blockage of some kind. Food packed up against something would not be a good thing.
Hubby took the wood hauling racks off the truck, reinstalled the trailer hitch ball in the middle of the truck bed, and hooked up the trailer. Breezy nibbled weeds in his pasture and looked longingly at me waiting for hay. He wasn't coughing, and didn't seem to be uncomfortable, just hungry.
After getting a quick history of the problem, and observing Breezy for a couple of minutes, the vet was ready to start trying to find the cause of the drooling. Breezy was taken inside the diagnostic area, and put into a stock made of heavy pipe imbedded in a cement floor with heavy rubber pads to keep animals from slipping. He was given a sedative, had a heavy metal apparatus put on his head that would hold his mouth open so the vet could safely insert a hand and feel for anything abnormal. The examination revealed nothing unusual, nothing stuck in between teeth, under or into the tongue, roof of the mouth, or into the cheeks.
The next step was to take xrays of the head and neck. They showed nothing. If there was something sticking somewhere, it would have showed.
Just to be sure there was no blockage below where the xray showed, the vet passed a tube through Breezy's nostril and down into his stomach. There was nothing blocking it. We discussed other diagnostic options, and possible causes for excessive saliva, and the most likely cause seemed to be something he had eaten, either in the hay or the weeds in the pasture. I have him on limited hay because he has gained a lot of weight just standing around and not doing endurance rides anymore.
I made a tentative appointment for more tests later in the week if he didn't improve with a change of pasture and hay. He was still drunk on his feet from the sedative when I loaded him into the trailer, which was kind of comical to watch since he had to step up into the trailer.
When I got him home I put him back into his own pasture, the one Patch has been occupying since he cut his foot several weeks ago. He was given some hay off the new stack in case there was something in the old hay, and immediately started eating. I watched, everything seemed normal. Later I saw him nibbling the grass in the pasture, getting about 1/4 inch per bite, but enough to taste good so he kept at it. Before I went to bed I went out with a flashlight to check him, he was still nibbling grass and looking happy. I couldn't tell if he was still drooling because he had food going in and was swallowing often. He had eaten all the hay I had given him.
This morning I took him out of the pasture and tied him to the trailer where there was nothing he could eat, to see if the drooling had stopped. It had, so I guess there was something toxic in the weeds in the other pasture. I seriously doubt if it was a problem in the older hay. Patch is in that pasture now, but his metabolism is different, and he gets enough hay to keep him happy, so his comsumption of the weeds will be minimal and probably not be a problem. I plan to start eliminating the weeds and stacking them somewhere out of the pasture so they can be burned.
Another thing that is different this year, is that the ewes were not on our place late in the summer as they usually are. They get bored with where they should be and some of them ducked under the fence into the horse pasture, and they have done a good job of eating those weeds. But not this year, plus, Breezy got fat and I put him on a diet, so he ate the weeds since they were there. I wonder which of 4 or 5 kinds of weeds is the bad one.
Today was a nice normal day, so I was able to work in the flower beds this afternoon. Tomorrow I can call the vet's office and cancel the second appointment.
Mary
Snow in October isn't funny, and it is 6 weeks early. The snowshowers yesterday didn't produce enough to stick at our place, but the hills between us and town have snow beside the road, and it went all the way to the valley floor on that side of the ridge. We got a blast of cold air 2 days ago, accompanied by a lot of clouds that produced a few little rain showers, and yesterday, snow showers. Tomorrow begins a 4 day warming trend if the forecasters are right.
I picked 2 big buckets full of corn, taking every ear that looked big enough, knowing that about 1/4 of them will not be mature enough to taste like corn, but Patch won't care. When I did this it was cold and so was I, so I didn't take time to sort them. The wind makes it hard to keep the blankets over the butternut squash so every evening I straighten them up for the night, hoping to protect the squash from the middle 20's temperatures. Some of them are looking brownish now, but others still show some green, meaning they are not ripe, will not taste sweet, and will not store for the winter.
We've used these cold days to work on the closets. One had horrible bright pink paint which I have hated and wanted to paint for several years. Whenever I had time I didn't have paint, or ambition. Now it is done but I still have to put everything back. How can so much stuff come out of such a small closet? Among other things, it houses the ironing board and the vacuum cleaner, jackets, boots and a shelf full of miscellaneous. It never had a light, and now being painted an off white/pinkish beige, it is nice and bright. We will actually be able to see what's in there!
Tomorrow we are talking about traveling about 100 miles to shop at a couple of big box stores for a door to fit the closet that has none, and to visit some nurserys in that area to see if we can find 2 or 3 more blueberry bushes of different varieties to add to our row. 5 bushes should be enough for 2 people when they start producing. Another item on the priority list is lunch at a nice Italian restaurant. The selection of restaurants in our area is quite limited, so we treat ourselves to something different whenever we have the chance.
Mary
Painting is done, at least for now. The bathroom got a nice bright coat and I really like it. Two years ago I painted it, and while it looked good in natural light, at night it was a bad combination with the countertop. So, when hubby was between paint jobs in closets, and the roller was saturated with paint, we decided to paint 3 of the 4 walls in the bathroom. It looks bigger as well as brighter!
Now that the wind has stopped blowing and the temperature has warmed up about 15-20 degrees, I am back to working on that messy flower bed. The part I am digging in now has never had good soil added to it, and I am finding a lot of rocks which make it hard to dig more than about 4 inches deep. No wonder even the weeds have not done well in that area. I will dump a tractor bucket load of good soil on it tomorrow.
Today we planted the 2 blueberry bushes we bought a few days ago. I thought there would be room for 1 more bush in the row, but there is not, so 4 is the limit unless I want to start another row. Hubby helped me dig the holes, and we prayed that God would help these bushes grow and produce a lot of fruit.
Patch has a continuing problem with the cut on his foot. I thought it was healed except for the skin growing back over the wound, but I noticed a lump, and when I investigated, I found that he has some proud flesh there. Horses are especially prone to having this problem. People get it too, but not so often. It is fast growning, non malignant tissue that is very granular in appearance, bright pink and moist. I'm cleaning it every day and using a powdered medicine on it to dry it up and shrink it. There are quite a few OTC preparations that are available to deal with it, so I hope this one works and we can avoid having to have the excessive tissue trimmed off by a vet. I'm convinced that sooner or later, if a person owns horses, they will get a pretty good education just dealing with the injuries and illnesses. Horses are big and strong, but they are also quite fragile at times.
Yesterday morning I saw racoon tracks, so I am being extra carefull not to leave the cat food outside after dark, and to bury the contents of the compost bucket so that he will find nothing to eat here, and will go visit somebody else. They are cute, but I don't want one living here!
Mary
One of these days soon, we will take the shade cloth off the greenhouse, but for now, we are just too busy with other things to do it. I've concluded that the reflective shade cloth lets in too much light, so I plan to buy the black kind that we normally see over greenhouses to keep my plants from getting sunburned. The shiny kind we have now would be fine in a location that does not get the intensive sun we have here. Our air is clean, and we are at 3300 ft elevation which puts even less polutants between the sun and our little section of the earth. Oh, no, I'm not knocking clean air!
The lump of proud flesh on Patch's foot looks like it hasn't gotten any larger. It's hard to tell about things like this sometimes when looking at it every day. A "before" picture might have been helpful. Yesterday I noticed blood on his face, he appears to have rolled into the fence again. Maybe I need to put a row of rocks about 3-4 ft out from the fence to keep him out of the wire. We got him when he was 18 months old, and have had him about 9 years living in the same bunch of pastures without a mishap. Why now?
Yesterday we borrowed our friend's wood splitter to use on a pile of wood that once was a 2 ft in diameter limb on one of our cottonwood trees. It blew off this summer in a windstorm and came down beside a fence. The fence has a bit of damage, but thankfully only some of the side limbs hit the fence, so that will be easily fixed. When the neighbor has sheep and cattle in the field on the other side, they are looking up at that part of the fence, which also helps keep them on their own side of it.
Today's project is that messy flower bed, again. I'm getting close to the end of it, and have relocated several plants to the mostly finished end. I dug up some asters and a shasta daisy and have them in buckets while I decide where to put them. The daisy was competing with tree roots, a Virginia creeper and a honeysuckle, so I think the other 2 also need to be moved. I thought they would look good with the black eyed susans I have nearby, but they just had too much competition for water and nutrients. The black eyed susans might get moved too, and I can put annuals there. That would make it easier to add compost every year. Good plan. Thanks for helping me decide!
Mary
Snow comes and goes on the mountains to our east and north. Yesterday they had a fresh coat, today it has melted and we see rock again. We had strong cold wind for 2 days when I got nothing done outside. Today and yesterday have been beautiful for working outside, and I am thankful for every good day.
Finally today I finished with the digging in that flower bed project that seems to have taken me forever. If I was working for somebody else, I'd fire me! However, since I'm my own boss, I'm still employed. Today I dug out a fall blooming aster which was a little bitty thing in a 4 inch pot when I bought it several years ago for a couple of dollars. Now it would have easily filled a washtub. It had so many quackgrass roots entwined through the roots that it's no wonder it was struggling to live and give me a few blooms. I have a few pieces of it planted in new places, and about 1/2 of what is left will go back into about the same place after I add another wheelbarrow full of good dirt to the empty spot.
I decided that Patch's lump of proud flesh needed a pressure bandage, so 3 days ago I applied one. Yesterday I unwrapped it, cleaned it up, and rebandaged it. The pressure is making the lump flatten out and therefore either it or the medicine I am putting on it has caused it to stop growing. Now the skin needs to grow over it. I took pictures before the first pressure bandage went on, and again yesterday. I should also measure the wound so I can tell when the skin starts to grow over it.
We got new vinyl in the spare bedroom today. It looks like a short clipped carpet, several muted colors all intermixed. In a few days we need to shop for a few plush area rugs to go beside the bed. The old bed was donated to the Salvation Army thrift store, and the new one should be here tomorrow or the next day. We like the wallpaper, so we left it alone. I can't emagine hubby and I applying wallpaper. Some things we know just won't work!
Yesterday as I was hanging clothes on the line I tripped over a rock at the edge of the flower bed and fell into the dirt still holding on to the clothesline. The pole that supports it wasn't designed for so much weight on one side. It was about 10 years old and has held up to a lot of strong wind with laundry tugging on it, so I guess we got our money's worth. We had to go to the lumber yard to pick up the bifold doors we had ordered for the closets, so we got a new clothesline too, and wonder of wonders, the support pole is the same size as the old one so it just fit right into the socket.
Today hubby got the bifold doors hung on the closet openings. One door frame is crooked and there is a hump in the floor, so that one went back out to the shop twice for trimming before he finally got it to fit and work right.
One day recently I canned 7 quarts of pears. Our tree has outdone itself this year and the fallen pears are covering the area under it. For the first time they taste ok, not really good, but ok, so I canned them with with a mint leaf in each jar. Maybe tomorrow I will can a batch with orange rind, it sounds good, and another recipe I would like to try uses pineapple juice instead of sugar and water syrup. Since they really don't have much pear flavor, I can use them if they have some other interesting flavors.
God's Warrior
Mary, what color are your asters? Here is a picture of mine. If they aren't the same as yours. please save me some of your seeds. I will do the same for you if you wish. I am almost through gathering seeds but still have a few more (such as the asters) that aren't ready yet.
Click to see full size image
Mary
My astors look just like yours. They sure do brighten up an otherwise drab garden in the fall. Thanks for the offer. I have lots of bags of seeds for you, and the heirloom iris that I promised, now I just have to get them in the mail. I think you sent your address to me already.
This evening as I was peeling vegetables for our pot of chicken soup, I looked up and there, not more than about 30 feet outside my kitchen window was a fox trotting along parellel with the fence between the yard and the pasture. He stopped a few seconds later when he saw the horses. Patch got curious and walked toward him, but he only moved about 50 ft, stopped to sniff at something, then trotted to the edge of the pasture and disappeared into our neighbor's field. His winter coat is getting pretty, and his tail is big and fluffy, and as long as his body.
I have finished the flower bed I have been working on for several weeks. It was a major job, but is now all cleaned, has had new soil and manure added, been replanted mostly with plants that were too crowded elsewhere, plus all the bulbs I dug up as I was cleaning out the quackgrass and weeds, and the new bulbs I bought. I mulched the whole thing with the bark chips that we made with the chipper from the bark that came off the firewood. It's kind of red looking, hopefully it will weather to more of a brown color. Near the back gate I planted snapdragons and pansys I bought for 10 cents each so I have a bright spot to look at every time I go out the back door. Next spring the crocus and grape hyacinth will come up between the pansys, giving me another bright spot before the pansys bloom.
I unwrapped, cleaned and rebandaged Patch's foot again today. It looks good and I think the skin is starting to grow. He eats his grain and vitamins while I doctor his foot, so his mind is on something else, which helps him stand still.
The shade cloth is off the greenhouse now, folded up and stored on shelves in the garden shed. Hubby got a new tire for the riding mower, recharged the battery, got it started, mowed some grass and weeds, and put the mower away for the winter. Next spring we will need to buy a new battery for it, no point in buying one now. No telling how old the battery is, we have had the mower about 4 years now but bought it used. The tire was old enough to be deteriorating from age so it would not hold air for very long. It's been a weekly thing all summer to charge the battery and pump up the tire, mow, park it, do it again next week.
In the last few days the forest service has been doing a lot of slash burning in the mountains. It was fine for a couple of days but then the wind brought us the smoke. Today it cleared out enough to see the mountains. It makes pretty sunrises and sunsets, and does lessen the danger of a catastrophic forest fire in the future. We have had a couple of rainy days, plus lower temperatures and higher humidity, so it is fairly safe for them to do the burning now.
Mary
Our fall weather continues to be mild and dry, perfect for doing the outside chores that we need to try to finish before winter. Yesterday I hoisted hubby up in the tractor bucket to cut some branches on trees in our lower small pasture, along our mini creek that feeds our pond. One branch had broken off in a windstorm, blocking the road though the pasture into the next one. Hubby cut a few more limbs on nearby trees, and we loaded the pieces in the tractor bucket to be transported to the woodpile along the fence where they will dry nicely over the next couple of years before we need to burn them.
Patch's wound is healing nicely so now I am leaving it unbandaged. I can see the progress of the skin growing over the wound. Maybe in a few days, when it is completely covered, I can go for a ride. I haven't been on him since late August.
Yesterday morning I missed getting a great picture of the sun coming up behind the sagebrush along our east fenceline. Smoke in the air made the sun a bright red, and looking at it through the bush made us think about the burning bush Moses saw. There wasn't time to get the camera, it was gone too quickly, but will always be in our minds.
With one major flower bed project finished, I have been working on another one, thankfully not such bad shape, so it won't take so long to complete. This latest one is right along the house foundation, just across a narrow strip of lawn from the big one I just finished. It didn't look too bad until I cleaned up the other one. (It's a bit like washing a spot on a wall and having to do the whole thing).
I'm going to close this book now, and start another one. I have pictures of the big flower bed project to show you, and I know that some of you are on dial up internet connections and it takes a long time to load pictures. Look for more chapters in Book 5 which I will start right now.
