Cleaning and Haying In June

The north field (in the background) was filled with tall grass, all ready to be hayed, so when I decided to clean up the cedar branches and old, rotten lumber from my wall repair, I drove to the wood pile along the outside of the fence. That way I didn't knock down any of the soon-to-be hay. It took two bucket loads to clear it all away:

I was wrong about there not being any baby fantail pigeons. I discovered this one high up on a shelf nest where I just hadn't noticed it before. It's a quiet, inactive bird and quite unlike some of the loud, hyperactive babies which have gotten themselves into trouble in the past. Maybe the parents are just keeping it so well fed it only lies there and burps all day:

Yellow Day Lilies began blooming amid a clump of Peonies. They appear every year without any assistance from me except to mow around the clump:

Out in the pasture, I saw these Common Fleabane flowers. There used to be more of them when I first moved here:

 

 We were predicted to have nearly a week of idyllic weather, and one day my neighbor began lining up his haying equipment on my lawn:

Meanwhile, I began brush hogging the pasture. The tall weeds were hiding the horses' heads when I tried to see if they still had their muzzles on. Furthermore, I was spending several hours each day searching for lost muzzles. It took about six hours over two days to get it all bush hogged:

The wildflowers were pretty, but Buttercups were taking over. They are inedible and increasing because they kept dropping seed. You can see here the uncut portion on the left, and a mowed section on the right. The bush hog cuts rather high, so I am hoping it didn't disturb many bird nests:

But let's face it - a wildflower meadow is a beautiful thing. I wanted a photo of it before I chopped off all those flower heads:

Meanwhile, my two neighbors (a nephew and his uncle) began haying, then tedding. Tedding is when they turn over the cut hay to help it dry in the sun. They had to ted it multiple times before they began baling:

And then they attached the baler, followed by a hay wagon. This year he had a brand new kicker, which tosses the finished bales up in the air and into the wagon, where the uncle caught it and stacked it neatly. I had to take a number of photos to get one which showed an airborne bale, but you can see it in this picture, just entering the front of the hay wagon. Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it:

The horses and cattle ignored all the activity and lounged and grazed peacefully in the south field pasture:

The fantail pigeons were enjoying life in the barn. They are sociable birds with each other and also, in their own way, with me. They know where their food, water and bedding comes from:

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:

Around The Farm, Bush Hogging The South Field

This is Blondie, an Easter Egger Bantam hen. When she was a baby, I was convinced that she was so stupid that she would probably not survive. But now she's fine. I suppose I might have been right about her, but it doesn't take much intelligence to eat, poop and lay eggs:

 These two fantail pigeons keep trying to nest on the board which covers the water buckets. I can't allow that because I need to access the water, so I keep moving their eggs to the nearby board. They are not amused:

 This little lady keeps trying to nest on the floor, next to the wall where the door hits her every time I open it. I keep moving her eggs also. She's more agreeable to my moving her eggs:


 The pigeons seem happy and healthy, though there still have been no eggs hatched:


The Rugosa Roses are finished with their explosive flowering, but they will continue to bloom modestly all through the summer:

Our many weeks of rain finally came to an end and I began bush hogging the far south field:

 The far south field is a small field, surround by trees on three sides, and produces nice hay each September. The herd has access to that field until I mow it. After that, I rope it off (with electrified rope) until it's time to cut the hay:

 The grass (and weeds) was unusually tall for this field, up to three feet high, and mowing it seemed to be a must this year:

 I found several pink Musk Mallow plants in flower and I hated to mow them:

 They are one of my favorites, a relative of the Hibiscus:

I also had to mow the bigger south field but it was such an exhausting and lengthy job that I took no more photos. The fields together are about 16 acres. The herd had spent several weeks across the road in the north field, but I brought them back over to the south field when I was done. Bush hogging cuts down all the tall weeds but leaves 6 to 8 inches of grass and clover, just right for grazing:

Around The Farm - Part 1

The first two months of winter weather were blessedly mild, but that doesn't mean that everything went smoothly. For instance, there was the day I detached the tractor bucket and replaced it with the bale spear. When I attempted to reverse the process, I accidentally pushed the bucket too far and knocked the bush hog off its wheeled dolly. It was too heavy to lift, so I had to put the bucket back on the tractor, take it outdoors and set it on the ground. When all that was done, I reattached the bale spear and ever so carefully used it to lift the bush hog. I got off the tractor and positioned the dolly back underneath it:

And on the same day as the bush hog incident, opening the heavy barn door pushed several sections of the roller track apart. A catastrophe was imminent and I could never have lifted the barn door back into place. But I carefully climbed up on the tractor bucket and used a sledge hammer to tap the track back into place. Another disaster averted, at least for the time being:

And then there's the cow manure and frozen urine left by the cows every cold night when they sleep inside the barn. This truly doesn't capture the horror of it on the worst mornings, but you get the idea:

Poopsicles everywhere!

And then one day, winter truly arrived, albeit belatedly:

The apple trees probably needed a good dose of winter. They seem to thrive in this climate. If so, they got their wish with a goodly dose of below zero temperatures, high winds, blowing snow and freezing rain:

Indoors, however, my fall blooming cactus was so warm and happy that it began blooming again. I guess it's a multi-season cactus:

For the first and only time this season, my neighbor had to put the snow plow on his truck. I am blessed with the best neighbors in the world and he came over and plowed my driveway:

I declared a truce with the local Red Squirrels and decided to make friends with my home squirrel instead:

I don't know if it's a male or female, but it's not very afraid of me - or of the Chickadees who share its taste for sunflower seeds:

One last look. Notice the icicle covered lilac in the background:

Farm Update For July 23

The season's first two baby fantail pigeons had grown up and their parents produced one new baby:

A couple of days later, its eyes were open and it was growing rapidly. Alas, I found it dead a couple days after that. Such are the sorrows of keeping and breeding animals:

The Elderberries which grow in the old silo base were severely damaged by the snow last winter, but they rebounded in fine form, bursting into bloom:

The pear tree began showing off its miniature pears, many of them even turning prematurely red:

The apple trees also sported pint-sized fruit with a bit of rosy color. I expect to have enough fruit to keep the cattle happy this year:

The fantail pigeons enjoyed the freedom to come and go as they pleased during days with nice weather. They, like the chickens, are locked up safely at night. That's the chickens' door on the right:

The yellow and orange Asiatic Lilies bloomed beautifully:

The neighbors, across the road, have six Hereford cross heifers, all of which began having babies this summer:

Bred to an Angus bull, their calves are mostly the color popularly called "Black Baldy:"

I lost a couple of hens, probably to predators, but otherwise they are all healthy and happy:

Our brutal winter and spring drought damaged the hay crop this year. In fact, it looked so bad and was so full of inedible weeds, that I used the bush hog to mow it all down. I was in the main field when I had to stop because my cows saw no reason to get out of my way. It was a good opportunity to snap a photo:

When I was done bush hogging, the chickens rushed over to pick through the grass clippings which were piled atop the mower. It's been a busy summer so far, enough so that a quiet winter with hardly anything to do all day is beginning to sound appealing: