Hay there!

8/25/12
After reading all the press about the drought across the Midwest (and experiencing it to a lesser degree around here), we got a bit worried about the winter hay supply for the horses.  A friend was picking up 200 bales for her horses and saw a semi truck from Texas loading up for the trip back!  We bought 2 big bales this weekend and will get two more next weekend.

Two big bales on the trailer

The big bales are about 8 feet long, 3 feet high and 3 feet wide, so they're pretty big.

Long forks on the tractor spear & lift the bale

Fred loaded them onto our little trailer, then used the tractor to pick up one at a time to take into the barn.

Coming through the barn

We set up a storage area in the arena and will stack the big bales there.  Hate having hay in the arena. but having hungry horses would be much worse!

How much more work it would all be without the tractor and engine power!

Weeds...

8/24/12
Baby bunnies are still in place, still moving, so I think the BPU is working.  Henry is wearing his shock collar all the time now when we're outside.  Screaming like a banshee at him doesn't seem effective when he's got a baby bunny in sight!  We had a massive thunderstorm last night, too, so maybe the BPU even helped protect the bunnies from that.  An inch and a half, with almost non-stop lightning, and scary-high winds.  It was wild....

See the tiny spruce seeding in the middle left?

I went to check on Fred's so-called veggie garden to make sure my 4 plants survived the storm.  Out of 8 blue spruce seedlings and two lilacs, I still have 2 of the spruce and both lilacs.

And he calls this a garden...

Between the extreme heat and the drought, I guess I'm happy with the 4 that survived.  And, I think Fred pulled out a couple by mistake as he was weeding earlier.  He denies everything...  I say "weeding" with some hesitation, since the weeds are now over-my-head tall!  I took my hedge clippers out and whacked away a safe zone around each of my survivors - it took some searching to even find them.  I gotta figure out where they're going to live permanently and get them transplanted soon - before Fred loses patience and mows the whole weedy patch down!

Squash growing out of the manure strip

The veggie garden is kind of a joke at this point.  He'll get squash yet, and has gotten some kohlrabi and beet greens, but the rest were total failures.  It was mostly eaten by critters or overwhelmed by the heat or buried under weeds.  He's really got to do some serious thinking and planning for next year.



I like the idea of growing our own veggies, but it really takes constant work and determination  I don't think it's cost-effective, but I like the thought of learning how to grow at least some of the food we eat.  My two tomato plants are doing well and we shouldn't need to buy any tomatoes for a while (next, I need to learn how to can!).  They're in the bird garden near the house, so I can weed and water conveniently.  The bird garden has berry-producing shrubs for food and should also provide some cover over the winter.  There won't be much this year, but it should get better each season. 

Rabbit repeat

8/22/12
Henry found another bunny nest yesterday!  This time, I was right there and was able to get him away before he did any damage, thank god.  I used an idea I got from a website to rig up my special "Bunny Protection Unit" and now I'm just hoping the mama will accept it and the babies will make it.  They're still alive today and I'll keep checking over the next few days.  As long as I don't see mangled bodies or lots of fur strewn about, I'll be optimistic.   As you can see, I'm using half of a cat carrier to block off the top and rocks to make the opening smaller.  I just hope it's enough room for Mama to get in and nurse her babies!













I think my bluebirds have all started moving south.  I haven't seen any in a couple weeks and the only birds eating from the bluebird feeder are sparrows (we have lots of small native sparrows).  After the problems with the finches, I've stopped feeding any seed-eating birds.  The Baltimore Orioles, woodpeckers, and hummingbirds will still get food, but no seeds out there for a few weeks!

Keep your fingers crossed for the bunnies.  (I never shoulda read Watership Down...)

Animal health??

8/21/12

More sick birds at my feeder!  I was able to find out more information from the Cornell bird site http://www.birds.cornell.edu/hofi/abtdisease.html.  The pictures they had were exactly like the finches at my feeder and it's a respiratory disease called  Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis .  The info I've found indicates that they don't know what causes it or how it's transmitted, but they recommend sanitizing the feeders with a 1:9 bleach soln as soon as you see an infected bird.  It's been moving across the US from the East Coast and although not common here, it's been seen more and more.  The poor bird's eyes get swollen and crusted over so they can't see, then they starve to death or get eaten.  Though it's illegal to do to a native species, I've started capturing and euthanizing the birds I see with it.  If the bird is sick enough for me to get close enough to throw a towel over it, it's better off with a quick death by car exhaust than a starvation death or a cat death.  So I spent an hour or so yesterday dismantling my seed feeders and cleaning them with dilute bleach, and now I'm going to stop feeding for about a week.  At least at this time of year there should be lots of natural food out there, and crowding at feeders probably isn't good if there's a sick bird about.

I went to the grocery store in NP yesterday and when I got home and opened the garage door, no dogs came dashing out.  They came running from the other side of the house, so happy to see me!  The kennel gate was wide open and I assume they spent the hour gorging off the manure/compost pile.  Neither seems to be suffering from it, though Henry's stool was a bit weird this morning.  Just what their poor GI tracts needed after the feast on Granny's  garbage, eh??

Today I left both dogs unattended and loose in the house while I went to Ace.  Nothing was chewed or shredded when I got back!!  Amazing!  Maybe Henry is growing up...

Elder Care...

8/15/12
Just talked with Granny, after having the police go check on her.  We'd been trying to reach her for hours, but getting no answer on the cell phone (it was turned off for church) and right to voice mail on the house phone. Apparently the house phone was slightly off the hook on one extension.  A "very nice young policeman" helped her find the problem and now she's back in business.  With her recent health issues, and this being her first day on her own, not being able to reach her was getting worrisome!  We need to set up a rotation for checking in with her twice a day, and for someone to go to Austin each weekend.  With three of her five kids just 90 minutes away, we oughta be able to take one weekend day every three weeks to go down there.  That would also keep the refrigerator situation under control!

Speaking of the fridge...  I put out the garbage this morning, but couldn't fit all Granny's bags (two more, for a total of 4 bags in two weeks!) into the can, so left one in the garage.  Big mistake.  While taking Fred to pick up the truck (another $411 tab...), Henry and Molly went to town on all that bad meat (mostly breaded chicken and very old steaks).  When I opened the garage once I got home, and saw all the pieces of plastic bags and meat trays, I just groaned.  All I'd need would be two poisoned dogs!  So they both got about 60cc of hydrogen peroxide and spent the next 20 minutes vomiting all their stomach contents.  Henry was the worst and he wandered all over the driveway and ditch, leaving piles of chewed up chicken and plastic mixed with copious amounts of H2O2 and saliva.  It was so lovely to clean up...revolting!  They're both pretty subdued right now.  God, what an experience.  Took another 45 minutes to clean out the mess in the garage - meat juices smeared all over the floor, bits of other luckily unidentifiable stuff scattered about, and that godawful smell of rotting garbage.  The flies were having a field day :(   Finally got it cleaned up, closed the garage, and fogged with Raid.  Ick, ick, ick!

Long boring days just don't seem to be in the cards for me...

Strays...

8/8/12

This is the kitty who arrived at my back door last Saturday evening.  He was precariously perched on the grill, sticking one paw into the drip tray to grab some good stuff, then licking his paw clean.  He spooked, of course, when I opened the door, but unlike most strays, he didn't disappear into the night.  He went halfway down the steps, turned, and meowed at me!  I talked to him a little and he became my best bud in no time flat.  Of course, I was hooked.  He was a thin, declawed, neutered male, and very affectionate, so I know he was someone’s pet.  How he ended up at our farm is a mystery.  I fed him for a couple days, then realized I had to find him a home, or when Fred returned from his trip, I’d be looking for a divorce lawyer!      (Last August when Fred left on a trip, he came back to find three dogs, instead of two.  This kitty showed up the same day Fred left on this summer’s trip.  Fred will never leave again!)  At first, I’d thought he was a she, but the vet said nope – neutered male, maybe 6-8 years old.  No microchip or ID, of course!  My friend Pat said she’d take him, so now he’s charming her and the rest of her household.  He’ll have a good life there.  I kinda miss him!

Granny and I spent all day yesterday in Austin, taking care of business.  She got her hair done, a hearing aid replaced, shopped at her favorite butcher, visited the library, sorted through mail, and cleaned out all the rotting food in her fridge.  She’d been gone for nearly 3 weeks, and she tends to hoard anyway, so there was a lot of garbage to deal with…  (my trash went out today and I’m sure the guys are wondering what we’ve been up to in the last week!).  She had nearly 4 dozen eggs in her fridge!  I took 2 dozen home, thinking we could eat them here, but after cracking a couple and gagging at the stench, I checked the dates.  Both cartons were “best by Jan 2012” !!  So, more to be added to next week’s garbage haul.  Yuck.  I think we need to get rid of anything in her fridge that’s older than a month, particularly anything opened…  How many open containers of mayo can one little old lady consume??  Her fridge would make a food safety expert panic!

Haven’t heard from the campers since Sunday morning, so I hope they’re both fine – not eaten by bears or drowned in the lakes.  I think the weather has been good for them, but neither is an expert canoer so there’s a little bit of worry there…  I expect them back in cell range by Friday morning and home by Friday night.  I’ll be glad to have Fred home – I miss him!

Starting to think about school again.  Sigh…  After Granny goes home on the 17^th, I’ll have one more week of pure freedom before the grind begins again.  At least this year I’ll have only upperclassmen.  I’ll also have two classes of Accelerated Precalc and those kids are usually great fun.  They're smart enough and sophisticated enough to be able to tease and joke with, without risking chaos.  The other three classes will be regular Algebra 2, so not as high ability, but at least a little older and more mature than freshmen.  A repeat of last year would send me to the funny farm!

8/9/12

I forgot the “best” part of my Austin adventure with Granny!  I’m driving and she’s giving directions, but she’s not entirely clear on which of several corners “Turn left” refers to, so I’m swerving from lane to lane, missing the turn entirely, making a wild right turn down a frontage road, into a parking lot so I can turn around and try again.  Much to my dismay, a highway patrol car with flashing lights pulled in right behind me!  I figured he must be wondering what that lady driver is on, with her wild driving, and I was anticipating a ticket for reckless driving (and increased insurance premiums L).  What he was really concerned about was the dark tint on the Dodge’s windows!  I babbled through an explanation about it being Mom’s car (then had to explain why I was driving it) from Arizona where tinted windows were common.  Well, in Minnesota, they can only be tinted to block 50% of light through, and mine were allowing less than 70% through.  I’m not sure if it’s actual light or a certain wavelength, but in any case, I was illegal!  He told me I’d have to remove the tinting from all the windows, not just the front (passenger cars vs trucks and vans), and I’d better do it pronto because my official warning would be in the system that day.  If I got stopped again, I’d get a ticket (I don’t know the fine amount since Henry chewed up the ticket when I got home – good dog!).  He was kind of a putz.  So, I just finished removing the tinting on the front windows.  I had to stop for a while – the acetone to dissolve the adhesive was making me dizzy!  Gawd…

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.