Light Hunting & Bugs

 

Charlie followed me on a morning walk but won't go down the road where the Naughty Dog lives. He is a smart guy and doesn't forget things easily. He is probably smarter than I am.

I have to pick him up to go any further down the road. I'd only come to the ridge to hunt down morning light, dew drops, and spider threads.

The oats offered a great place to shoot but to get the light I wanted...

...I needed to walk past the Naughty Dog House. I decided to just go back down into our valley. I'd look in the Winter Paddock. 

There are tons of interesting things to see. 

Charlie was relieved and he hurried ahead of me.

It was another dew filled morning and I wanted to find connections and threads glistening in the morning light.

I don't usually go to the winter pasture as it is a mess of weeds. I know...mow it. True enough. I need a bulldozer first to level it. At present, it is a pasture of weeds, gullies, and rocks. The Dexter Cattle used to keep it clean as a whistle. 
If I could convince my neighbors to add their goats to the pasture I would. I'd even put in extra hot wires and a goat gate.
Oh well.

This was another Long Lens experiment. I should not have been  surprised at how easily I adapted to it. My father only had a long lens on his camera. He let me frame photos with it and pretend to take pictures. He had fun asking me to figure out the exposure and fstop for different situations. One of his mantras was sunny sky--- f11 at 125. 

There I go off on a tangent again.

It took a great deal of work and maneuvering, but I finally got those gossamer threads!

It was still early so I decided to hunt around for more cool things. Our heavy wet dew fall had added just enough moisture to the ground to produce some fungi.

It turned into a great day for hunting insects.

I did this while weeding and dead heading my flowers near the house. I used the macro lens for these shots.

I have waged a little war on the Japanese Beetles. I smack them off my 4 o'clocks into soapy water and watch them drown.

I'm mean aren't I?

I wish the birds would eat these. 

Today it is raining and cooling off. What a delight. The grass will grow and the yard will need mowing.

Well, we needed the rain and the pastures needed to grow!

Charlie and I will be packing for our short adventure this weekend.

The Long Day

It started with a trip to the ridge to enjoy the morning purples and the emergence of the summer sun through the fog. I checked out black bottom creek and it was so dense with fog that there were no opportunities there at all.

I moved Annie and Valerie to a holding paddock. They are being sold soon.

This lot looks barren because the mules had used this spot for mud bathing and standing.
However the Dexter cattle love to strip burdock so it is a good thing! They have cleaned up the ox eye daises in their other summer pasture and will devour nettles if I knock them down first.

These cows are the forest gleaners and do an excellent job.

I finally got tired of looking at the mess of the west yard. It still needs to be landscaped and is a mess of lumps bumps and weeds with some areas that are washed out. Rich keeps saying that he will get to it.

I attacked it with the weed wacker. I'm getting better at it. I even trimmed around the garden before I nearly ran out of gas. That is my stop point. If I keep going and going the tendons in my forearms will be extremely painful.
My intentions were then to mow around the back of the red shed with the mower.

I chose instead to have a late lunch with my sweet guy and after a glance at my garden, I decided that a short siesta was in order.
I guess that is one good thing about being home all of the time. I can afford a short rest before heading out again.

I walked past the mower and it begged me to push it and make it roar. However I decided to do something enjoyable.
I caught up Fred and cleaned him up. He got his summer haircut.

After...

After.

Sundance pushed Siera and Sunshine out of the way when I put Fred back. I worked on her tail and ended up cutting it shorter. She was not receptive to the clippers but she also ended up with a summer haircut.

Rich helped me. I decided that was enough for the day and spent some time grooming Sundance before putting her away.

I then went to get 15. Her paddock had gotten muddy and she needed a grooming plus a drier place to be.

With her done, it was time for chores and other things.
I walked by the lawn mower again and assured it, its day would come soon again...and again...and again.

I called the neighbors and asked if they'd like to celebrate the Summer Solstice by lighting a couple of Chinese Lanterns.
And we did.

And the day ended full of joy with children's laughter and cattle complaining about being moved.

Such was the Long Day.

3 days of working in the rain

Last night or early this morning we had another round of storms that added about 2" of rain to an already soaked ground.

We had begun our 'winterizing' projects a week ago and worked earnestly at them for the past 3 days.  Yesterday we worked nearly all day in rain.

Coveralls are good to have in nasty weather.
We cleaned the Jack pen on the east side of the shed and then moved on to the south side and began to work.  
There was a lot of shovel work involved as we had to scrape away and clean along the shed wall and shovel under the metal panels.

The sky literally looked as though it were boiling on and off above us today. Gusts of wind would switch around in our hollow.  It rained off and on and we slowly plugged away.
At one time it felt as though it were hailing, but to me it looked an awful lot like sleet.

Bob liked his new paddock on the east side of the shed, he could poke his head around and watch us work.  I think he was smirking at us.  After all we were cleaning his old pen.

We finished Little Richard's pen and moved him off the tie out and into his nice comfy new pen.  He trotted around and did some fancy kicking and bucking to show us his pleasure before he got down and rolled.  He got up and pranced around his enclosure as if he'd just won the lottery.  Such is the life of a crop out mini.
We fondly refer to him as our Guard Pony and our Organic Weed Wacker.

Summer shot of Lil' Richard hard at work.

I'm tempted to train him to ride.  He would make a very hand pony-moped.

Soon hubby had the area cleaned and we restrung the electric wire.  By dark we had things ready so we can move Dinah.  Fred, Siera, and Mica will get their own paddock to share and the rest of the gals will move into their winter quarters perhaps as soon as tomorrow.

In the summer the equine are on 'summer' pasture and just before gun deer hunting season we move everyone much closer in for the winter.  We can keep a closer eye on all of our animals and the stock tanks can all be plugged in so the farm critters can have warmed water.

It is like a ritual each year.  Spring ... out.  Winter ... in.

Another year has passed.

Archived shots of the girls playing in their winter quarters.