It’s a gorgeous morning, sunny and cool here. The only thing wrong with late summer – fall mornings is that they are so wet- the dew drenches everything. Just walking to the barn left my pant legs soaked and the grass is short. Golden rod is blooming, which signals the end of summer. The buddleia is looking nice too. I have seen the biggest, fattest hummingbirds I have ever seen this year hanging around them. I think they are stocking up to migrate but I have never seen them this fat.
Our hens are laying quite well now although the eggs are a little small still. I picked up 5 by 9 am and I know more hens were laying. The turkeys were out as usual. Turkeys look so pre-historic to me. The bourbon red crosses I have are very pretty but they fly very well too. I must have the white ones butchered soon. Raising my own meat doesn’t seem as easy anymore.
Squirrels are back on the property. The mean little red ones too. I saw cedar seeds had been munched on the other day and today the first thing I heard when I got up was a crabby squirrel scolding something. There are some acorns and walnuts this year although I don’t know if the crop on either will be huge. I think what killed or drove them off this spring was a lack of food, there were few nuts last fall. It’s just as well because the population needed thinning.
I walked around the pond last evening and scared up the little night heron that always seems to be around this time of year. The pastures are thigh high except where Steve has mowed a path through. I always think of what could be eating that grass, even though my desire to have large animals around is tempered by knowing that winter feed is expensive and caring for animals in winter is a lot of hard work. Still some nice pasture raised beef would be real tasty. Steve kind of wants to do pigs again, you can get them raised in one season and butcher them before winter.
We still have three of the mixed cocker puppies left to find homes for. They are the biggest cry babies of any puppies we have ever raised. If one gets the slightest put down from a big dog or gets its toes stepped on it screams bloody murder and the other two join in like they are all being killed. They seem friendly enough and we are giving them more attention to try and work out the silly screaming business but boy, they can use their lungs. They seem to be joined telepathically or something, when one is injured or scared they all start screaming. Buddy and Tina, as the next youngest, seem to enjoy provoking screams, which they can sometimes do just by running up to one of the crybabies. They are as big as Tina, but then when she was six weeks old she was wrestling puppies twice her size and winning.
I wish this type of weather could stay around all year. I love cool nights and sunny, not too hot, low humidity days. The sky in late summer is so deep blue, and if rains have been good as they have been for us this year, everything is so lush. But I always get this lazy, hazy feeling in fall, the days are perfect for work but I don’t want to do it. I do want to store food like a little squirrel and cooking and baking seem more inviting. I guess I am preparing for winter- I am one of those people who are affected by seasonal depression – I want to sleep through winter. When the days get shorter my energy does too. I guess this type of hoard food and conserve energy instinct was good for my ancestors, so I'll live with it.
Living the dream
Visiting grandmas farm.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
county fair
Well I am recovering from a week at the county fair- The Eastern Michigan fair to be exact. When I was a girl in 4-H I loved being at the fair- we got to go for a few hours every day to care for our animals but we seldom got to stay the day, because we lived close to the fairgrounds.
I still like the fair but a week of it at my age is a little much. The Master Gardeners in our county have a whole 100 by 60 foot building to develop into an exhibit, which I am in charge of. This year we had some wonderful exhibits, including a moon garden that you had to walk through a darkened corner to see under black lights and a scary poisonous plants garden plus other wonderful gardens. It takes over three days to set all this up so we start early. Then I have to be there each day to open the building and I stay until evening volunteers come in to watch the exhibit until closing. I stay the last day from 10 am to 10 pm. Then we clean up on a Sunday- clean up takes only a few hours thankfully- it’s amazing how fast it comes down.
I had lots of fair food, tastes good going down but keeps you awake later. I also had lots of noise, heat and walking on cement floors. This year we also had an elderly lady run her car into our building, luckily no one was hurt, a hail storm, try listening to that under a metal pole barn roof, and a young girl have a seizure in our building just after I opened one morning. The first few days were almost unbearably hot and humid but the weather cooled down a bit later in the week. Last Sunday when we were packing up it was chilly and a cold rain that looked almost like snow was falling.
The worst thing about all this fair time is I seem to lose all sense of what is happening at home. My routine is gone and it always seems like the animals and the weeds grow like crazy while I’m away. I came home with a new yellow tree rose and a couple new herb plants- and I need to plant out some of the plants I grew in pots for the fair.
While I was gone our new hens started laying and we don’t have nest boxes up yet. I picked up 6 nice brown eggs today of various colors and sizes. No more store bought eggs I guess. The heritage turkeys are flying out of the pen and they ate the back half of each head of cabbage in the garden. They fly right back into the pen if you start toward them. Steve enlarged the inside pen and we are going to get those nest boxes up. Once the hens are laying reliably inside I think I will allow them some free range time outside their pen.
My sweet corn is ripening! It is so good. The bad news is that my tomatoes are succumbing to the disease that is sweeping our area. It blackens the vines and kills them after a few days. I was of the opinion that it was late blight, but our ag agent for vegetables thinks its something else. We sent some samples in to the lab.
I gave the puppies we have here their shots and wormed them today. Three are going to be sold on Sunday to members of the same family. Then we have an ad coming out for the rest. After this litter is gone we are going to gut and remodel that room and get a door to the back yard put in. Three of my female dogs are in heat but we are not going to have any litters for a while. This is the first time Gus, the Jack Russell stud, hasn’t broken out of his kennel when females are in heat. I guess the new kennels, or maybe the neutering- worked!
I still like the fair but a week of it at my age is a little much. The Master Gardeners in our county have a whole 100 by 60 foot building to develop into an exhibit, which I am in charge of. This year we had some wonderful exhibits, including a moon garden that you had to walk through a darkened corner to see under black lights and a scary poisonous plants garden plus other wonderful gardens. It takes over three days to set all this up so we start early. Then I have to be there each day to open the building and I stay until evening volunteers come in to watch the exhibit until closing. I stay the last day from 10 am to 10 pm. Then we clean up on a Sunday- clean up takes only a few hours thankfully- it’s amazing how fast it comes down.
I had lots of fair food, tastes good going down but keeps you awake later. I also had lots of noise, heat and walking on cement floors. This year we also had an elderly lady run her car into our building, luckily no one was hurt, a hail storm, try listening to that under a metal pole barn roof, and a young girl have a seizure in our building just after I opened one morning. The first few days were almost unbearably hot and humid but the weather cooled down a bit later in the week. Last Sunday when we were packing up it was chilly and a cold rain that looked almost like snow was falling.
The worst thing about all this fair time is I seem to lose all sense of what is happening at home. My routine is gone and it always seems like the animals and the weeds grow like crazy while I’m away. I came home with a new yellow tree rose and a couple new herb plants- and I need to plant out some of the plants I grew in pots for the fair.
While I was gone our new hens started laying and we don’t have nest boxes up yet. I picked up 6 nice brown eggs today of various colors and sizes. No more store bought eggs I guess. The heritage turkeys are flying out of the pen and they ate the back half of each head of cabbage in the garden. They fly right back into the pen if you start toward them. Steve enlarged the inside pen and we are going to get those nest boxes up. Once the hens are laying reliably inside I think I will allow them some free range time outside their pen.
My sweet corn is ripening! It is so good. The bad news is that my tomatoes are succumbing to the disease that is sweeping our area. It blackens the vines and kills them after a few days. I was of the opinion that it was late blight, but our ag agent for vegetables thinks its something else. We sent some samples in to the lab.
I gave the puppies we have here their shots and wormed them today. Three are going to be sold on Sunday to members of the same family. Then we have an ad coming out for the rest. After this litter is gone we are going to gut and remodel that room and get a door to the back yard put in. Three of my female dogs are in heat but we are not going to have any litters for a while. This is the first time Gus, the Jack Russell stud, hasn’t broken out of his kennel when females are in heat. I guess the new kennels, or maybe the neutering- worked!
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