Rain and the sunset
The sun as it was setting made the clouds the most amazing color and on top of that
a Rainbow!!!!
The weeds are super healthy, but so is everything else.
Linda
I Guess I Might as Well Enjoy the Rain
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Author Archives: Dayphoto
Rain and More Rain
We are soaked! Through and through.
Over night the rains leave and we wake up to chilly cool morning…nothing like August, nothing.
By 9 or 10 in the morning the humidity has built up it hard to even breathe, let alone work in it. Humidity like this is very unusual for our part of the world.
Around three or so in the afternoon it starts raining.
And raining.
And raining way into the night.
It is raining so much the water can’t dry up or sub away.
We don’t have any hay down, nor are we trying to harvest wheat, barley or rye, or the sweet corn. Some of the grains are harvested and some aren’t. Farming sure is a gamble with the weather and the prices.
The sweet corn guys have four-wheel drive on all their vehicles and keep on keeping on. Sweet corn has a very short window so if the vehicles get stuck they pull them out. The workers keep on working right in the rain. The only time they pull out is when a field is done or we have too much lightening.
Well, onto another day of rain. Wish I could send those of you who need some, some.
Linda
Fall is in the Air
Fall is in the air and it’s not even the end of the first week of August.
It’s been raining here for weeks–we are heading in the the third week of rain.
The flies even seem to think a big freeze might be coming….they stick to us like we are the best thing since furnaces, ugh!
But with all this rain we get
Rainbows!
So I’m out all the time looking and looking to see what I can find in the sky
Two days in a row the sky was just right to see rainbows in the same place. Which I found really cool.
Last night on the way to feed I looked up through the leaves and WOW another one.
The rain is really good for everything, the corn and beans and hay and my yard are looking near perfect. And so are the weeds!
I’m not looking forward to winter, but for now I sure am enjoying the rainbows!
Linda
Bingo’s Big Adventrure
Introducing “Bingo,” A New Book By Julia King
Fellow blogger, Julia King, of “Our Simple Life” blog has written a new children’s book entitled “Bingo’s Big Adventure” .
Julia finally did what so many of us think about….she wrote and published a book!
This is a delightful book about a real cat adopted from a local no-kill shelter. Bingo isn’t a baby, but a teenager who gets to go live on a farm. The book is full of photos and delightful text. My three grandchildren ages 8, 6, and 2 loved it the first time I read to them. After that I saw the 8 year old reading it to the other two at least three more times. The two-year old carries the book with her everywhere and cries when she has to leave it at my house. Finally I just let it go home with her.
Yesterday her Momma said that this is the book she wants read at nap time, every day!
This is a great book for anyone’s children’s library.
Linda
What Walked Down the Ditch Bank?
I’m not sure if you can see this, but it looks like a big cat walked down the ditch bank during the night sometime.
We had a summer storm move through after mid-night
When we went out to change the water we saw these
Whatever it was was heavy, you can tell by the imprint. We don’t think it was a bear, although bear do come on to the place.
On a light note, I had a swarm of these colorful Dragonflies visit my tomatoes
The nice part of working and being outside is you really do get to be close to nature.
Linda
The Corn is Looking Good
The corn is tasseling out and setting ears now.
This is when we start having trouble with the deer. They love to eat the silks off the corn. As most of you know the pollinating of the corn ear comes from the tassel which is at the top of the corn stalk. The pollen from the tassels falls all over the silk at the end of the corn husk (ear). Each little silk is a direct link to a kernel inside the husk.
If the deer eat the silk the husk dries up and dies. No corn. Not for us or anyone.
It’s hot here…running anywhere between 97-1004*. Humdity builds and builds and builds and then we get
a storm. Sometimes with rain, and sometimes with hail, but the hail has missed us so far.
We were taking Fuzzy down to the river for a swim, but the water is now gone. That’s one the things that happens to the Roubioux in August.
Linda
The Pinto Beans are Looking Very Good
The pinto beans are starting to close the rows. They are shooting ‘feelers’ and blooming like crazy.
Last evening, after changing water in the corn field, Terry and stopped and checked the beans
Not only are they vineing out and blooming they are setting pods.
In four, maybe five more weeks we will start the bean harvest.
(( sob)) winter is fast approaching.
Linda
Dodder
This nasty weed fascinates me! Not that I like it, but because of how it grows.
Dodder is a noxious weed! It is also a parasite. Unlike mistletoe, which has green leaves and extracts water and food from the host plants, Dodder takes out all the carbohydrates.
Like all parasites it is very hard to kill once you get it, you have to kill the host. This nasty vine grows 3 inches a day. Of course nothing like kudzu!
We work really hard to NEVER let this get started on our land, but roadsides are another story. These two photos are by one of the stop signs on my way home from work.
Another rather interesting fact is Dodder usually starts showing up in August and this is July.
I hope it isn’t a sign that we are headed into another LONG winter!
Linda
Double Yolks
The first two are large sized eggs, the last two have double yolks….YIKES!
There is something just so cool about going out everyday and gathering the eggs. Once in awhile you get bonus eggs. Double yolk eggs are mostly from young chickens.
Linda
Predators!!!
We got the skunk!
We also had an adventure early this morning (3:00) with something….something fighting for its life right outside the bedroom window. Two huge brown fur masses fighting, growling, rolling around and hissing at each other!
Made me so mad! Terry tried to scar them off, but they just took it on out to the tile house and my bean gardens, then that upset me more, because they were tearing things UP! So I took off after them with a flashlight, in my nightgown, and Terry following behind as he was getting the gun.
The most horrible of rack they made HORRIBLE, loud sounds like metal scraping on metal. And a huge ball of fur that I couldn’t make out what or who was doing what!
The mass of roiling anger and fear fled up the canal bank to the top of the pig pen, where I stayed on the other side of the canal but equal to the fight. I started yelling and shone the light right on them, getting one of them right in the eyes. It caused everything to stop! Suddenly!
The victim jumped into the canal and started swimming downstream toward Terry, but it was too dark to make out what it was.
The other one, fell into the canal when the victim dove, I saw what it was, but I have no name for it—-the head was like a little bear, the body long, at least three feet in length with a bushy tail. As soon as it got on shore it ran into the cornfield to not be seen again.
I have no idea what I just saw, but it was NOT going to get my chickens again! I just got three new ones from our daughter Shannon to replace the other ones!
Now that its daylight I wonder what I would have done if that animal had decided to swim the canal and jump onto the bank next to me!?! Oh, well! It didn’t!
The following photo has absolutely nothing to do with the text, but I thought it would be fun to see where the grain used to be stored when we were just starting out 41 years ago.
We don’t store grain anymore; we sell directly from the field. Still the bins are pretty cool reminders of a time not so very long ago.
Linda
