The Farm In Summertime

I returned home from the Hopkinton Summer Festival and my neighbor's miniature horses. I let the dogs out into their fenced yard and began a walk around the place to see what was new since my last visit. The first thing I noticed was the old fashioned Day Lilies in bloom. This patch, I believe, is an older version even than the usual single orange flowers one sees commonly along the roads. It is slightly double, blooms later and less profusely and has oddly folded leaves. My mother used to have a single plant like this and someone told her it was a throwback to the original, wild progenitor of all modern Day Lilies:

And just then the neighbor's horse drawn wagon passed by again (see yesterday's post for a great photo of the horses), this time with a couple of horseback riders along:

I checked out the plants growing in my old concrete silo base which I thought looked like Elderberries. They were beginning to look even more like Elderberries but the birds were eating the berries as fast as they could form, leaving almost none to ripen. That would explain why I've never seen berries there:

There had been a major windstorm two weeks earlier and it had knocked down a lot of limbs along the road. My neighbor had been piling them up:


A large section of my pear tree had been ripped off by the violent winds:

And yet the remaining parts of the tree were still on track to produce a nice crop of pears:

There were going to be a lot of apples also:

The dogs were happy and getting along well with the tenants' two young Labs:

My Phlox were in bloom:

And the tenants' vegetables were growing nicely:

Alas, the roof of a nearby trailer had been ripped off by the recent windstorm. Luckily, no one has lived there in years. Another trailer, just down the road, had much more damage. In fact, it had been demolished:

My barn roof had been finished since the last visit, with a new ridge cap and completely nailed down and coated. I'm happy to say that it made it unscathed through the big windstorm:

Some Of My Farm Neighbors are Miniatures

I was driving home from the Hopkinton Summer Festival and passed a neighbor who had two miniature horses out  next to the road. I'd seen them before as well as a variety of full sized horses, llamas and pigs, but had never met the woman who lives there. This time I stopped, knocked on the door and introduced myself. She was delighted to walk me down to the road and introduce me to her two tiny equines:

They were in a small pen which she simply moved every now and then to give them access to fresh grass. She didn't need to mow the lawn along the road:

The horses were quite friendly and I, of course, was wondering if I might have a few myself one day when I retire:

Notice the green grass in the pen? It wasn't there in the first shot. The woman simply picked up one section of the fence at a time and shifted it along the road, exposing fresh greens. The above photo shows a distinct brown/green line and the woman in the process of moving the pen:

She said she had other miniatures and we walked to the pasture fence where she called for a little mare named Classy. Classy, she told me, was elderly but friendly, healthy and productive:

And by productive, she meant that she produced a steady stream of colts. Indeed, a little one followed her over to the fence:

The cold was a bit skittish and afraid to come too close to the fence.

I was told that although the colt should have been weaned by now, the mare still let her nurse:

And as we talked, a wagon full of people and pulled by two of the most spectacular horses I'd ever seen passed by on the county road. They too, I was told, were neighbors and everyone waved. I thanked my host and continued on my way back to my own place where my dogs were waiting for me: