Bye Bye Trees?

I'm going to be saying goodbye to some old friends later today.

The first shot is of two pines, one is completely dead and the other is getting there. Both have been the gateway to drive through after coming down the long driveway. They have been here forever and I'll probably miss them.

I won't miss wondering about which way they will fall in a windstorm though. They do get to Hula Dancing in harsh winter winds.

The shot from the other day is one of the pines.

Sorry for the repeat as I didn't know this tree would be cut down today. 

The trees have entertained us for a long time with all sorts of Woodpeckers visiting. The Pileated Woodpeckers were the most fun to watch! They are so huge.

This view is from the West facing bedroom window upstairs. 

The trees are so tall and have survived so many wind storms. They have root rot and cracks at their bases along with holes where Woodpeckers have drilled for insects.

Last weekend, another one of these trees had its top broken off by a storm less than a 50 yards from these two.

These trees have hung my laundry for ages. I will miss their shade and amazing blooms in the spring.

Maybe I'll think about planting a small bush in its place. I don't want to see it go, but I don't wish for it to come crashing down on the house either.

 

This shot is from 2006 when we allowed our very pregnant donkey to roam the yard and she sought shade under my laundry. I had to rewash everything, but it was pretty funny at the time.

I will miss the sweet smelling blossoms these trees put out each spring near my birthday....

However, as much as I admire them, my pals have to go. There used to be another one not far from where the Subaru is parked. One afternoon it just tipped over and landed in that parking spot.

I wasn't parked there as it was not really a parking spot until I had the driveway redone last year.

The next shot is a photo from 2013 after a 3" rain deluge and high winds. That WAS the garage. 

I'm also hoping the clean up of that crushed building will be in my list of projects in the next year or so.

Lastly, a photo from 2007 after the most devastating storm we've had in all the years we lived here. It took over 4 months of constantly sawing, piling, and burning to clean the yard up.

Shots of the day after the storm and a month later. 

It took another year to clean up most of the mess in the forest around us.

So there it is. It should be a spectacle today to watch.

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. 

That Little Dog

Charlie has a job to do. Well, he thinks he has a job to do.

He is watching the trees for squirrels. The squirrels like to come and clean up any seed on the ground near the bird feeder that has seed in it. 

I put out a cup of seed each day in the feeder so hubby can enjoy his morning coffee and tell me which birds show up.

Charlie watches the yard for any squirrels. And ... he is diligent.

This is his new mission in life. It's so fun to see him so intent. The one tree is a hickory tree so squirrels climb it often and then dig in the yard and bury the nuts. Charlie is also on top of that. After all, it is good that he has a job.

I'm pretty sure he sees the squirrels this way:

On very hot days though, I have to be careful with him. His short snout makes it hard for him to cool off quickly. I went for a walk on our gravel road with him just to get out and move around. On our way back home Charlie sat down in the shade and stopped.

He was puffing and hot. Bad me! 

I picked him up and carried him most of the way back home. When he got inside, he laid on the cool floor and just stared at me with those big round eyes of his.

Eventually he got up on the couch and relaxed.

This Little Dog has a great life and we know our lives are enriched by having him with us.

work work work

In our yard we have one very rough spot to mow. 
Last week, hubby's mower was in the shop and I mowed the yard with a little mower. In fact I mowed most of it twice last week because it grew so much.

By Wednesday my hands felt like someone had smashed them, crushed them, drove over them, and stomped on them.
I looked at this section of yard which is incredibly rough with little gullies and a hill which requires ones to push and pull the mower back and forth and said... I'm going to fence it.

He said: No. No No No.

If I let them graze it to the bare bones, it would save me hours of pushing, pulling, and cussing. And my hands would thank me.

He gave me a look. And replied that fencing that section would be too much work.

Heh.

Heh.

Hmmm.

So I offered him the little mower and said I'd follow him around carrying his Oxygen if he wanted to hand mow it.

I got the look of a thousand blades.

And then I fenced it despite his protests.

I made a gate from their pasture into the area....and they walked in. Immediately they began to work.

I enjoyed watching the 

all natural self driven lawn mowers. 

They weed and feed at the same time.

And they don't charge you an arm and a leg.

They don't complain about the working conditions ...

And sometimes, they make nice Yard Statues.

It took them 24 hours to crop it short. And yes, they could walk out of there into their regular pasture which they did often. 
It was kind of them not to leave any manure in the yard.

When they were finished, I disconnected the hot part and coiled up the lines to use again this summer. Hubby was surprised just a little at how nice a job they did. I took the little electric weed whacker and trimmed the weeds they didn't eat. 
The job was done with little effort on my part!

The next shot is my Spring Garden and Shade Garden. I didn't weed it last year due to the drought and this year the weeds had a hay day while I was busy with other things.

The garden is full of Daffodils, Virginia Bluebells, Star of Bethlehem, Hostas, Irises, some ferns, Japanese Iris, a peony, and Phlox.

In the spring it looks so nice when it starts to green up and the little ephemeral flowers appear.

And if it isn't weeded, it looks like a mess or some sort of disaster.

The pile of wood belongs to a neighbor of ours, they helped clean up a fallen tree last year and stacked the wood there for later. The weeds and grasses were so bad, I could barely see the individual plants!

I ended up with 4 carts full of grasses, creeping Charlie, nettles, Bedstraw [sticky!], and saplings.

I love making bouquets early in the spring with all the iris flowers and mix it up with some Peonies. After the spring, the Hostas grow and do their thing.

It isn't a well organized garden at all. I just kept tossing plants in there as they multiplied in other spots.

The NOAA has sent out a statement warning of warning of some very severe weather heading our way on Tuesday. Potential of heavy rain, flash floods, hail, tornado, and strong straight winds.

I guess I can say I won't be doing any yard work for a couple of days. That's okay. 
I have plenty of indoor work that needs to be caught up on.

Whispers of Love ~~~

A Botanical Symphony that fills the forest with harmony~~~~

I took advantage of hubby sleeping in late on Wednesday and went for a morning forest jaunt. I was just amazed by the colors and the light.

Maple trees in morning light:

Gooseberry bushes blooming:

Apple Trees doing their beautiful thing:

Mayapples or as we called them May Poles:

Tulips in the yard:

Stunning Trillium on Hay Valley Trail:

Bellwort on Hay Valley Trail:

Truly, I cannot get enough photos of these Virginia Pinks before they disappear!
In the pine forest at Hay Valley Trail:

There were hundreds of Trout Lilies plants, but I only found one that was blossoming!

Hay Valley Trail:

[Other things that are going on at our farm? Not much. 

I built another two summer lots for both the little stud pony and the mules so I can do a bit less mowing. I spent all morning working on fencing and then took the afternoon to work on cleaning up the little flower gardens.

I brushed all the critters with a shedding blade until my arms fell off.]

It is the weekend now so I may take a day just to chill out!

Happy September !!

Here is a photo of one of the fields I walk to on the ridge in the evenings. It has been full of deer the last few weeks, they were grazing on the oats and then moving onto eating the corn plants.

This field should have produced two or three times the number of round bales shown here. Our county is now in severe drought and as of Friday with temperatures rising and the humidity dropping to 25%, we are also in a Fire Watch.

Yesterday I mowed some green patches of grass that are near the porch. The grass did grow there because I've watered my flowers that surround the porch.

We've had lows in the 40's this week and some nice temperatures. Come this holiday weekend we will be back up to nearly 100. The DNR is saying that we will be in critical fire danger starting today. Campfires will be considered a no-no.

The good part about it being so dry? Maybe it won't feel SO hot? The bad part? Well, we really really DO need rain!

I'm nearly ready to quit watering my flowers and let nature take its course and gather seeds for next year.

Yesterday afternoon I took some time to just sit on the porch and watch the world drift by. Of course I nodded off while sitting up and then got an idea to try some ...

Stop Motion

Another Flickr fellow had done a super short stop motion with one of his characters and it was pretty impressive. I decided to try it also. 

I wasn't going in for the 24 frames per second or higher as that takes a TON of time. I thought I'd try something simple while seated on the porch.

So this is 11 seconds of fun that took 40 photos to create. I won't do this as anything other than a fun little hobby. It takes too much time and effort to do a really smooth Stop Motion animation.

IT is hard! The last time I tried this was with my kids and their Legos, a dinosaur, a rubber rat, and a soda can.

We used a hand me down video camera that took stop motion stills that was on a VCR tape!

Dennis and Ariel plan to visit us on Sunday, they will drive up for the day and then go back home as Dennis is scheduled to work on Labor Day. That will be nice. I know Dennis wanted to ride the mules, but with temps near 100, it won't be happening.

Our weekend will be quiet and fairly usual. We don't do Holidays around here.

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?