3rd Official Day of Summer

This post was really supposed to happen yesterday, but due to various camera/photo issues, I decided to quit and try again the next day. Hopefully my photography vibes are more in tune today.

We are to the last of our June roses; the pink climbing roses that wreath the kitchen porch trellis:

They are a bit past their prime in this photo. Most of them faded and a little bug eaten. When the blooms first open they are almost hot pink, fading to baby pink after a couple of days. And the bug eaten issue is just part of the general beetle plague that has descended upon our landscape. Not Japanese beetles, though they are just as voracious, these are little brown and black beetles that are about the same size as the Japanese, but not the right colors. And they won't be here for long. We had the same thing last year, and luckily it's only a couple of weeks and then they are gone. Until this time is over, Sevin dust is much more of a friend than we like it to be, and contact with beetle poop is an every time you go outside occurrence.


Pictures of the garden this time a year are always so pretty:

Everything is pretty well weeded. At least for the next day or so. Once the rain and cloudy skies let up, we're in trouble. It's easier to stay on top of weeding because right now harvesting and preserving time is at a minimum. That time will end soon. And then its a question of weed between the rows or do something now before these tomatoes turn to mush on the kitchen counter. You can guess what happens. Though we really, really want to work on reducing the weed seed load of our garden soil this year. Which means catching weeds before they go to seed. We've mulched in several areas, and are trying to work at running the hand plow between rows as often as possible, or hoeing and hand weeding where required. If it would dry out for 2 minutes, that would be helpful.


On the animal front, baby chicks and turkeys are growing well. Starting to become curious and aggressive. Ready to be in outside pens.  We kicked the hen turkeys off the next because we found out they had broken all their eggs, and thus weren't incubating anything! They moped for about a day, and then got over it.


Calves and pigs are growing well. Getting ready to build up our hay supply to keep the calves on hay for a couple of weeks while we block off the pasture and let the grass grow back up tall. Which they hate, but it keeps our grass from getting ate down to the quick.


Other than that, we're just ready for a little bit more moderate weather pattern. With sunshine and warmth, and the occasional rain shower, appropriately timed, of course. The constant stream of rain and storms, thumbs down.

Or at least that's what this brocolli plant said. Broken off at the base by Tuesday night's gusty storm, just as it was getting ready to form a flower head . . . of course.  


Time to go pick some berries, and get my daily dose of beetle poop.

A Little Lost

Yesterday morning I was letting Checkers out on her tie out before I closed the house up and went to the grocery store. It is not unusual for her to go a little nuts if she catches the scent of one of our outdoors cats on the porch, steps, or landscaping. But she was going pretty crazy, as if the cat itself was hiding under the buttercup bush. The cats don't usually stick around and hide though, if a dog is in the picture. I glanced under the bush seeing what looked like an extra rock in the landscaping border, and thinking it was about the right size to be a baby bunny.


So I put Checkers in the house, bend down, and push the branches of the buttercup back to get a better look. Not a bunny, not a rock, not a cat,  but a . . .

TURTLE! Friends, we live a half to three-quarters of a mile from the nearest creek, wetland or river. How and why did we end up with not a forest-loving box turtle, but a water-loving painted turtle hanging out by our front step? I have heard of female turtles walking quite a ways away from their home to lay their eggs, but really??? We don't have any water for babies when they would hatch. I think this turtle got a little lost.


So I put her in a bucket, and carried her down the road to the creek, and set her a little ways from the water's edge. Pointed away from the road, obviously. Hoping that if she felt the need to climb away from the water she would just go up the hill into the woods, and not turn around towards the road.


Checkers and I took a walk this morning. No smashed turtle on the road. So far, so good.

Strawberries and Roses

Right now, the highlights of these early June days . . .


Strawberries:

and Roses . . .

They make the weed, mulch, mow cycle a little bit more enjoyable :)


What little joys are you finding in your early June days?

Around the Farm

Around the farm, we've had a little bit of everything . . .

Ryan saved this gorgeous cecropia moth from the barnyard, where we were pretty sure one of the chickens would find it and think that it was quite a treasure to parade around with.  As slow as it was moving it was either at the very beginning or end of its short life, pumping its wings in a slow motion version of flight.

Most people don't think about there being moths in Indiana the size of one's hand. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've seen one of these. They seem almost otherworldly compared to the small, simple critters we are used to seeing congregate around our porch lights.


Otherwise, it's just hanging out with the barnyard critters . . .

As you can see, the pigs are growing quite well. And enjoying every chance they get to roam the pasture, and get a good back scratch. And take a good wet, muddy bath when the weather gets hot . . . even if the water pan is not quite big enough:

A few weeks ago we kicked the turkey hens out of their separate building because even though they were laying eggs, they showed no signs of going broody. Now they're both broody, at the same time, sharing custody of about 15 eggs . . . in the dog house in the middle of the pasture where all the other birds can go in and out at liberty. But they are not to be detered from their goal of motherhood evidentally . . .

They're everywhere . . .

Lately, the skies around here have looked a lot like this a great deal of the time (I have quit counting how many days in a row of rain):

On a hot summer day, I would almost welcome clouds like that; they mean a big shift in temperature is coming . . . hopefully for the better. But we may have just seen a few too many of these lately.


At least the rain makes somethings grow and bloom. Just in time for Memorial Day as usual the irises are in full swing. Somebody who lived in our house a long time ago like irises, and as required with them, they get dug up and spread around a little more every couple of years. So now they're pretty much everywhere, and we are blessed by their colors during a dark, rainy week.



Light purple:

Dark purple like a royal robe:

Mauve and burgundy . . . like a fancy coat and dress:

Bright yellow, like lemon meringue and sunshine:

And every year I get excited knowing that soon I will get to take this picture, all red, yellow, and purple . . .

This year the purple is a little lacking . . . the dame's rockets are not hardly there for some reason. A couple of years ago it looked like this:

Which makes me a little sad, that it is has changed. Really though, that's part of loving our own little spot here on earth, and really anything I suppose . . . is knowing that it will change, but loving and finding the wonder and beauty of it still . . .



Here's hoping you have a blessed weekend, and that you take a few minutes to find the beauty and wonder that is your own little corner of the world. Happy Friday!

New Arrivals

As of about 6:20 a.m. this morning we are the proud owners of 26 baby chicks. Picked up from the post office in their little box with holes in it, and the bright orange label that proclaims that the box contains LIVE CHICKS, postmaster please do not expose to drafts, extreme heat or cold. When you get to the post office, they don't have to go searching for your box; they've been spending the last hour with the noisy little guys and will meet you at the door with them if you call ahead.

Now they are settled in the our new brooder box designed by Ryan to take the place of a less than efficient hardware cloth cage we'd been using the last couple of years. For the next few hours, eating, drinking, and trying to peck the print off the newspaper in the bottom of the cage will be all the rage. Then the excitement will wear off, and they will fall into alarming baby chick naps; alarming because one second they're wide awake, and the next second collapsed on the floor, wings splayed, eyes closed. Looking for all the world like there is something desparately wrong, but then 10 seconds later they hop up, seemingly refreshed and ready to take on the world, or at least the water trough :)

 















The other occupants of our garage are not as loud, and are quite a bit larger. Three baby Bourbon Red turkeys have been growing in their little brooder tank for a week now. As you can see, they aren't overly fond of people. And have yet to figure out that they are now too big to hide behind the thermometer. At first I didn't really think they had grown that much, but then I took a good look at them yesterday; they now how good starts of feathers, and have probably gained an inch or so in height since I brought them home last week.


Outside, a new crop of flowers is coming on.

These irises are the ones closest to blooming of the many, many to be found on our property. Closer to the ground are these:

Lily of the valley. This morning showing the heavy dew and spider webs that seem to be covering everything.


Looks like its going to be a beautiful day around here . . . have a wonderful Friday!

Rain . . . again

The rain measured in the above picture occurred in less than 24 hours here on the farm, so spring gardening has come to a halt until the ground can dry out that 2.8" plus 0.5" plus whatever we have gotten in sprinkles the past few days. What is in the ground in the garden already (including the grass and weeds), is soaking it all up, and growing nicely (or too fast in the case with weeds). We are blessed that we live on sandy soil, and seemed to have just missed the complete deluge of 3 to 4 inches that happened just to the south of us the same evening. So things will not take a horrible long time to dry . . . we hope.

Until there are always the critters to take care of. Three baby turkeys living under the heat lamp in the garage. The two pigs who are eating like crazy, and make me sad that I don't have something that needs rooted up . . . they root with vengeance whenever we let them out of their pen. The calves are enjoying lush spring grass and have grown to be almost as tall as me, which is good but now allows them to reach over and slurp on my hair when I'm doing chores, which is not good. At least from my point of view . . . they seem to think its fun.