Hot again!

7/25/12

Back to the heat again, but at least we’ve had some rain.  We got 2.5 inches here on the farm over about 36 hours – badly needed it, too!  You should see Henry leaping over the rows of soybeans!  They're tall enough now that all I see is the tip of his tail as he trots down a row.  When I call, "O Henry!  Come on, Henry!", he bounds like a hurdler over the rows.  Boing!  Boing! Very cute.  The corn is quite tall, but I don’t know enough about how corn grows to know if it's okay. I do know that rain at the right time is critical to good kernel formation.  I’ve seen too many very brown corn stalks, particularly in southern Minnesota, to not worry about the crop.  Being a farmer would be so hard!  How do you deal with having so little control over a critical factor like weather?  And it must be heartbreaking to have livestock in the midst of a drought.  My heart goes out to ranchers who are watching their herds die of thirst or starvation, or finding themselves needing to slaughter herds and lose bloodlines they’ve spent decades developing, all for the lack of decent rains.  My dying lawn and struggling shrubs become awfully trivial in comparison…

The shootings in Aurora were mind-boggling.  I’m not a gun control fanatic, but I have a hard time understanding why anyone without evil intentions needs to own a semi-automatic assault rifle!  Guns for hunting and personal protection are one thing; military-grade assault weapons are entirely another.  The argument has been made that if someone in the theater had had a gun, maybe they would have been able to kill the shooter before he’d gotten as far as he did.  Maybe so, but if the hero had missed, would the shooter have sent a barrage right at that area, leaving more innocent spectators caught in the middle?  I don’t know anything about conceal-and-carry laws.  Would someone with a conceal permit be allowed to bring a gun into a place with one of those “guns are banned in these premises” signs posted?  Maybe if everyone was carrying a gun, fewer psychos would think they could get away with it?  What a god-awful mess….

I have been watering the tomato plants and they’re growing like crazy!  I keep waiting for some hint of color on those green balls.  There is nothing as tasty as fresh garden tomatoes!

Had to send in my laptop for repair.  I downloaded a recommended security update from Toshiba and the next morning the laptop wouldn’t boot up.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but I tell ya, I’m going to be a lot more leery of updating a perfectly fine unit from now on!  At least it’s still under warranty, so the repair shouldn’t cost me anything.  Still, $35 to send it in and not having it for at least 2 weeks is a substantial price anyway!  I’d been using it a lot lately, since sitting at the desktop computer for very long has been painful (the back issue…).  I set up the laptop on the kitchen counter and stood there – worked out quite well, but now it’s gone.  At least the back is getting better!

Is July over yet??  This has been a rough month around here… brother-in-law’s death; back meltdown; Fred’s uncle’s death; Granny’s GI bleed (and she had a small heart attack last night!  Good thing she’s already in the hospital).  Crimey!  Send good vibes this way, please J. 

Loose ends

7/19/12

The last of this year’s bluebirds have fledged!  Yay!  I was worried that this last batch would get killed by the heat, but they’re gone (see the dirty empty nest!) and no dead babies left behind.  Now, if the last of the tree swallows would make it out, I’d breathe a big sigh of relief.  

Messy bed!

Each time I take out an old nest, I'm amazed again that 3-5 bluebird babies could have lived there.  The floor is just too small.  I'm going to play with the design of these boxes this fall and see if I can modify them to provide more room.  If we're going to continue to get these hot summers, I'll feel much better about the bird babies if they have a bit more space.




I’ve learned a lot this summer about the birds, but it’s just made me worry more!  I noticed that one of the finches at the deck feeder seemed very brave about having me come out on the deck.  The other birds would scatter, but this one would just keep on eating.  A few days ago, I noticed that the skin around his eyes was featherless and red (see the picture – if you click on it, it will enlarge), so now I’m worried that he’s blind!  I haven’t seen him in a couple days, which is also worrisome.  And now I’m concerned that his condition is something contagious and the other birds will get it!  I’ve gotten various pieces of advice from removing the feeders to trying to catch the sick one for treatment.  I’m not sure a wild finch would survive the trauma of being caught and treated, but I might dump the remaining seed and sanitize the feeders.   Hmmmm…

 With the drought we’ve had, the last thing my plants need is to be eaten by bugs, but I think that’s what’s happening to my flowers.  Doesn’t look good!  At least the berry shrubs are still doing well.  I don’t like gardening and don’t want to worry about this stuff!  


And look at this monster eating my primrose!  You can see the damage on the other picture pretty well.  That stick-like stalk should have lots of leaves.  You can see the nubbins left after being chewed...

Poor primrose...  They get blown over by the wind, peed on and trampled by the dogs, and eaten by things.  I think I may just dig them up and plant more large rocks.  That's truly low maintenance!

Heartbreak and backache

7/17/12

My brother-in-law's funeral was good, and very well-attended, which was some consolation for his wife, I think.  I remember feeling hurt that so few people came to Dad's funeral, but I've since wondered if we knew how to get the word out effectively...  I encouraged Jeanne to wait till Monday to have the funeral, rather than do it last Friday because I wanted people to have enough time to make travel or work arrangements.  Anyway, Bruce had a great send-off, with eulogies from his boss, his best friend, and his cousin.  

I spent the service alternately sitting and standing in the back, rather than sitting with family.  My back muscle is still so sore, and I couldn't have sat still throughout the service, especially after sitting for an hour in the car.  By the time we got home, I was in pretty bad shape.  I need to be able to change position about every 10-15 minutes.  I'm still taking drugs and doing stretching exercises, but I think healing that muscle is just going to take time.  One of the exercises acts as a massage, as well as a stretch, so that's a good one.  I'm not worried that it's spine-related; it just so clearly feels like a pulled muscle - very localized and very tender to the touch.  I think about Ella's lifetime of back problems and really don't want to go there!

Thinking about what I'd want for my own funeral is an interesting exercise.  I told Fred he could do whatever he wanted, once I was cremated.  Not being a very religious person, a full church funeral service seems hypocritical, but I guess what would help Fred would have to be the first priority.  After all, I couldn't care less at that point!  Well, chances are good I'll survive him anyway.  He said I could bury him next to Chicanery in the back pasture.  Not sure I could get away with that... but spreading his ashes in the pasture would be okay.  Not for many years, please!!

I'm glad I have a laptop.  I have it set up on the kitchen counter so I don't have to sit to email!

It's funny what I can do without experiencing pain, but they all have the common thread of no bending and very light lifting.  I'm able to "finish" the stalls, which means spread the straw back out, refill the water buckets (with the hose), and rake up the aisle.  I absolutely cannot "clean" the stalls, which means filling muck buckets with manure and dirty straw, and dumping them into the manure spreader, up at chest height.  It's the lifting something heavy that poses the problem.  I can wash dishes at the sink, but have to be very careful bending to load or unload the dishwasher.  I'm going to try to vacuum today, but will be very careful with the twisting motion!  When the dog hairballs start floating across the carpet, I gotta do something!

Speaking of which, I think I need to go stretch a bit.

Come In threes?

7/14/12

Okay, threes, eh?  One, my brother-in-law’s death; two, my severe back spasm yesterday (more later); three, the new water softener isn’t working.  Are we safe for a bit now?  Cars okay?  Animals fine??

I was gardening yesterday, bent to pull a weed, and blam!  Severe pain in lower right lumbar region.  24 hours later, after multiple cold packs, gentle stretching, and lots of drugs, I’m incrementally better.  This is very reminiscent of the back episode I had prior to the England trip, and that was a doozy!  I seldom suffer these during the school year, probably because I’m moving almost all day, seldom sitting for more than an hour at a time.  Plus, I’m not doing any heavy lifting during the school year.  The summertime is much less structured, with random acts of stretch and strength required.  I should take Fred’s advice and start doing a regular yoga stretching routine.  He used to have back problems but since he’s been doing yoga every day (7 years now), he hasn’t had a single episode.  Okay, okay, even if I never feel like I have time during the school year,  can at least do it during the summertime! 

I skipped the family gathering yesterday and today, in hopes of making it to the funeral on Monday.  It’s an hour drive to and from, plus time for the service and reception, so a lot of sitting.  I may have to sit at the back of the church just so I can stand once in a while!  Fred went today, armed with brownies.  We almost hosted today’s gathering out here at the farm – good thing it didn’t work out that way.  Fred and I make a good team for events, but doing it all by himself would be asking a lot!  And, it would drive me nuts to have to sit and watch him organize, rather than do it myself! 

Good news on my last group of tree swallow babies.  I’d thought they were in dire straits after all the extreme heat and humidity.  The nestlings were very quiet, no begging behaviors, hardly moving, and I wasn’t seeing parental activity.  I thought they were doomed.  This morning though, I saw heads sticking out the hole, and parents entering!  YAY!   I just really hope they use the new bigger boxes next year.  I just may replace all the boxes next year.  Building them would be a good fall activity – maybe MEA weekend. 

Time for a stretch and maybe a walk.

Traumas

Well, this has been a rough few days!  My brother-in-law was admitted to the ER last Thursday and died on Monday 7/10.  He’d been dealing with complications from kidney cancer since last September, and the metastasized tumors in his lungs are what finally ended his life.  His wife is, understandably, exhausted and stricken.  He was in his late fifties, so she’s feeling cheated out of decades of life with him.  I’ve been trying to be as much help as I can, and being a teacher on summer break has given me opportunities many people don’t have.  The worst part may be over for him, but now she has to figure out how to make a good life on her own.  Hard times… 

The drought here on the farm continues.  I do water the bushes we spent so much effort and money on this spring, but I feel a bit guilty trying to keep the grass in decent shape.  It’s not a lovely suburban lawn at the best of times, and now it’s pretty ragged.  Crabgrass, alfalfa, pasture grasses – it’s a mixed up mess!    I have decided that even weeds look better mowed, though.  The different grasses grow at different rates and the lawn ends up with random tufts of tall, coarse, green grasses scattered throughout the browning yard.  Looks pretty tacky!  Dad would shake his head…

I’ve been wondering if I should stop listening to the radio.  I get so annoyed at the political garbage that gets spewed out by both sides, but particularly the Republicans.  Neither side seems to realize that when they say “Americans want us to -----------“ they’re generally only speaking for half the polled population!  I  don’t care if my tax dollars fund family planning clinics where abortions are performed!  I don’t want the Affordable Care Act repealed!  I don’t want Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy renewed!  I want more freedoms, not fewer; I want universal health care, not health care only for those who have jobs where it’s provided; I believe that people earning over $250,00 per year can afford a bit more in taxes; I don’t want single parents to have to choose between food and medicine – and on and on!  I believe that I’m representative of at least half the population, so when John  Boehner spouts off about “The American citizen wants us to repeal Obamacare”, I get really annoyed!  What I really want is a return to the idea of working together to find mutually-acceptable solutions to the problems facing the country, from unemployment to the environment to strengthening families to health care.  We need statesmen, not politicians.  Grrrrr……!

7/5/12   Remember this story from a few years ago??  At least tonight's baling shouldn't be such a nightmare!

"I’m finally somewhat recovered from my weekend at Barleycorn Labor Camp…  I already told you about the work we did on Saturday with planting the shrubs and my reaction to either the juniper oils or the new sun screen.  We watered all our 40-some trees on Sunday and lugging the hoses and buckets is not trivial work!  So by late afternoon I was bushed and ready to stop.  I was washing the sweat, dirt, plant fragments, and wind off my face when Fred raced into the house and said, “Nancy, we need you to drive the tractor!”.  Our farmer friend’s hay baler wasn’t working entirely right and the mechanism that kicks the bales back into the hay wagon wasn’t doing its job.  This meant that each bale was simply dropped onto the field and would have to be manually picked up and tossed into the hay wagon.  I was supposed to drive the tractor, towing the hay wagon, slowly up and down the field while the guys “tossed” the 40-60 pound bales 3 feet up into the hay wagon.  I’ve driven the tractor exactly once in the past three years.  It has 2 brake pedals on one side, a clutch pedal on the other, a hand lever accelerator, and a gear shift with 5 vague gears.  My foot can barely cover the brake pedals, the seat is not adjustable so I’m reaching with both legs and arms, and the gear mechanism is very sticky.  I was fine until I started to go uphill and wanted to shift gears.  I could not get it into gear!  And the tractor was rolling backwards downhill, getting ready to jack-knife the hay wagon… (Look for us on the evening news…!)   I’m pushing on the brakes but sliding backwards in the seat, so the brakes weren’t terribly effective.  Fred is racing across the field shouting at me to put it in park (like I could just do that!).  I finally got it stopped and into park, at which point Fred reached me and said, “I’ll drive!”.  So then I was supposed to be on the ground, flinging the bales into the wagon.  Right.  Like I have the arm strength to fling 50 pounds up three feet into a moving target!  My third and last option was to ride in the hay wagon and stack the bales the other 2 guys were tossing in.  I could get them stacked up about 3 layers high, but no further.  Each bale is about 3 ft x 1 ft x 1 ft, and wrapped twice around with thin plastic twine, and don’t forget the weight!  Not an easy object to toss about.  At one point I felt like Lucy in the chocolate factory, with bales coming in from both sides!  At some point in this venture, the farmer left and returned with a different baler with a working kicker, so he finished the rest of the lower field with that.  However, he did the upper field with the broken kicker, so we had to go pick up those bales, too.  Then, we had to unload and restack all the bales in the barn! It was not fun.  We have a barn full of sweet-smelling new hay and that’s nice, but we’re anticipating that about 1/5 of the bales will go bad.  The cut hay really didn’t have enough time to dry between the cutting and the baling, but we were running into a rain threat so didn’t really have a choice, once it was cut – had to get it baled and off the field or risk losing it all."

The new equipment John (the farmer) is using stacks the bales in nice layers of 12 and drops them onto the barn floor.  If we had the room, the loader could just turn around and drop them onto the hay storage deck, but we don't, so we do have to restack them by hand, but that's a lot easier than tossing them out of the haywagon!  The kicker tosses the bales, willy nilly, into the hay wagon and it's like playing Pick Up Stix to get them out.

7/7/12  Update: for some reason known only to God and his angels, John left our bales in tidy piles in the field!  We had to take the tractor down to pick them up, trundle back to the barn, dump them and then stack on the hay deck. I couldn't believe it....  It was a small cutting, so only about 30 bales, but still!

There are only two nests of baby birds left to fledge, then I can take the boxes down to clean them (pour boiling water all over them!).  I hope the TRES use the new boxes next year!

Hot & humid!

Another really hot and humid day…  Actual 4PM temp is 91° but the heat index is 101°, with a dewpoint of 73%.  Very uncomfortable, but not as bad as yesterday!  I just put out another shallow box filled with rocks and water for the birds, so there are three bird baths out there.  Remember those 80-some plastic storage boxes I used when I moved to the first farm??  This is one of them.  Fred wanted to sell them a couple years ago but I knew we’d use them eventually, and boy! Have we ever!  This “water box” may be big enough for the crows…  I think the bird at it in the photo is a female red-winged blackbird, but don’t quote me on that!  

We really want to put together some kind of mini-pond with circulating water, but are going to try to do it on a shoestring budget.  I keep thinking a small, rigid-sided kiddie pool could work as the container, and a simple pump shouldn’t be too pricey, right?  We could bury the pool a bit, so it wasn’t so high off the ground, or even just cut the sides down.  Wonder if we could do a controlled melt of the edge so it wouldn’t be too sharp… we do have a small propane torch…  Any ideas out there??

On Monday, a young man will be coming for some tutoring help before he takes a Calculus refresher course this fall.  This will be my first tutoring job!  He was steered to me by a mutual friend and sounds very highly motivated, so it should be a good experience.  I have no idea what to charge, but I think $25/hour sounds reasonable for private tutoring.  I’ll actually be preparing and delivering lessons, not just helping with specific homework problems, so it’s a bit more than just some college kid offering homework help.  I hope he’s okay with dogs and cats in the house!  Being a city kid, he may enjoy some time out in the country.  If it’s still this hot, though, we won’t be taking any breaks outside!

Just got word that our hay will be baled late this afternoon.  Oh joy.  That means an hour or so in the hot barn, “tossing” bales to Fred to stack.  Dusty, sweaty, hard on the back.  I’m too old for this!!

Exciting morning in the barn

This was a rather exciting morning in the barn…  I was finishing up one of the stalls when my eye was caught by the unusual and unexpected sight of four hooves cartwheeling through the air.  I rushed out to the arena to see what had happened and there was Faye, on her back and scrambling to right herself.  Fred was cautiously approaching, trying to make sure she didn’t get tangled even worse in the lunge line, and she did make it to her feet safely, blowing and trembling.  Very carefully and slowly, talking calmly all the time, Fred drew the lunge line through her legs  and it was finally over.  Wow.  He’d tried using side reins on her while lunging her – very loose -  to see if she would adjust her head and neck position a bit, but as soon as she felt the restraint, she panicked and literally flipped out.  No damage done to horse, handler, or saddle, but quite a sight to see!  He rode her quietly on a loose rein for another 15 minutes, then turned her out.  Even though she’s an 11 year old horse, she’s basically a pretty green 2 year old mentally.  If I remember correctly, she had about a year of work under saddle (once a week) when she was around two, then was a pasture buddy for three older mares for the next six years.  She’s very pretty, very hot, and very spooky, so training is a challenge.  She is making progress, though, so Fred just needs to keep it up.

I’ve been dealing with a very achy lower back for the past few days.  I got dragooned into helping Fred shovel out rocks from the pasture shelter.  These are about 1.5 inch, jagged chunks of rock that we paid someone to spread with his front end loader about two years ago.  God, a shovelful is heavy!

In the spring, the shelter was getting totally bogged in deep, sticky mud, and we thought a mix of rocks would stabilize the ground surface over time.  It did, but now there is a layer of loose rocks that get in the way of cleaning, so out they came.  Shoveling rocks in 90 degree weather is not fun!  Plus, I am not in shape to do this kind of work!  Something’s wrong when my life is getting physically more taxing the older I get.  Gawd…    So I’m popping pills and bending very carefully and only when I must!

Grape jelly seems to be a favorite of a lot of kinds of birds.  I’d thought that only the Baltimore Orioles would eat it, but I’ve seen woodpeckers, finches, starlings (another invasive and nasty species!), and blackbirds all eating it with apparent gusto.  Then they have to wipe their beaks on the post to get all that sticky stuff off.

I think the crows would be there, too, but they’re too big to get into the feeder cup area.  They do like the bird bath, though!   Very funny to see one large crow trying to splash in one smallish bird bath.  I should get a kiddie pool for them…

I worry about the bluebird nestlings in this extreme heat, but I'm not sure there's much I could do for them.  Heat is better than getting chilled, I guess.  One more nest of tree swallow eggs to hatch and then I think we're done for this season.  I've been seeing the tree swallows checking out the new boxes - hope they use them!  I'm going to leave the doors on the bluebird boxes open for an extra week next spring to try to encourage the tree swallows to claim the larger boxes.  We're far enough north that the bluebirds don't overwinter here and I think the tree swallows come back first.  I'll be watching carefully!

Baby Bunnies...sigh

I know dogs are predators and when they chase and kill small animals they’re just doing what Nature programmed them to do, but I sure do hate to witness it!  I was waging war on my nemesis weed (that thistle!) with my sprayer when I saw Henry expressing too much interest in something buried in the tall grass.  Sure enough, it was a rabbit hole with a youngster nosing up out of it.  I zapped Henry (effective but mild – don’t worry!), yelled at Molly (no collar on her), and we moved on.  However, I lost track of the dogs after about 10 more minutes until I heard that awful noise of a baby rabbit being chewed up.  Running screaming at the dogs, zapping all the way, backpack spraying bouncing all over, I was, of course, too late.  The poor little thing had an eye gouged out (head bite, most likely, pulling it out of its burrow?) and skin tears along its little legs.  I HATE this!  But the only alternative is to keep the dogs leashed all the time and I won’t do that on our own 10 acres.  I appealed to Fred’s manliness and he dispatched the little bugger more mercifully than letting it simply die in its own lingering time.  Between the two dogs, they’ve killed 5 baby rabbits I know of.  I wish the dang things would go burrow somewhere else!  I read that they tend to nest near houses because they know their natural predators (foxes, weasels, coyotes, etc.) will avoid the houses.  What they don’t seem to recognize is the danger of cats and dogs…  Sigh.  After reading Watership Down, I’m entirely too capable of anthropomorphizing rabbits!

An hour or so later, Henry was charming me with his passion for shredding boxes.  Boxes of all sorts – really cheap chew toys!  I’ve spent many dollars on fancy squeaky toys or braided ropes, and he ignores them all for a box.  Go figure.

Several hours later, three more baby rabbits are gone!  God, what a day! The dogs got two more and the barn cat got the third, and I am a basket case.  How do I keep the rabbits out of the areas near the house??  I think the whole litter is gone…  I suppose there’s really no way to keep wild rabbits safe near the house, short of leashing the dogs (which I won't do out here) but this is really upsetting!  

I just read up a bit on cottontails (god I love the internet!) so I'll be better prepared for the next litter we find.  At least now I'll know how to age the babies and have some tips on how to protect the nest from the dogs and cats.  Such trauma out here in the country!