Backwards

I'm going to start with the end of the Saturday and work backwards. Sunshine has been coming to the gate and giving me the hard stare. So I thought we'd go for a stroll. She is just a riding mule, nothing special about her except she has a good brain and rarely gets wound up any more. 

Her favorite part was when I pulled over to the side of the road and let her graze on all that nice ditch grass and weeds. We saw a lot of deer.

You almost can't see the deer in the upper left side of the photo. Sunshine is watching deer on the other side of the road eating in freshly cut hay.

Since she is in the forest often with deer I don't think they bother her any more. Only when they pop out of tall corn as a surprise do they startle her.

Such a great way to end the day. When we went past the Naughty Dog house, the dog barked like crazy and after we passed she came out on the road. 
Have you ever seen a mule walk with her ears tilted and one eye looking back? I have. It is how she kept track of the dog. Mules can see behind them with very little effort.

Before supper...

Well, it was bound to happen. I wondered when Rich would kill the riding mower. He always trims things too close and whips it around. He did that yesterday next to one of his junk piles and a hook on a dangling chain ripped out the 'thingy' cord/wire that is used to start the mower. 

Looks like I'll have to call the shop and have someone pick it up and repair it. I think I'll have them replace the belts and blades at the same time and tune it up. I have NO idea how long that will take but I do know I have a LOT of walking behind my mower to do for finishing up this week's mowing.

The guy we purchased this from is usually pretty slow on things like this. But we've bought good machines from him including chain saws for the past 25 or so years.

Going backwards more to the morning. It was foggy and wet. Another one of those amazing mornings we have here in the Kickapoo River area.

The first shot is on the ridge overlooking crops and the second is what was once a pasture we used that belonged to the family to the east of us.

The morning was spent checking fences and enjoying the coolness before the sun burned through the fog.

I really enjoyed looking for insects that were held still by the cool morning and the heavy dew. Or those straggling flea bane flowers. 

The world is filled with a certain kind of wonder on these early summer mornings.

Just stuff

 

It is Orb Spider season! Time to take a few minutes to go out and look at the weeds in the early morning hours. The Orbs are waiting for their meals and will eat their overnight catches before eating their webs and building a new web each night.

Imagine that! Rebuilding that web each night!

The past few days have been busy. Not busy like people visiting busy, or me going places busy.

I've been dehydrating vegetables and processing sweet corn for the past few days.

Did you know that you can dehydrate tomatoes? Doesn't seem like it makes any sense but you can and if you season them ahead of time, you can drop them right into soups and stews and have delicious chunks of tomato. However, the skins do show up as little chunks too. I just consider it a bit more bulk to the stew or soup.

Mornings are quite beautiful right now. The heavy morning dew makes eachnew day seem refreshing and enchanting.

Here is a view of the meadow across the fence. We used to pasture it years ago when I had more equine that we do now. It has gone to 'seed' in a way, but the weeds do provide for quite the showing of dew dropwebs.

Today I'm headed out for a couple hours of quiet at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.

Charlie is going with. We need the peaceful time.

Fireflies and Spider Webs

Some more fun at night

with Fireflies.

Two things happened to sort of make these shots a bit of a flop in my eyes. However, I am always looking to try things and do better. How else but to make mistakes and learn from them?

I used a very high ISO for these shots which made the photos horrible with 'noise'. I was able to fix most of that. I got the focus a bit better. I tried a kit lens to see if it would also work. It did, but not quite as well as the nice prime lens I have.

Two other things made it difficult. When I turned on the flash light to walk back to the house I realized I was in fog and the droplets would totally confuse the camera [not to mention the old fool who was out in the middle of the night!].

Lastly, I discovered that I'd left the polarizing filter on the lens. Well that really messes things up in night photography.

Still, I learned a lot from my errors and came away with a few shots to remember my follies with.

This morning's theme was fog.

I didn't intend to go out and take a walk, until I stepped outside and just kept going.

I grabbed the IRChrome Filter and put it on the old Infrared Camera. I took my regular camera also, but it mostly stayed inside the bag as I was mesmerized by the fog and the colors through the Infrared lens.

The fog certainly changes the landscape. The trees at the southern end of the pasture are muted and blurred. While the rest of the photo is soft yet full of exotic colors.

I turned from the meadow and headed up the driveway to the ridge.

Mother Nature sure was putting on a show for me. 

There is something about a morning with beautiful fog and mists that I love and we have that a lot in our neck of the woods because of the landscape of deep valleys and hillsides.

My happiest discovery of the morning was the glistening spider webs.

And that is what I will leave you with....

Goat, Pony, Fence, Dew, Mules

That about sums it up.

Sven got a new lot and I put Mr. Pony Baloney...Lil Richard in with him as an experiment. Lil Richard used to be an escape artist but I've found that putting him an electric fence with a third line keeps him from going under the fence.
Likewise, I had so much trouble keeping Sven in any mule fence. He would just duck under the hot wire.

I can't mow this section because it is a hill and it is littered with huge rocks. I needed to be cautious and not cause erosion so Lil Richard will make visits and Sven will have the run of the area in the summer.
He is a grazing animal and has suddenly become infatuated with the pony.

However, he is also respecting the fence. The only time Sven got out was when he and Lil Richard were playing 'tag'. Since then it has been very peaceful. I'm happy I can have Sven earn his keep!

I fenced in this section of the 'yard'. It is a pain to mow. And it was used for hay storage for round bales for years. It also is a place for Mystical Things that Hubby keeps that are stored and forgotten. Like the Tractor he had and parked next to the fence in 2015. I didn't fence in his mom's car, the old tractor or the manure spreader [that has become part of the landscape]. There is still room to use Lil Richard to keep down the grasses around them.

But now the mules can eat the good stuff out of this area and I can run the mower over the weeds to keep it tidy.

Yesterday morning was one of those incredible misty mornings we often get in the 'Driftless' Region of Wisconsin.
The early morning is absolutely incredible.

It is time to trim up these mules and get back to riding now that all the Spring Fence work is done.

The fog and the dew was rather incredible. I do love early mornings!

Today it is overcast but it is supposed to be warm. Rich mowed yard yesterday. The first time he has felt good enough in 3 years to actually mow!

Today I'm taking a break with my Hiking Buddy, Bill. I'm going to show him Black Hawk Rock.

So.
Even with the Covid-19 threat, our CrossFit Coach has come up with a plan that I can modify work outs and do them at home with items I have here.
I'll write about that later.
Right now I have to go work out and report back to my Coach.
Just call me happy!
I'm back at it.

The only draw back is I don't have the music they played in the gym.

Make an Adventure

To say that I have a 'normal' life would be somewhat of an exaggeration. What is normal?

In my mind's eye a normal person of my age and stature putters around in the morning and then has some coffee while reading the news.
Then she should prepare breakfast for her guests and set the table.

Later on, this nice little hostess would get a proper noon meal planned and sit on the porch and visit with her guests and husband.

The day would drag on to supper, chores would be done. The nice hostess would whip up an exotic supper and present it to the guests. Some nice conversation would occur around the table with cups of coffee.

Later everyone would go to bed and slumber.

Not
how it
happens
here!

I get up pre dawn and make coffee, let Charlie out and pretty soon my company starts to drift down the stairs. First comes Daryl and Scout, followed by his youngest daughter and Amanda. The dogs start to wrestle and play in the living room, so they are taken outside for a potty break.
Coffee is passed around along with some Kringle that was brought from the Racine Bakery.
We all look out the window and decide to go for a walk to look for spiders and dewy webs in the meadow.

Rubber chore boots go on over PJ pants for some...no need to dress fancy. The dogs chase each other around and around in the yard with dew drops spraying up from their legs.

We go walking in the tall weeds and grasses of the meadow and begin to spread out each person looking for webs and we begin to find many of them.

It is a bit of a fuzzy shot but then again...HOW close do I want to get to these guys or girls??? Not close!
We wander the meadow brushing up against weeds, and keeping an eye out for Charlie who is so small that he seems to disappear in the wet grasses.

Daryl gets close up and personal with the Spiders and we find dozens of small or 'baby' spiders.

We are like excited children, calling out to each other each time we find an incredible specimen.

Finally, soaked with dew, we all head back to the house for more coffee and to visit with Rich.

The kids do the chores and drag out Mt. Tank and fill it. The dogs are toweled off and we visit with Rich and have coffee and conversation. We discuss the meteor showers and decide we'll go on the ridge to try and watch them around midnight.

And that is just the start of our morning.

To be continued....

Morning Mists

Not a lot to say but I'll just put up a few photos from my walk with Charlie the other day.

I have had appointments of one kind or another all week long.

I do love my morning walks with Charlie! He likes them also and doesn't mind getting soaked through from the morning dew.

...and of course ...
Rabbit and Bear.
I found a little wicker chair for Bear.
I wonder how it will work out.

Valley Fog this morning...

Well that is what the weather site said when I got up yesterday.

I fed Charlie, let him out, and then headed to the ridge.

Indeed, there was valley fog.

My only beef with the mornings now is that cell towers have been erupting on the ridges.

If the angle were just a bit wider here there would be another tower just to the left of the one in the upper left corner.
I'm finding that I have to get creative with compositions to avoid them on this sky line.
However, I guess that is the way of our world now. Cell towers are being built in this area like wildfire.
Our hills and valleys are so steep that we need many towers to provide coverage.
I used to have to drive to the ridge to get a tower, now I can get it from my home. However we maintain a land line.

Okay, I am off my soap box now.
Just enjoy the rest of my morning.

And then the sun tried to peek out...

and to the east...over the neighbor's cattle pasture....

...and then I headed back towards home and took one last shot of the orange fog over Riley Road.

...and one more of my other neighbor's round bales in the field waiting to get picked up and stored in her shed.

I had a busy day lined up.
Perhaps that is why I love early mornings, I get some peace and quiet time before the rest of the responsibilities kick in.