Around The Farm

Summer is a busy time. Remy has mostly been a good boy, staying in his corral and not causing trouble except sometimes when he balks about returning to the barn in the evening. I don't think he objects to the barn, but sometimes freaks out when we walk through the opening in the electric fence. He doesn't mind going through in the other direction and he doesn't mind if I tie him to a fence post for a minute before leading him through the opening. I have no idea why that helps, but it does:

 Blue is more easily frightened but is also more compliant, so he's always (well, almost always) a good boy:

 They still get lots of hay in their corral and it's time for me to start worrying about the Box Elder tree in their yard, which is covered with (poisonous) seeds. When they start dropping, the horsey boys will have to stay in the barn until it is safe in their corral again:

The Red Poll herd makes frequent trips from the pasture in to the barn because that's where the stock tank is located:

 But mostly they eat grass and lounge around the pasture, always swatting at the pesky flies:

 Violet is timid and easily frightened, despite her large size:

Indoors, Sammy and Bugsy relaxed on one of the yoga mats:

 Clover, Fergus and Daphne napped on the big green floor pillow:

 Daisy hopped up on a chair and rolled over, begging me to pet her. I rubbed her cheeks, which she likes, because I know better than to rub her belly:

Flowers, both wild and cultivated, are blooming prolifically, and I try to bring a vase full of them to church each Sunday. Last week I brought three vases. This one included orange Asiatic Lilies, Blue Sea Holly, wild Cattails, a Ninebark branch with burgundy colored leaves, and white (wild) Bouncing Bet:

 This vase had two colors of Asiatic Lilies, purple Veronica, pink Yarrow and yellow (wild) St. Johnswort:

 This vase contained two kinds of roses, orange Echinacea and white (wild) Bouncing Bet:

What's Happening Around The Farm

The little bantam hens are only laying three or four eggs a day, but even that is more than I can eat. I've begun bringing eggs in for a friend at church each Sunday, which so far seems to be a perfect solution:

I still don't let the chickens outdoors, though I hope I can do so in the fall. Though our fox population seems down, I now have seedlings and new plants all over - and I remember when I first got the chickens and the little hens raided my garden, first eating all the tomatoes, then eating all the plants:

The two baby fantail pigeons are amazingly healthy and smart. They jump down from their nest to join the flock and explore, then jump back up and peep for their parents to come feed them:

Their nest is on a ledge, just above the food barrel and someone else's nest on the floor. The babies frequently jump down and get friendly with the bird on the floor nest. I expected a defensive reaction from the adult, but so far everything has been friendly. The babies hang out with the nesting pair on the floor, then socialize with the flock, then hop back up on their ledge and call to be fed:

When I first moved here, there was a woven wire fence stretching halfway across the middle of the south field. It was dilapidated and of no good use, so I began removing a couple of sections each summer. This year there were only two left, but I hadn't had the energy to dismantle them. Then one day I was cleaning out the barn and saw there were only two sections of fence, so I drove the tractor over there:


Instead of the slow and careful dismantling I did previously, this time I used the tractor bucket to pull the fence and posts up out of the ground:

I got them all firmly held in place on the bucket and drove them out the gate and around by my work area:


I carefully removed the fence from the posts, then folded up the wire into two sections, put them in empty feed bags and dropped them in the trash bins. Now that awful, useless and potentially hazardous section of fence is gone forever:

The little garden I made where I'd removed most a giant stump was looking hopeless, but it improved a lot as the Yarrow and Chives began to grow. There appears to be some Globe Thistle coming along, and the Heliopsis, Delphinium and Veronica I bought at end-of-season sales are helping make my little garden look like it might work:

The stretch of Sunflowers is growing so fast that any photo I take is obsolete in a couple of days. Many of the plants along the fence are already over four feet tall. There are much smaller seedlings in the front of the strip, but they get the most sun and are therefore still likely to do well as the summer progresses:

And then one day, the first Daylily bloomed. I couldn't remember the variety name, so I looked up my last year's order. It is called "Chicago Arnie's Choice" and it appears as if there will be a lot of them. By the way, I've been calling them Day Lilies (two words), but it appears as if the correct name is Daylily (one word). I will try to remember to use the right word in the future:

What is this mess, you may ask. It's the northeast corner of the barn, where the traffic cones I used to use when the cattle crossed the road are nestled in giant Burdock and Ragweed. It's a good thing I don't have allergies:

Birds And Flowers

The two baby fantail pigeons, born in the nest on the crowded ledge, are doing fine and growing rapidly:

Another baby was born in a cake pan nest on a bottom shelf, but kept jumping out. Its parents keep feeding it anyway and I keep putting it back in the cake pan:

The little bantam hens continue to ignore their xylophone, but then I guess when I ordered baby chicks, I forgot to specify the musical variety :

Nevertheless, they seem both happy and healthy:

I've been bringing vases of flowers to church, but one Sunday all I seemed to have were yellow Asiatic Lilies. I put a bunch of them in a red vase and took them with me:

And I began buying leftover perennials on sale at local stores. Some of my purchases included these two Delphiniums and two Veronicas (often called Speedwells):

And these two Echinaceas. All of these plants are supposed to be hardy down to -40 F:

In the place where my Armenian Basket Flower seeds never came up, I put some half priced Red Hot Poker roots. Now I don't know for sure if these are them or weeds. I'm guessing they are the Red Hot Pokers, but they will probably not survive our cold winters. Maybe I can dig them up and replant them in the spring if that's what they turn out to be:

The sunflowers are growing so fast that this picture is already out of date. I can almost see the increase in height each day when I walk past this row:

A closeup of the Veronica flowers:

And a closeup of the two colors of Delphinium:

And then another one of the six baby roses began to bloom, and it was extraordinary. This is the Emily Carr variety, a continuous bloomer and Zone 3 hardy: