The two young Hereford cows were charged with calf daycare this afternoon, so the other cows could “go out” across the creek with the bull.
Notice the very plump black whiteface cow to the left. That’s “Wild Thing”, and we’re still waiting on her to drop her calf.
My mom suggested today that I blog about our town’s Sesquicentennial Celebration. That’s 150 years!
It’s also our church’s Sesquicentennial and the picture above is our pastor portraying an early Methodist circuit rider in yesterday’s parade. It was awfully brave of him – I don’t think he’d been on a horse before!
Edited to add:
See those 2 green circles in the street between the horse’s front feet? The local 4-H horse club sponsored a game called “Road Apple Bingo” this year. You purchased those circles for $1 each, wrote your name on yours, and placed them in the street anywhere on the parade route before the parade started. During the parade, if a horse left a “deposit” on your bingo card you won a prize! I thought that was pretty clever.
The celebration continues through this weekend with an all-school reunion and several other goings-on. Small town fun at its best!
Hope yours was celebratory! Ours included…
~ fireworks at the river last night during which Rafe lay face down on the blanket with his hands over his ears chanting, “I want to go home now!”
~ the annual parade in town this morning, clocking in this year at almost an hour and a half and consisting of the usual farm implements, classic cars, and fair queen candidates. The kids caught enough candy to hold them until Halloween.
~ a cookout here with my family. My dad brought firewood and made me a fire so I could have roasted hot dogs…been craving them all summer!
~ still had a fire about 10:00 tonight, so Olivia, Rafe and I made s’mores. Or as Rafe calls them, snores.
Happy 4th of July, everyone!
I think whatever we’re harvesting at the moment is my favorite. Tonight it was peas. So sweet eaten straight from the pod. Olivia’s technique is “one for the bowl, one for my mouth.”
I cannot fathom how many peas we would have to plant in order to have a significant enough yield to freeze any for winter. Each year I fill a bowl with pods, thinking I’ve reaped quite the harvest.
And then they’re shucked.
And we’ve got just enough for one meal.
A sidedish.
Fatman and Robin (aka Fatty McKittykins & Black Kitty) napping on the couch.
…they are not housecats.
Olivia got an excellent report at her appointment today. Everything looks great, and a hearing test showed that her hearing has returned to normal levels!
She said, “Yeah, no more surgeries!”
I said, “Just don’t go breaking any limbs now.”
Rafe is remarkably self-entertaining out in the garden. You’d think he’d get sick of being out there with us, but we usually have to drag him in the house when it finally gets too dark to weed anymore. He loves to drive his pedal tractor up and down the rows. I’m thinking I need to find him a miniature plow and a miniature manure spreader and put him to work.
We’re off to Iowa City again tomorrow for another follow-up on Olivia’s ears. Oh darn, another stop at Reminisce.
the garden, June 23rd
What a difference one month makes! In last month’s garden snapshot the only visible growing things were the strawberries along the fence, the sweet potato transplants mid-garden, and the lettuce bed a ways beyond that. Now the garden is a riot of colors – all shades of green, red strawberries, white pea blossoms, purple potato blossoms, yellow tomato, cuke & zuke blossoms.
And of course there’s the addition of a sit-and-spin, courtesy of Rafe. When your parents spend as much time out here as his do, you gotta have some form of entertainment.
This is by far the best looking garden we’ve ever had, thanks mostly to Matt and his daily dedication to weeding. Or in his own words, “It’s amazing what a whole lot of manual labor will get you.”
Not that I’ve been lolly-gagging about. I’ve been working at weeding last year’s perennial garden. Every time Matt passes me on his way to weed in the vegetable garden he remarks, “Can’t eat them flowers you know.” I reply, “Gotta feed the soul, too.”
But don’t you just love it when the words, “I take it back” come from your significant other’s mouth?
“I take it back, about the flowers. I read that they attract beneficial insects and pollinators.”
Had to put that one on the blog, for posterity’s sake.
pole beans reach for the sky
I said I was done. Dunzo. Finito. Finished. I’ve had my fill of planting for this year.
Well, there are exceptions. Like another sowing of lettuce. And spinach. And maybe peas, broccoli and cabbage.
But other than those, I am done.
Matt has other ideas. Saturday he picked up carrot seeds. 2 packages.
“Show me how to plant carrots?” he asked tonight.
I’m the wrong person to ask. I planted a 35-foot row of carrots. Not a single one germinated.
Not. One.
He’s on his own with this one.
Someone’s building a clutch under the catmint 🙂
Can you believe this bunch of beautiful girls?
(And a couple of very handsome boys.)
And can you believe that Patti from Over the Garden Gate so generously gifted them to me? She decided to downsize her flock and I was the lucky recipient. So my flock has been upsized 🙂
Thank you so much, Patti and Eric! (And sorry we kept you from your supper so I could ogle all of your wonderful animals 🙂
