…and it’s only Tuesday! We had a good weekend – tackling some projects in the morning, like mowing the front “lawn”. In the photo on the right, you can see how high the grasses were getting. The short parts are where Sue had passed before I got out there to take the “before” photo. To the left is the “after” photo. Everything is looking so golf course like. We even have rough areas. Come play the links! While Sue was mowing, I started mucking out the french drain for the gray water. The last hard rain we had really washed the dirt into it and I needed to clean it out and

reorganize the rocks, start a wall around it, etc. I had maybe half of it mucked out and got called in to work. When I got back and hour or so later, it was getting too hot for us to be working outside, so we took some time in the middle of the day to see Wonder Woman; that was pretty fun.

 

We take Sunday as a Sabbath day, so we had a nice pot roast dinner with Alexis, Dustin and Irie, shared the buttermilk biscuits and some brownies with our good friend Holly (she bought some eggs!) and pawned some veggies off on her, then went to Tractor Supply for feed and straw. All in all, a pretty low key day.

Monday was definitely a Monday I was working in town until 5:30, and Sue mowed almost all day. She had some help from our neighbor, George, who mows outside the property along the county maintained road and down our property line. Sue also asked him to mow inside the lower back field – he gets closer to the fence than she likes to on her tractor. So the two of them together got a lot of the fields completed.

Today is Tuesday, and I’m writing today because after I got home and did some cooking it was way to late to blog. This entry will be the report for the week, until Friday; unless something stupendous happens tomorrow. Our afternoon work was mowing for Sue, and more french drain work for me. But because Sue had to get manure from the Zimmerman’s and Diesel for the tractor, I got to go take care of the goat boys and love on them for a little bit. That was a fun change of pace. Then, once Sue was back, while she mowed the upper field, I worked on building the low rock wall around the French Drain and lining it with rocks. It’s coming out ok, just take a long time. It’s like a nature puzzle, so it’s fun. At least the showers and wash machine are draining nicely.

You may remember that we have a few chickens in solitary confinement because of illness or injury. We’re not too sure how the one Delaware that has been ailing for some time will do- one day she looks horrible, then she rallies, all we can do is keep her in food, water, and grit and hope that she can power through it. We’re really not sure what the problem is with her.  Of the two with injuries, the Sussex – who was not injured as badly – looks like she is really doing well. We’re keeping her with the injured Delaware (as opposed to the sick Delaware) so they both have company and so the don’t re-injure themselves right away. The Delaware is putting more weight on her leg, and we hope that, given enough time, she’ll recover as well. When we know better about all of these guys, we’ll make sure to give you an update here. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading.

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Today’s Weather: Hot and Muggy. It was that way all through out the weekend. Right now, the temperature is very comfortable 75°; the high was around 90°.

Egg Report: We’ve just had some banner egg days! Saturday we picked up 11; Sunday we had a record 16; Monday went down a little, back to 11; and today we had 19 (because we finally found Maeve’s stash! – behind the kennel that the two injured hens are in. Had a devil of a time getting the eggs out. That Maeve is a trickster! Should have called her Loki.)

Cool sighting of the week: Yesterday evening, as we walked down to take care of the neighbors’ dog, we saw this brilliantly blue bird along the road. He was sitting on a fence post along a meadow to the east of us. Sue tried to get a photo of him, but we were rather far away and it was dusk, so the lighting was very good. Looking through the bird book my mom left for us, we’ve decided that what we saw was a Blue Grosbeak. Absolutely gorgeous. We do have some wonderful birds here! This is what the Audubond online bird directory has to say about them: The husky warbling song of the Blue Grosbeak is a common sound in summer around thickets and hedgerows in the southern states. Often the bird hides in those thickets; sometimes it perches up in the open, looking like an overgrown Indigo Bunting, flicking and spreading its tail in a nervous action. During migration, and in winter in the tropics, Blue Grosbeaks may gather in flocks to feed in open weedy fields. We do have some wonderful birds here!