June 7-8, 2013

It was a very pleasant weekend at the farm. It never broke 80 on Friday and was only in the mid 80s Saturday. There was a quarter of an inch of rain in the gauge from early in the week, so the garden was really dry.

Mow and Weed Eat

I divided the mowing over Friday and Saturday. I only did limited weed eating -- around the house, out front, and some of the hill west of the house.

Turtle and Grass in the Pond

I have been watching the grass grow in the pond. Now it is up to the surface at the shallow end, so I decided to use the copper sulfate I had. I took the ant infested canoe out and tried spreading the granules using a large cup. This really doesn't work very well, I expect leaving too heavy a concentration in one area while missing most. I prefer the Cutrine Plus sprayed from my backpack sprayer. What I need is more grass carp! I also spotted a good size turtle in the pond. The good news is that there are lots of fish. I had been afraid I had lost most over the past two hot summers, but you can now see them, and some are a nice size.

Thistle

Returning from mowing I noticed a patch of thistle by the road near the confluence of the creeks. Saturday I returned with a bag and shovel to dig it up. Then I noticed another patch, and then I noticed massive amounts on the Clark's. If they let it go to seed, which I am sure they will do, it will just spread to out side of the fence. I hoped over and dug up or knocked over all of it close by, but the wind will carry the seeds from the other a long way. I then walked our fields down between the creeks and found much more. Unless those purple blooms have opened up it is hard to spot -- green on green. I hauled it all back to the truck, only fitting half of it into the one bag I had brought. Back at the house I got another bag and shoved it in, leaving both on the burn pile.

Turkey

While I was walking and digging thistle I heard this bird clucking over on Jeff's place. I could see some big bird heading down the hill. It wasn't long before he was right beside me. If I tried to touch him, he shied away. He kept following me around, and even followed me all the way back to the truck. There he became fascinated by his reflection in the bumper and kept trying to peck at it. While there I was actually able to reach down and stroke his back. From there I drove over to the pond to spread the copper sulfate, and what do you know if he didn't show up there shortly. He must have been domesticated.

Baby Blue Birds

This first picture is of the ones that hatched on the previous weekend (the house out back). They have grown a lot in a week.

This second picture is from the house at the pond, where these tiny babies must have just hatched within a few days. This is the second hatching of the year for this house.

Re-stack Rails

Sally and I walked Tender to the barn for some exercise. While out back she commented on the rails (stacked for the wedding) being down (knocked down by Jeff's cows when his fence was down from the tornado). So we re-stacked them.

Snake

Sally went to pick up a water bottle left on the barn floor since the wedding, and jumped back when she saw this snake. I think it was a King snake, very desirable for keeping down the rodents. I couldn't remember if it was there when I opened the barn door, which was latched just to the left of where this guy was relaxing. I meant to check later in the day when I closed the barn (after mowing), but I paid no attention and couldn't tell you if he was there or not -- says something about my observation skills.

Garden

Lots of spinach, chard, and this summer spinach is going crazy. Sally has some nice looking green beans, and then she informed she had several butternut squash coming up -- close to a dozen I think, while only 4 ended up covering the entire garden in 2011. I guess that will make up for not having tomato or basil.

Sudoku Challenge

Sally and I have an ongoing competition to see who can complete the same sudoku puzzle first. I use to copy the puzzle from our paper (only 4 star, Dave Green's), but I purchased an iPhone app that lets me take a picture of the puzzle and then do it on my phone -- much easier. We did this one, our third of the weekend, late Saturday while relaxing in the hammock. Sally beat me by 4 minutes on this one, slaughtered me on the one before, but at least I won the first (but only by a short time margin).