August

August is over… Where, oh where, did the summer go????

 

• I set the trap for a couple more weekends and haven’t had any takers, so I think that any raccoons that have been visiting me are gone.  For now anyway.

 

• Doctors can be very testy when you haven’t gone to see them for a while.

 

• Tetanus shots hurt just as much as I remember.  I just don’t remember them making me feel sick before.

 

• After much blood, sweat and tears (literally), I finally have my tractor fixed.  And I got it done for under $50 – which is a far cry from the $150 the shop wanted to charge me just to get the tractor to the garage.  You have no idea how relieved I am that it’s done and I feel as though a lot of stress has been lifted off my shoulders.  I have the property cleaned up and now I can work on some other projects.

 

• I forgot how much bee stings hurt.  And itch.

 

• I’m happy to say that the Guineas are still around and the babies are getting big!  It was funny watching them actually jump to reach branches over their head.  I don’t know what it was they were eating, but they wanted them pretty badly 

• I was very excited to find a way to put the stuff on my DVR onto a DVD.

 

• I’ve become addicted to vanilla malted milkshakes.

 

• I hate whoever makes the decisions of what goes on TV.  A good show like Eureka is cancelled, but they put on crap like Whisker Wars.  Bah.

 

• In the world of yard care, Weed B Gon and Spectracide Weed and Grass Killer are the best products on the market.  I couldn’t believe what a good job the Weed B Gon did on my very neglected lawn.  And the Spectracide works leaps and bounds better than Roundup.

 

Out of all the things I wanted to accomplish this Labor Day weekend, I didn’t get very many done.  I am so lazy.

This Week

 

• I caught two raccoons over the weekend.  I had to start setting out the trap because they aren’t being the friendly neighbors that I want.  They  destroyed some stuff in my shed, but the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was when one knocked down Robin #'1’s nest and ate all the babies.  I have no idea how he got up high enough, but he did – I caught him in the aftermath.  Now I am on the warpath.  I plan on setting the trap every weekend until I stop catching any more raccoons 

 

• I got my first red tomatoes!  And a couple beautiful cucumbers… I am so happy 

 

• And the other good news is - I *am* getting peppers!  It’s weird how they are growing… it’s like all the flowers were on the underside of the plant, so I didn’t see any of them.  The peppers are still teeny-tiny, but at least I know I’ll be getting some 

 

• I had my first (veggie) BLT of the season.  I can’t even begin to describe how good it was.  I’ll be eating these at least twice a day until the frost kills off all my tomatoes… I wait all year for these 

 

• That all being said, I threw three baby bunnies out of my (fenced in) garden 

Back for a Visit

I’m so tired at the end of the day lately, I just don’t have the energy to write any posts… it’s been so long, I doubt anyone reads this anymore (not that many did to begin with!).  This update is (obviously) pretty much for me.

 

• The heat has been awful this summer, but it’s not any worse than summers I remember as a kid.  I remember all the summers being hot and humid in July and August.  Maybe we’ll have an old-fashioned winter this year too.

 

• I’ve been seeing a *lot* of young deer with antlers.  I never see deer with antlers, so deer sightings have been a whole lot more interesting.

 

• Two of The Ladies can’t decide if they want to sleep in the coop at night or not.  Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.  On the nights they don’t, I have to wander around the yard to collect them and lock them up 

 

• I’m still getting baby robins… Robin #2 produced three fledglings while Robin #1 is currently raising #’s 7, 8 and 9… she’s a busy mom!

 

• I cat-sat a week for a friend.  One of the few pets I never had growing up was a cat.  I can definitely say that I am a dog person and I wouldn’t ever get a pet cat.  I think that dogs are way easier to take care of and definitely cleaner around the house!

 

• …and speaking of dogs, my sister’s dog is growing up so fast.  She is going to be such a great dog when she’s all grown up.

 

• I was stunned last week when the guy I work next to asked me what the new guy’s name was.  The ‘New Guy’ has been working with us for over three months and works within 20 feet of us 

 

• I went on a field trip with my Mom and sisters to Lily Dale.  My Mom and one of my sisters had a reading – I wish I had had the $$$ to have one too… it was pretty interesting to hear what the mediums had to say – they were on the mark with a lot of stuff.

 

• Just about every street I take going to work has a car counter on it.  I just know that construction on every one of those streets is going to start on the same day.  And it’s going to take forever to get to work when it does.  And it’s going to go on for months.  Ugh.

 

• There has been a family of Guinea fowl hanging around my house – they are so cool.  I hope they make it through the winter, but I’m not too optimistic as they aren’t native to cold climates    I wish my camera had a better zoom.

 

• I’m not very excited about my garden this year.  Because the spring was so wet, everything had too much of a late start.  The only thing that is looking OK is my tomatoes – everything else is either super small or non-existent.  Corn, beans and peas never happened.  Maybe we’ll have a mild fall and I’ll get something from the rest of what I planted.  We’ll see.

 

I can’t believe that tomorrow is the first day of August.  Ugh.

Babies!

The robin’s nest that is in my stairway to my basement finally has had some action.  This nest is way better than the one in my outbuilding… this one is almost at eye level, so I can see up close and personal what’s going on.  Of course I wait until Mommy and Daddy Robin aren’t around when I peek, so I don’t stress them out 

So yesterday, I glanced in the next on my way to the basement to make sure the eggs were still there and instead of three eggs, there was two eggs and a teeny tiny squirming little pink thing – one of the eggs had hatched!  Today I saw that all three eggs hatched - the babies are soooo teeny.

Here is a picture of two baby robins that are only a couple of hours old…one is kind of sitting on the other and you can see the third egg in the back.

 

And then here you can see one looking for something to eat - it was hard to get a picture of all three with their mouths open at the same time… I didn’t want to hang around too long and upset Mom and Dad.

I’m going to have to come up with names for them…  Any ideas?

Update…

I have been so bad about posting, but in my defense, there hasn’t been a whole lot to write about.  If you’re reading this at 2 o’clock in the morning because you can’t fall asleep, this just might be your ticket to some rest…

 

• My back is back to normal – well, as normal as it can be for me.  And for that, I am very grateful.

 

• My garden isn’t any near being done.  All I have in is lettuce (which is doing well!), some tomatoes and peppers.  I do have corn seed and cabbage seed in the ground, but they haven’t come up yet.  My peas never came up.  I still have a lot of stuff I want to get into the ground yet…

 

• Mrs. Robin #1 had already raised three babies, but it looks like she hatched some more.  I can only see one beak (if you click on the picture, you should get a bigger version), but I’m guessing there are probably more in the nest…

 

• I now have a Mrs. Robin #2, who built a nest in my back hallway.  She flies away every time I go in or out of the house, but she’s sticking to her guns and staying with her nest.  If the eggs hatch, I should be able to get a really good view of the babies…

 

• All my chickens lay brown eggs, except for my Polish chicken, who gives me white eggs.  She is a very reliable layer – I can count on an egg a day from her.  Which is why I was wondering why they stopped all of a sudden.  Until I found the nest she had made out back…

 

 

• The Polish chicken is pretty skittish – for which I don’t blame her, because she gets picked on a lot.  But it makes it really hard to get a decent picture of her…

 

• …and then I have another Lady who doesn’t think the nesting boxes are good enough for her either.  She’s been laying her eggs every day on top of the old brooder I have put away… I really don’t understand how she thinks this is better.

   

• My car broke down this past week.  It cost me a week-and-a-half’s pay to get it fixed 

 

• Our town farmers’ market opened two weeks ago.  It’s been a lot of work the past few months and it’s not showing any signs of stopping.  We are hoping for a great season this year, even with the bad growing weather we’ve had this spring.

 

• I’ve really had the itching for a road trip.  I don’t know where, but I would love to go away somewhere for a few days.   Unfortunately, I just don’t see that happening for a long time…

 

….Ummm.  Yeah.  I think that’s about it, besides working a lot.  If you made this far without falling asleep, congratulations!