The Beauty Of Summer

It seems bold of me to type the word "summer," for it has seemed that spring would never end and we'd move right into autumn and winter again. We had to heat our houses at night right through most of June, but at last I can safely say it is summer now. The baby fantail pigeon is doing extraordinarily well:

 And most of the adults are nesting or quibbling over prime mates or nesting sites:

 The bantam hens have reduced their egg laying to a just a few per day:

 And they seem comfortable and happy with their lives:

The offspring of the old fashioned rose began to flower:

 And the damn Canada Thistles and Bull Thistles crowded the fence line:

 I took a weed-whacker to them and things began to look better:

 With longer days, I began going out to do the chores at earlier times, with exquisite sights such as this dawn sky being my reward:

I planted Iris several years ago and this giant purple one began to flower. It is huge!

 Baby apricots (I think - it's hard to remember which tree is which), the first time I've had fruit since I planted the tree:

 And baby plums on the always productive tree. The nonproductive tree looks to be carrying on its nonproductive tradition:

 I planted a hardy Blue Moon Wisteria 3 or 4 years ago, but it never grew an inch. This year it appeared to have died, and even when it produced leaves, I held no hope for it. Then suddenly it began to send up vines as if it was finally going to thrive. Well, better late than never:

Assorted Scenes From Around The Farm

It was a busy summer and a real learning experience for me. I spent a lot of it getting my little flock of Barred Rock bantams raised and teaching them to negotiate the outdoors. Yes, they had to be taught, first to go outside - and then to come back inside. But after awhile, they did learn to go in and out of their coop without assistance:


Alas, one of the lessons I learned was that a flock of chickens, however small and adorable, who hang out on the step in front of the barn door will poop so much as to make entering and exiting a distinct problem:

They learned to scratch, search for bugs and eat grass:

At first they wouldn't leave their coop so I put them out each day, one at a time. Then they went out by themselves but I had to catch and put them back, one at a time. But finally they learned:

I did a lot of fence work around both fields. The view across the hay fields toward the house and barn was one of the payoffs for getting outside and doing the work:

I had to haul pruned limbs and other brush back into the woods with the tractor:

And toward the end, I had to weed-whack the entire perimeter of both fields, a seemingly endless job. Here, you can see a section of trimmed fence line and then a section of untrimmed, just ahead of the tractor:

And this is what happens when weed-whacking thousands of feet of fence line:

But far out in the field working in a natural setting surely has its benefits:

I also had a lot of mowing and weed-whacking to do for the lawn area:

And once again, the payoff for doing it was a kind of rural, comfortable beauty - the kind which seems to put the mind and soul at rest:

And here is a very brief video of the chickens doing their thing:

A Busy Summer, Part 2

I supposed these barn swallows were nesting in my barn, but I'd never seen their nests. They sat on the wire and chatted with each other. When I first bought the farm, it looked to me as if no barn swallows lived here, but I've seen more and more each year until this year we had a bumper crop:

And the baby chicks are growing. In this picture they are about a week older than the photos in yesterday's post:

This will show them a little better:

They were growing wing feathers:

A little Chickie two-step:

I had three lamps in their coop for warmth and didn't take them out until the chicks had more feathers. The lean-to was there so they'd have a place to huddle under the lamps when it was cold or they were afraid. The ramp to the right would some day lead them to the outdoors:

I continued working on the fence line right through the summer. Each wire had strategically placed tighteners to control the tension in the lines:

You can see here the work I've done. The trees and brush had to be cleared on the outside of the fence. Then I had to brush hog a broad swath on both sides of the fence. I sprayed the weeds directly below the fence wires twice with weedkiller. Then I mowed as much as I could under the wires with a riding mower. Finally, I took a weed-whacker to the whole fence line. To say it has been a lot of work would be an understatement:

Here's another section of finished fence line:

This section hadn't been finished yet. I was clearing the brush with a chain saw and pruner. Then I'd hit it with a weed-whacker. This was a slow, dirty and exhausting job:

The weather on this day was perfect - until a rainstorm blew in. But I was happy for an excuse to call it a day:

I had to stand on the seat of the tractor and cut overhanging apple limbs. One limb swung around and hit me in the eye with an apple. I was sore for awhile but got no black eye. When I was done, it looked like it had been raining apples: