summer04I’m speaking of Summer. It is true that we haven’t yet reached the first day of summer, but we have begun the summer season. It’s after Memorial Day now – we can wear white, we can garden in our swim suit (I don’t do that), and enjoy all sorts of frivolities. However, what I’m really talking about is mowing season. It has officially started, as of today. You know how I know this??? The mower deck was ceremoniously placed onto the tractor this morning. Adorned with bowers and flowers. OK, maybe not with the decorations, but definitely with pomp!

img_4492.jpegDustin helped Sue remove the back hoe and attach the mower deck this morning. Then she took it for a spin around the pasture, just to make sure it was working. I kept hearing Dustin say, “You gotta give it more juice!” I never knew tractors ran on juice, but that’s got to be way cheaper than diesel!  So this is a photo of Sue one the Tractor… I was taking it from the house yard, and she kept moving away from me! Not the best… that little yellow smudge under the blue spots is the mower deck. The white fencing you see in the foreground, is actually the run for the meat chicken’s new pasture home. Sue FullSizeRender - 2019-05-27T155147.505got the chicken tractor completed on Tuesday, we hauled it out there and then spent a bit of time getting the fencing up. The ground was so hard, we weren’t sure we would be able to get some of the posts into the ground. So first up, this photo is of the tractor right before the handles and the latches were put on it – basically a done deal save for those. Rocks are de rigueur for any chicken tractors out here; just that little IMG_4494bit of extra weight keeps them grounded. We don’t want any more flights!  For this little pasture patch, we are using a smaller fence – these chickens don’t have the regular forager instinct – they just plop themselves by the feeders and eat most of the day. Sue’s got the fence hooked up to the solar charger that our friend, Ron, got to working for her. She’s thinking of only turning it on at night, once the chickens go in, hoping to make the battery last longer. We’ll see how that goes; I’m not sure how long a charge lasts.  The chickens will be going out in just a few days. Then, we get the next batch of chickens next week, Wednesday or Thursday. Amazing.  Gonna be a busy summer processing.

In other news today, I’ve started pruning back trees again. Had to readdress the maple trees. Sue thought that they were in jeopardy because of their heavy foliage. I had pruned them once, but then they really just leafed out – so took them way down today, in the hopes that they wouldn’t be catching so much air and possibly breaking. Also did the Honey Locust tree by the chicken run, and started in on some oak trees that came back after the fire. They were just bushes when we moved in, but now they have grown to trees and need to be shaped as such.  We’ve got a lot of those, so that might be a long term project. Time got away from me this morning, and I needed to get to work, so Sue helped me with the oak tree by sawing off a few of the bigger branches I couldn’t get with just my loppers. Planted Sue’s mother’s day plant (can’t remember what it is – oh! purple Lantana, I think.) and the Morenga tree that came back this year. Hopefully they are in a place we will remember to water well. Sue did some more weed whacking around… seems like we had a busy day. I’m feeling it at this point.

summer thank youNot sure what the rest of the week holds, if the chicks get moved to pasture, we’ll be sure and document it. (I always have the best of intentions!) Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: Spectacular! Truly. We had a breeze, but not a wind. It wasn’t too hot. There weren’t any problem clouds. All in all, one for the year books. High today was 84°, overnight low will be around 48°. Currently, at 8:41 p.m., it is 66° with 19% humidity and clear skies. Sunrise today was at 5:15 and sunset was at 7:18.

Egg Report:  Tuesday –  33 chicken, 0 duck.  Wednesday – 37 chicken, 7 duck.  Haven’t been getting any goose eggs for a while now, so I’m dropping of her count until she starts laying again.