FullSizeRender - 2019-05-10T144453.490Sometimes its the little things that make you happy. Sue sent me this photo of a small cactus plant in bloom. The bloom seems to be twice the size of the plant itself. I wasn’t sure it was going to make it at first.  Now I think I need to move it since it’s really close to a chicken run – the run wasn’t there when I first planted a little cactus garden. 

I’m in my home town for a few days; came to see my niece in a rather large production of Peter Pan. So, I’m on my home turf. Not sure I’ll be able to relate much of my visit to farm stuff; however, I may do an update on my brother and sister-in-law’s aquaponic farm. They went through all the hurdles to get certified by California Department of Agriculture, so I thought I’d take some photos of their spread and share them with you next week.

IMG_4448It’s been fun running into people around town – not many folks knew I was coming and when they see me in the stores or whatever, they do a double take. (Dinah – saw your mom briefly as I came into the library today to blog… she looks amazing!) Because my parents live out in the hinterlands – I come into town to blog at the library.  I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw our friend, Caylor’s, artwork on the wall. These are two paintings from her newest series of acrylic paintings depicting domestic farm animals, “Meat Your Friends.” She enjoys the simple country atmosphere of Ramona where her family has lived for almost 30 years and wants to share the faces of the beautiful creatures we depend on. The white cow portrait is entitled “Holy Cow” and the the black and white cow portrait is called IMG_4438“Verde.” I have photos of several others she’d done: turkeys, chickens, her little dog Lulu – they are all embodied with such personality. I love her talent. We want her to come and paint the chicken on the RCW. Just had a pedicure with her and she’s hoping she’ll come out to visit for a long weekend this summer sometime. That would be so wonderful!!! We’ll see if we can make that happen.

So, while I’m away, goofing off – Sue is at home manning the farm. I’m hoping that Dustin is helping her out with things. She’s been sending me reports – as well as the opening photo above. When I get back, I know that she’ll give me the low down, until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: In Ramona, it’s been drizzling since Monday. Supposed to really rain tomorrow. Hereford looks like it’s been fixing to storm, maybe monsoon is arriving early. Today’s high was 70° with an overnight low expected to be 46°. Currently, at 3:17 p.m., it is 69°, partly cloudy, with 26% humidity. Sunrise today was at 5:26 and sunset will be at 7:05.

Egg Report: Tuesday – 36 chicken, 3 duck. Wednesday 35 chicken, 2 duck. Thursday – 37 chicken, 3 duck. Sue says that the ducks have been laying outside of the coop. Last time that happened it meant that we had a snake in the coop – so far she hasn’t seen one again, but she’s keeping an eye out.  Snakes are good and bad. They are great for eating the mice, but they scare the chickens and the ducks; if they run out of mice they start stealing chicken eggs. We need to train the snakes to only eat the mice and to leave once they have done so. Fat chance!