Scenes From Summertime

When she was here visiting, my sister took this photo of the farm from the county road:

 And she stayed after church because they serve a meal each Sunday:

 I showed her the Blue Sea Holly and Asiatic Lilies, both of which were putting on real show at that time:

 We found a few branches on a couple of trees which were producing apples:

 And the plums were growing rapidly:

 I showed her the two nearly fledged baby fantail pigeons:


And then she found several nests with babies which I had not even seen. This one was on the floor:

 And this one was up on a shelf:

 Later, I brought in a pan of water for the pigeons because they love to bathe and play in water. I brought in two pans but one had a leak. I'll buy another pan the next time I'm at the feed store:

 My sister also gave me a bug zapper paddle, a battery operated swatter which zaps them when they hit the wire mesh. It's fun, but I have to swing it fast to get the flies and then I can't see if it worked or not. I didn't have it turned on when I took this photo and only saw the fly on the mesh when I downloaded it. If only I'd noticed at the time, I could have pushed the button!

 After my sister left, I cleaned out the barn. With the horses spending each night there, the hay and manure builds up quickly:

 It took about six tractor buckets to haul it away to the manure/compost pile. The barn sure smelled better after I'd finished: