Happy August

 

It has started out very August-y. Hot Hot Hot. But the gnats have started to dissipate here and being out in the flower garden is more comfortable [in the shade]. 

I am bummed. I woke up yesterday morning and listened for our resident wren. She/he always sings and scolds me when I go out with Charlie. In fact several wrens generally serenade the yard each summer morning.

I was left wanting. 

Their voices have disappeared. Left in their place are crickets and an occasional Robin, Wood Thrush, and Woodpecker voice in the predawn. Another voice not heard is the Red Wing Black Bird. The birds are starting to migrate.

Hmmm. Not to be a bummer, but I read somewhere that August is also the month where we lose a significant amount of daylight. 😔 

I still feel like it should be ... more nice summer and not heading towards fall. But that is how nature works, right?

Time waits for no one?

However, August is the time for flower gardens to shine in their glory with annuals!

My Zinnias that were not doing well have finally hit their peak! So color me happy!
They aren't as plentiful or tall as they have been in years past, but I adore being able to cut bouquets of them and add color to my kitchen counter.

This side garden of flowers was all my leftover seeds from last year. I did not expect to have this!

The girls say good morning!

Here is a closer shot of the orange cosmos bunch. They are thick as thieves and I don't think any weeds even grew up in between them. So much for spacing them out a few inches. I just dumped the seeds on the ground and raked it, then stomped them into the dirt. 

I'll be gathering a lot of these seeds again this fall.

This makes me smile even though August races us towards Fall.

Some other stray cosmos got in the mix. My favorite colors of cosmos are the multicolored ones, but the orange ones sure are prolific with their fern like foliage and bright colors.

And then there was a huge surprise. A white Malva aka known as Prairie Mallow came up in the middle of the orange cosmos!

They are related in a way to Hollyhocks, but are more sturdy and readily reseed. I hope to see more of these white beauties next year. I'll have to collect their seeds even though they will do it themselves.

The humming birds are going crazy over the 4 O'clocks in the evening and through the morning. The flowers close up during the day and re-open with a sweet scent all evening.

I have hundreds of these plants on the west side of the house.

Every year now, I collect Nasturtium seeds and replant a few around the porch. Each August I am always surprised as to how they want to spread out and take over everywhere. 

I let them. Here they crowd out the stepping stones to the porch. The violets are volunteers from a hanging planter I had there last year. They actually are doing better as volunteers than they did in a hanging pot.

I'm going to let the plants do what they want and just carefully go around them.

I have one more spot that I planted with Zinnias and Cosmos. It is an area where the old veggie garden used to be. Next year I hope to add another small extension of carefree flowers. 

The morning glories have gone crazy and have covered the wagon wheel. I had to put out a couple of posts to give them more climbing area.

Have a good weekend and stay cool. 

Next up...

 

On the last day of the dome...we had a most curious sunrise. A blazing red sky to the east and to the west we had a morning rainbow! See that little bright spot in the sky? It grew fainter the further up into the clouds it went, but it was there!

This is the second time I've seen something like this, almost in the same spot. Perhaps it is a combination of moisture and light at just the right moment?

Friday evening brought nice temperatures finally. I don't know how those folks in other areas deal with nonstop heat, but I know I don't do well with it.

To celebrate the cooler weather, Siera and I rode out on the neighbor's cropland and enjoyed the evening views. She loves wide open flat spaces and gaits out in a super smooth ride. A gaited animal ride is like no other. She was actually very calm and very quiet unlike the ride where we met up with the killer baby stroller and mule eating children on dangerous bicycles.

In the zinnia garden, the Great Spangled Fritillary was busy. 

Not to mention the Swallow Tails!

The morning glories are indeed glorious right now, they are really going gung ho. I haven't watered them in a long time but they seem to be doing fine. They are not close to the house but out towards the pastures.

I may have to put them nearer the house next year so I don't have to walk so far to enjoy them.

After recovering from the heat dome, the flowers seem to be doing fine. The nasturtiums are trying to take over the porch! I'll have plenty of seeds for next year as they are producing a lot of them! Nasturtiums send out vines that look for more space.

Sunday was an all day work day. The summer meadow needs to recover so I've fenced it off.
In the shot below you can see where the hot wire was and the greening of the area that has not been grazed for 3 weeks.

To encourage growth for overwinter and recovery, I'm not letting the critters into the meadow until next summer.

However, in that line of trees is a nice section of forest with a LOT of food.

To the left of this photo is another wooded pasture that has been grazed down but if I make a gate for the mules to go into the forest from that side, I can keep them off the meadow!

In the shot above, the 4 wheeler is in the meadow and I am standing in the older worn out pasture. I made an opening to the forest with a single hot wire to keep them out of the meadow. Now, to get them to use it!

Pounding t-posts was one of the hardest things I did! The ground is so dry and hard that it took a long time and a huge effort to do it. 

Hubby built a post pounder that weighs 20lbs and is a steel tube with a cap on it. We don't use the ones sold in stores.

I think I got a good arm workout!

The good part about the 'gate' and trail into the woods, is that it uses a trail they already are accustomed too.

Well, here it is almost the end of August! Are you ready for September?

Yuck

 88 degrees at 9:30PM with 60 % humidity. 

I am happy that I am not sleeping in a tent. I am grateful that we have a cool and dry house.

Wow, I have no idea how anyone could rest in this heat and humidity. It just boggles my mind. I know hubby wouldn't survive long in this weather so again, I am grateful for our decision to install the mini split this spring.

That said at 7AM this morning it was beastly out also. I took out my waterproof camera in a camera bag and set it on the porch to slowly acclimate to the weather. 

The mules have a heavily shaded area that I save for just this kind of situation. I use this little section sparingly. 

The grass has come back nicely after the last rain we had a week ago. There is day time shade and when there is a breeze, they can stand under the box elders and languish in the cool air.

They have small 25 gallon tank so they can get drinks of fresh water and I can easily dump it and fill it again with a hose.

Gosh, us Northern Folk don't do so well with lots of heat!

But at least we can grin and think about those days that are coming where we have to wear Fudd Hats and snow suits!

We are setting records for overnight high temperatures and I think some records were broken today for our part of the state. But so far so good.

After all, I could just fill up a spare stock tank and go sit in it!

We did get over 100F by 4PM when I went out to refresh critter water. I did chores at that time because the breezes were supposed to quit when by sunset.

However, we are not enduring the heat as long as others in our country are having to do. Can you imagine being in places that have not seen a let up of intense heat for over a month?

Yikes.

Stay well.

Well well now

After a week of very long doctor appointments along with many road miles put on the Subaru, I told Rich that I was going to go to the Kickapoo Valley Reserve on Friday or Saturday. Well, even perhaps on Sunday.

My first plan was to go on Friday and to borrow my neighbor's Roadmaster bike she has.

Yesterday afternoon on a whim, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. I drove to town and did something I never do. I stopped at a bike shop.

Years ago ... probably 1982 maybe? My sister and I went to a bicycle shop and bought matching road bicycles, 10 speed bikes. We eventually went on a pretty epic sister sister road trip of two days and nearly 150 miles. Our bikes were not composite lightweights, but heavy and sturdy Ralieghs that weighed nearly 18 lbs a piece.

Bicycling has come a long way since then.
So have bicycle helmets.

The guy at the shop, Roger, came out and we started looking. And soon I was cruising the back streets of Viroqua on a Mountain/Road bike. At first I was hesitant, then...I felt the joy seeping back into my soul. The warm air caressed my face and hair through the helmet vents and I felt freedom creeping into my body in the form of childish joy.
That 10 minute ride gave me what I had been searching for.

Roger spent a long time adjusting the handle bars to suit me. The seat to suit me, ...and explaining the brake system, the gears, and how to take the wheels off.

We talked a bit about putting a rack on back for things like camera gear, tripods, and even a crate for Charlie. He said it wouldn't super easy, but it could be done.

So before dawn I crept out with my chore boots on and climbed aboard my Bliss 3. What a great name. Bliss. Yep, you figure that out.

The dawn suddenly belonged to me.
The cool damp air rushing past my face as the morning brightened around me.

I literally beat the sunrise to 3 different spots before the sun poked its face over the horizon.

And the morning was ...
incredible.

As I rode from favorite place to favorite place I began to feel more comfortable with being able to shift for the hills.
The feeling of being a kid again was still there, only now I had an incredible backdrop for my ride.

I felt free and resisted the urge to shout out in joy. Geeze, I could have because no one except the wildlife would have heard me.

Watch out trails and backroads.
I'm going to be a 'kid' again.

Oh yeah. I have the neatest bad ass helmet too.

It is a horrid bright green with a neat visor. It is called a Tremor Helmet. Roger said he thought of the movie Tremor when he saw it. I said "The Earth Shall Tremor as I ride!"
He thought that was perfect.

But hey, and old lady can be excited about riding bikes again, right?

Ride on.

The inner child awaits me.

[Yep, it fits nicely in the back of my Outback too!]

Of Sunsets and Stars

I'm a very lucky person.

I have a young neighbor gal who is the same age as my youngest son.  We share a garden together and her children come often to visit.

Yesterday we worked in the garden picking produce and dividing it up between households.

We talked while we worked and two of her children played in the Sunflower Maze while we gardened.

Hubby and the oldest daughter practiced gun safety and A. brought her new BB gun down.  Hubby and A. spent a long time shooting and going over how to safely handle her BB gun.
I think it was a wonderful morning all the way around.

Hubby is actually very good with children and has some incredible patience!

We decided to go to the ridge top just after sunset and see if we could catch some of the meteor shower.

I said the sky would be best just after sunset and before the moon got too bright.

We enjoyed sky watching.  My neighbor brought her three children, the youngest fell asleep in the large 3 wheeled stroller.
Their dog Manny and their cat Midnight also came along.

When the moon... not full anymore rose, it was a magnificent orange color and we all ooooed and ahhhed over it.

No, it isn't the 'best' shot, but you get the idea.  This whole night shooting with cameras is pretty new to me.

We waited until the stars came out...

I discovered that indeed a 25 second exposure is much better than a longer one.  The earth rotates so the stars will blur if exposed 30 seconds as this shot nearly did.

This was an 80 second exposure and it is noisy and the stars are beginning to leave 'trails'.  Still, it was fun to experiment.

We saw several meteors and some very dim ones and some bright ones.

At 10pm we called it quits as the moon was very bright and the stars were dimming in the sky.

I hope we get to try this again tonight!

An evening in August

I'd gotten a bit overheated yesterday hand chopping weeds along the electric fence in the hot sun.  There was no breeze in the spot I was working in.

But, when I finished, the fencer was sending a signal loud and clear through the line.
SNAP!

Enough so that 'WhoDunnit' our errant little bull calf decided he could not come back through the fence to his momma!

I went back outside after cooling off to enjoy the evening colors and sky, also to hopefully get a practice shot of the nearly full moon after it rose.

I'd like to get a full moon tonight.


So I wandered around the garden and into the pastures.

The cattle were content, but we had to start haying as the with the dry month the pasture is awful 'short' on feed.

I then went out by the mules hoping to get a shot of Cricket, the palomino mare.  I wanted to get a fancy shot of the edge of her face in the sunlight.

As soon as I took this shot, Willy came tearing up from the far end of his pasture.

I didn't crop this shot and also got an excellent 'eye' shot as he slowly moved in on me.
He lost interest in me and I didn't get any more chances.
As did Cricket.

The evening sun provided for what seemed a perfect setting for grazing animals.

And just after dark, I did get a shot of the nearly full moon.

Just before dark we reunited 'WhoDunnit' with his mom.  I think he'll stay inside the cattle pasture now that the fence is hot again.

There was a lot of sniffing and nursing going on.  
Calf reunited.

What a beautiful end to the day.