It’s Wednesday, traditionally a short post. Let’s stick with tradition, then. After the crazy Monday, things have been rather quiet around here. As long as you don’t count the chicken escapee, who we just can’t catch,  and the mower deck detaching itself from the tractor. Just normal days, really. Let’s catch up.

One of the things that happened Monday, that I didn’t add to the “Grand Day Out” post, but which totally fits in – is that one of the Rhode Island Reds got out of the RCW run area. Sue couldn’t get her to go back in under the netting, so was just waiting until we could walk her back in together. Well, she ended up going through the fencing into the area we consider “the yard”. We haven’t been able to get her to go back over, she’s been sleeping under the porch – we gave her water, but there is no need to feed her – so many bugs and grasses that she doesn’t need that. We’ve been trying ever since to get her to go back. She just wanders around the yard during the day and hides at night. Today I purchased a large net in the hopes that we can get her when she’s on the porch – she does like to investigate up there – and reunite her with her regular flock. Until then, she’s been dubbed “the porch chicken” and she continues to have a grand day out.

We had talked about the goat feeding station that Sue was able to purchase from our neighbor, Tom. I want to report that it is working out very well. They area able to eat what they want, without the ability to throw it all over the ground – thus saving a great deal of waste. We’ve noticed that they are eating their fill, and having some left over, so we’re going to be only feeding them alfalfa once a day – rather than twice. Probably do their pellets, minerals and baking soda in the morning – along with the weeds and plants that Sue throws over – and the alfalfa in the afternoon. The goats pictured at right are Scooby and Taco-George. Thumper is off somewhere exploring, as is his want. Silly kid.

Today Sue’s excitement was the mower deck detaching itself from the tractor while she was trying to mow. What the heck? Well – thankfully George was home and he had her bring it over to look. Seems there is a quick release lever that hadn’t been all the way latched, or pushed in, or attached on – that just kind of came loose. He was able to get it back on and clamped down, with copious amounts of WD-40. Then, while he was working on it, Sue took her grease gun (lube gun?) over there and they lubed the whole thing up and got it working quite nicely. No more squeaking, so that was good. After all that, she was able to start mowing out in the pasture.

Only a couple more tid-bits that I wanted to share…. One being that the damage previously sustained by the vegetables from the hail store, seems to have been overcome. Plants are generally strong, I think, and have a great drive to thrive. The pumpkin plants are even do quite well – and they were completely pulverized. The pumkins are permanently scarred, but – as one friend mentioned – they’ll make great jack-o-lanterns for Halloween! You’ll find the other tid-bit at the end, after the weather and egg reports.

So – here we are at mid-week, the more time slows down, the more it seems to speed up. Summer will be over before we know it and Autumn will be creeping over the mountains soon. I’ve been enjoying the monsoon weather and the wonderful green that it brings us.  This is really our spring time. The Oak trees are putting on new growth and the yucca’s are blooming beautifully. The grasses are bright and the bugs are plentiful. It’ll be sad to see it go – but autumn brings its own splendid colors as well, and its a ways away yet; still quite a bit of summer to enjoy. We hope to share it with you, here, or in person! Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

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Today’s Weather: Nice and cool today. We had showers on and off in the afternoon. Currently, 6:39 p.m., it is 74°. We have a storm sneaking up on us from the south, looks like rain around 7:45 p.m.  High today was 82° our overnight low will be around 65°. Sunrise today was at 5:45 and sunset will be at 7:02. Partly cloudy tomorrow and Friday with some more rain expected over the weekend.

Egg Report: Tuesday – zero goose, maybe 1 duck, 25 chicken. Wednesday- zero goose, zero duck, 28 chicken.

Extra tid-bit: Morning bath fun… otherwise known as “get that evil hose”.