Birds, Flowers, And Livestock

Summer is in full swing now and our weather was idyllic, except during the heat wave (which is now over). The herd is comfortable in the pasture and all seem to get along well. On the day I snapped this photo, Blue lay down (still wearing his muzzle) for a rest and little Lucky walked up to give him a sniff and a closer look:

The hens are living safe, comfortable lives, even though they can't go outside anymore:

The four Easter Egger bantams often hang out together. The lead hen in this photo is Blondie, the little chick who I said was too dumb to make it to adulthood. She proved me wrong, though, and has done quite well:

The Barred Rock bantams are getting kind of old for laying hens, but I have more eggs than I know what to do with anyway, so fewer eggs is a good thing:

The white fantail pigeons are laying plenty of eggs, but so far they've only raised one baby:

The new baby is up and about but getting pecked on the head like all the other baby pigeons before him or her. I even think I saw the parents do the pecking just before feeding it, so I can only observe and wonder:

Pairs still make nests and lay eggs, though they often don't hatch:

Outdoors, the north field has been hayed but the outside of the fence is filled with wildflowers - in this case, mostly Cow Vetch:

And the driveway is filling up with Pineapple Weed, just as it does every year. The aroma is most noticeable when I mow them. Pineapple Weed is related to Chamomile, but the flowers don't have the white "petals:"

 The Magic Carpet Spirea I planted last year is thriving and blooming. The Variegated Weigela behind it was just planted this year and is already blooming:

A close-up of the Spirea blossoms:

The North Country In Flower

Our north country winters are long and difficult, so the extravagance of spring and summer are especially impressive when they arrive. This patch of Peonies is doing so well that I think maybe I planted them too closely together. On the plus side, they are crowding out the weeds:

All the old Peonies are white, but I have a few single petaled red plants which I just added:

I rescued an old-fashioned rose in the side yard and then rooted a shoot from it alongside the road. It's been living and growing for at least four years now, and this year it's really doing well:

The wild Cow Vetch is beautiful when it's in bloom, though I have to pull a lot of it out from around the flowers I've planted:

This pair of fantail pigeons hatched two eggs in a nest on the floor:

On the second day, I got to see the tiny babies. Sadly, they both died after a few days. This often happens, and it's always sad:

This is the view on the north side of the house, with the Mock Orange bush just beginning to bloom, the old-fashioned rose and a clump of white Peonies. There also were yellow Day Lilies mixed in with the white Peonies until the day I snapped this photo:

I have said that my Mock Orange doesn't have the aroma that many varieties are famous for, but this year I could smell at least a faint aroma. But the main attraction is its flowering ability:

And another of the new Iris plants put out a giant flower, so big that its stem fell over to the ground. I propped it up and hoped for the best:

I'd hoped the Ninebark would have colored flowers but they are white:


On the plus side, the red buds look peppermint striped when the white petals begin swelling inside them:

The new, baby Morden Sunrise rose put out a full sized flower so vibrantly colored that I spotted it from the road and came over to investigate. A big rose bush, covered with these flowers is an appealing prospect for the future. These are Canadian roses and Zone 3 hardy, so I am hopeful:

Spring Has Become Summer

The cattle seem peaceful and happy. Both Rocket and Lucky are growing like wildfire. Rocket is sold and I have a deposit on him, but he hasn't yet been picked up:

The apple trees produced hardly any flowers this spring, but they are alive. Alas, the Bush Cherry which had done so well the last few years is completely dead. I now need to remove the frame around it and cut the dead bush down:

I was out in the south field, searching for the horses' muzzles one afternoon, when I saw this patch of Ragged Robin growing around a fence post. I thought it was a photo-worthy scene:

The cherry tree has produced some baby cherries:

And baby plums on the usually productive tree. I saw none on the second plum tree which bloomed for the first time this year:

Baby pears. The pear tree seems to be doing well:


One Sunday morning I collected some yellow and purple Iris, mixed them with Spirea branches and put them in a vase. I took them to church, then back home to sit on my kitchen counter:

Remy had shucked his muzzle and was running away from me when I took this photo. He had no intention of holding still while I put it back on. It was otherwise a pleasant scene:

The south field, filled with Buttercups and Ragged Robin:

And as I searched the fence line for the muzzles the horses had jettisoned, I snapped a picture of these Fleabane and Ragged Robin flowers:

The fence line runs behind an old stone wall, which presented me with a miniature woodland scene:

And Cow Vetch seems to be growing everywhere right now. June is a pleasant month except that there is so much work to do:

St. Regis River Access Plants - Part 2

I was hiking with the dogs along the St. Regis River and photographing the abundant wildflowers there (see also Part 1, posted yesterday). There was a lot of Heal-All, and it was unusually large and deeply colored:

It was the Cardinal Flower I'd come to see, but there wasn't any to be found - until Jack called my attention to some. He walked right underneath a brilliantly scarlet spike of flowers:

I looked around and found more Cardinal Flowers growing next to the river. There were fewer of them than most years, but enough to get some good photos:

Some of the Cardinal Flowers were just beginning to open:

And some hadn't yet opened at all:

We walked uphill, away from the river, and continued on the trail where we found patches of Moss and Wild Strawberries. Now that we were back on the trail, I didn't know what kind of plants we might find:

We found lots of Yarrow in bloom:

And Cow Vetch, some of it 4 feet high, supported by the surrounding plants:

Wild Blackberries, though none were ripe:

More Common Milkweed. This one was so gigantic that I snapped a photo with my hand to show its size. It reminded me of the Rubber Tree Plants which were popular house plants when I was a boy:

And of course there were Oxeye Daisies. I'll post Part 3 tomorrow:

Bush Hogging The North Field

I went out early in the morning to bush hog the north field, but when I got to the barn, I saw these two baby Starlings on the ground, next to the milk room. A Starling nests somewhere up in the insulation below the milk room roof, entering through the eave, each year. I had no way to put the babies back into the nest and could only hope the mother would find them, so all I could do was continue on into the barn and began my day:

 I have been seeing lots of Swallows, more than ever before, and had trouble identifying them. I caught this one on a wire and got a photo, deciding it was a Tree Swallow. I've also been seeing Swallows colored like Barn Swallows but without the long, forked tails. Now that I've got a nest of them, I have identified them as Cliff Swallows. The neighbors say they have Barn Swallows, but I haven't seen the nests. I don't know why the population explosion of Swallows, but I love it! This year there are fewer biting flies than previous years, and I think the swallows' swallowing them is the reason:

 Then I began bush hogging the north field, stopping to photograph wildflowers such as these beautiful Chicory flowers. They are the bluest of the blue. That is Pineapple Weed below them:

 I also stopped to spray paint any rocks which broke the surface of the ground:

 Common Milkweed, a problem plant as far as cattle are concerned, but with perhaps the sweetest perfume of any wildflower. And of course Monarch Butterflies require Milkweeds:

 I had two types of Thistles in the north field. I sprayed most of them with weed killer, but couldn't get them all. Bush hogging (I hope) will cut these off before they flower and produce seed. I searched my field guide and decided this kind was Canada Thistle:

 And this giant, invasive monster was, I decided, the aptly named Bull Thistle. They grow huge and they grow fast:

 

 While I was anxious to bush hog the thistles, I hated to do the same to the white Musk Mallows:

And the lovely pink Musk Mallows. It had to be done, though:

 Cow Vetch is everywhere and grows so low that the bush hog scarcely touched it:

 When I was all done, I removed the bush hog from the tractor and parked them both inside the barn. I was on my way back to the house when I saw a Starling flutter up from the ground. Then I noticed the babies were missing. Did some animal eat them? No, the mother had moved them around the corner, tucking them into the grass between the milk room and a lilac bush. A sad postscript to this story - the next morning, I discovered that a predator had gotten both babies: