Fair

Tree809

Blueberry Pie, Funhouse, Roller coaster, Tornado, Pirate Ship, big swings, haunted house, big slide, ferris wheel, Thai food, bumper cars,tilt-a-whirlX2, tornado, dash through the chicken barn, vomiting on the grass.

Should have seen that coming.

Monday

Back to work today, things went well, plenty of help. P an I had to knock down the piles from the manure traps under the barn, and that is one job on the farm I would rather not do. I was coughing and gagging outside by the bullfrogs in no time. It's not the manure, it's the ammonia. I think a bit of fear too as I read about a man succumbing to fumes in a manure pit and then his daughter who went to rescue him. Luckily the other child called for help. The two died. Fumes can be bad!

LOL Tonia, I read your comment about your temps and that is what ours are running, more or less. 82 and my kids are melting!!! The humidity has been high which makes it seem worse. I worked for years as a chef in hot kitchens over drawer broilers, grills, and fryolaters, in addition to growing up in a hotter clime, so I don't mind the heat. Besides, if we get too hot here we just go for a swim!

Peko has learned to swim, and his main goal is to get that boogie board away from Willow! She just goes out too far for his liking! He thinks he's a rescue dog!

I did get the lawn mowed, yay! It took two passes it was soooo long! Then it made the rest of the yard look shabby, weedy, and overgrown!!! LOL. I sort of liked my meadow theme. I like an integrated lawn, personally. In addition to various grasses, we have heal all, red clover, queen anne's lace, yarrow, potentilla, and feverfew, not to mention the plantain. I don't mind the plantain, but it is taking over a large part and it frost kills, so after frost there is a big bald patch on the lawn!

So I mowed it as it was going to seed, hopefully in time, and maybe next year I might have to rototill that section and reseed if it continues to take over.

Scheduled for more hours at the farm now, so I am hopeful we can try and live on that and save other income for some major work around here! Things have been at a standstill for a few years and I'd like to get the house finished off.

Sometimes I wonder why I have goats, but as I was putting hay out today I noticed how nice the upper "pasture" (1/4-1/2 acre) will look once I clean up all the slash.

Saturday

I've had a couple days off. Doing just little things and ignoring all the major ones as summer runs to an end. Hopefully I will be able to get some things done in the afternoons once the kids start school.

Still hot-still sleeping with half the windows wide open. (screens mandatory). I had been running a fire in the stove all through June and July so I don't mind the heat a bit!

This week looks good too. Hurricane Bill is going to miss us, but high surf. We missed a tornado yesterday. I was reading the weather alerts by county and it said that a tornado a couple counties over was on the doppler radar. Willow heard that and promptly started packing a panic bag. I have no idea where she got the idea. It is actually recommended by FEMA that everyone have a panic bag.

Willow put two blankets, a small pillow, her wallet, a giant bag of nacho cheese Doritos (which her brother promptly pulled out and started eating) and a two and a half gallon jug of water. No kidding. She can be my emergency planner anyday.

We got a little rain but nothing major, not really any thunder. I felt like a storm was building all day . While walking our goats late afternoon the temps dipped and a stiff breeze riffed by and thunder grumbled way off, so we hurried them to shelter. But we got nada. Sun came out. The weathermen were saying heavy rain and wind tonight (last night on the news)but it is still calm and quiet.

****

It's Hot

and I'm loving it! Working my butt off at the farm-no appetite in the heat. Coming home and running down to the pond for a cool dip and letting the saplings cavort for an hour..afternoon siestas-late afternoon trips to a heat-hazed empty city...

heat fried brains leading to giggling attacks with the kids over silly twists of words, goat dust, stiff horse sweat, whine of cicadas, sleeping with no covers, Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge chunk, iced coffee (cold Starbuck's Italian Roast).

Spitting out hot coffee from the great keeps-it-too-hot-for-August thermos,

found: used Durex condom wrapper at the pond, used bent- needled syringe at the pond, red and blue deflated metallic balloons at the pond,

dust clouds from the speeding traffic up the dirt road...

Checking the almost-down-to-the-wire tire daily, re-filling the power steering fluid, thankful when another trip is accomplished, cleaned the car but still need to wash the glass.

Shaking out this year's dusty hay, walking the goats, getting my news off the internet, giving friends food money, need to borrow a lawnmower before the plaintain goes to seed...blogging when the mood strikes, teaching the dog to swim, forgetting to put on deoderant.

So what if it's a month late, it's still summer! :)

Beach

Remember that nice little beach we love to visit off-season? Not so quiet now....







We managed to find our own spot-except for the fella enjoying himself on the inner tube-You notice most people are half-dressed and not many are in the water. This is supposed to be our "beach weekend" since the summer has been such a washout. Might have been 80 on the shore, with a strong breeze off the water.

Cashmere Bucks

Rockland Walk

No pics with this-the batteries need recharging and I keep forgetting.

(been busy ;) )

Today was laundry day in Rockland. I had it all ready to go for Friday morning and then realized it was the weekend of the Rockland Lobster Festival. The town population increases by many thousands, I think more like tens of thousands, so I wasn't toting 13 loads of laundry through a packed coastal town.

I decided to veto mackerel fishing today on the Breakwater. After two smashed poles, lost lures, and one mackerel, not to mention Peko going ballistic at every passing canine...

Instead, when we got all the washers going (three triple loaders and a quadruple-loader) we all agreed to go for a walk. The fire station is directly across from the laundromat. We headed left down to the nearest crosswalk which brought us out on the road next to the station.

We saw a woman painting an enormous house by herself, and it was looking quite lovely. I said such, and we had an interesting conversation about the color and the state of the house when she bought it, etc, etc.

Moving on, we crossed railroad tracks and walked pastlovely old homes. Victorians, with porches and mansard roofs and turrets. Federals with Widow's walks on the third floor. Quite a few were so tall they must have had ten foot ceilings.

Lovely landscaped yards, some grass in better shape than others. Banks of impatiens-one place all bordered in white impatiens. A lovely purple varigated barberry flanking both sides of a massive columned entry with steps painted in a shade to match the bushes.

"look how symmetrical it is," exclaimed Willow.

Lots of black eyed susans, daylilies, hostas of many varigations.

We went block after block, walking on a lovely wide sidewalk.

We enjoyed it so much, that after we transferred the wash into 7 jumbo dryers for 42 minutes, we went on a longer jaunt the other direction.

Peko had a great time, too. Sometimes people would drive by with dogs in their cars, and the dogs would yap as they went by. Peko wouldn't even flip an ear. Too many good things to sniff! A couple of houses we walked by had dogs that barked at us from inside, and the same thing, no reaction from Peko.

One place which we walked by, a man was coming around the corner of his house with an enormous German Shepard, off lead. I held my breath as we kept going, but the man said a quiet word and the dog went to him-very well trained. Thank Goodness!

I once had the misadventure of meeting an Irish Wolfhound while walking a beagle and a Toto look-a-like. The dog, a very large dog, bounded across the lawn, across the road and started lunging after my two dogs, while I tried to keep myself between and not trip up- juggling two leashes and two panicked dogs.

Finally (most likely seconds) a young man bounded out of the house and tried to retrieve the dog, and after several unsuccessful lunges I said, "Jeesum, get the dog!" and he said, "I'm trying, lady!"

Finally I freed a hand from the leashes and took a big breath and grabbed the dog by the collar until the kid could get him. I was glad I didn't get bitten!

Anyhow, that didn't happen today, thank goodness! We had a lovely walk on a lovely day and even went for a swim when we got home. Nothing like clean clothes still hot out of the dryer! :)