Welcome to mosquitoville

June is moving right along!  Usually by this time of year, I can't imagine everything blanketed in white.  But the memory of ten feet of snow and below zero temps is still burned in my mind.  I can't believe things can survive those kinds of conditions!

The grey squirrel population took a big hit this winter.  Usually we have 8 or ten running around, but this spring we have one that slips in to the feeder at dawn and dusk.  Was it the cold and snow- or hungry raptors that annihilated the population?

Usually we have 4 or more nesting pairs of robins.  I can hear one singing through the open window as I type, but when I mowed the "meadow" the other day, not one came to hunt on the newly mowed lawn.

We don't have a lawn mower, so I borrow one from a friend.  You would not believe this old push mower.  The spark plug falls out.  The brake line is broken. The blades are dull from mowing rocks and stumps.  There are large floaties in the gas tank.  AND he runs it on chainsaw (mixed oil and gas) gas!!!

Prime it about 20 times, pull it twice, and it goes like hell.

So I just mowed for the first time this year.  I love "integrated" lawns.  Except for broad leaf plaintain...grrr. I also love perfect lawns like the game field at the Firebird's high school.  My lawn works for me, because if I don't mow it for a month or so I have a beautiful wildflower meadow.  :)

The dandelions had gone by, but the fescue had started to go to seed.  I wanted to wait until after the fescue set seed, so I could plant free grass seed when I mowed, but I just could not wait any longer.

I noticed a few black eyed susans (one of my favorite wildflowers) were gettting ready to bloom in the lawn, so I dug them up.  I pulled the evening primrose because the mowed stalks hurt to step on with barefeet.

I left the Queen Anne's lace, the yarrow, the red clover (the bumblebees were pissed as that was starting to bloom) the white clover, the gill goes over the ground, the violets, the hawkweed, the daisies.

The dog roses and blackberries trying to widen the perennial border got mowed.  They hurt to step on barefooted, but they hurt to pull up barehanded so it's a toss up. Besides, soccer balls and basketballs aren't supposed to go near the perennial border and a little negative reinforcement of stepping on a mowed over rose or blackberry sounds like Karma to this overprotective gardener.

Because I had let the lawn go to meadow, I set the old mower on the highest setting.  I am not sure why I did that, because the two times I mowed last year (the second time I mowed all the leaves as well....) I had it on the middle height setting.

I think I was afraid I might burn the lawn because it had been hot and sunny and dry, and our lawn has turned to crisp in the past.

 Peko thought it was the perfect height.

Cabin Fever

The days start to blur together like my vision at the end of the day as I peer blearily at yet another page of some random novel as the light fades to gloom.

Those big January projects that have accumulated for years spend another winter neglected as I crouch in front of the ancient woodstove shovelling more damp wood and huffing another cigarette while trying not to ignite the latest paperback in the other hand.

The laptop has even taken up a semi permanent home a mere two feet away from the stove, waiting for pages to load on a backwoods dialup connection, kept company by a teetering stack of disintergrating cookbooks.

Butter for that days baked goods softening on the shelf behind the stove-bread, cornbread, peanut butter cookies, scones, oatmeal cookies with dates or raisins, sugar cookies. The creeping cold creating havoc with the metabolism, causing cravings for carbs, sugars and fat to remain unfullfilled no matter the volume.

Finally last week a few days cracked the freezing mark, and I emerged with the 100 foot cord and the power drill to spend several hours putting 12 taps into the nearest sugar maples.  The trees took advantage of the break in the weather, too, and every empty jug suddenly became filled with beautiful clear maple sap.  I started burying jugs of sap in the huge snow banks, no way could I keep up.  I spent two days and eight hours reducing four gallons of sap on the gas kitchen stove, the house smelling of sweet sugar.  We promptly devoured half the hot syrup on a double batch of homemade griddle cakes, mixed with jumbo fresh eggs from last spring's chics, now just starting to lay with efficiency.

All good things come to an end, another twist in the jet stream has plunged our lows around 0F and our highs won't top freezing for the foreseeable future.  The sap is frozen solid in the buried jugs, frozen in the collecting buckets, and frozen mid drip in the taps.

Even afterschool sports have come to an end for the Firebird, who participated in indoor track this winter, his first.  I think his teammates that had encouraged him to join were kicking themselves after he beat their times in high hurdles and their distances in long jump.  He qualified in all three of his events for regionals and placed well, but not enough to qualify for states. Still an amazing performance and quite an athlete.

So now he is riding the bus home in the aternoons. Not really home, since the bus drops him off a half mile down the road.  I decided that Peko and I could use the exercise to work off some of those accumulated cookies, and started hustling out the door to meet the Firebird at the end of the road.

The first day Peko and I were trucking along, well not really trucking.  Peko came to us housebroken but not exactly leash trained.  His idea of a walk has me at a half jog, until he finds somewhere interesting to sniff, and then we come to a screeching half while he manages to squeeze two or three drops of urine on whatever it was he finds worth smelling for three minutes. Then we're off again.

On this particular afternoon, we were well along the wild wood zone.  We have two neighbors between us and the end of the road- one practically next door and the other at the end of the road.  The rest of the stretch is home to the turkeys and rabbits and deer and moose and squirrels and the occasional bobcat or coyote or fox- if they have managed to escaped the locals that like to run them down with dogs.

We have very little traffic, and it is not usual to make the walk up and back without encountering any vehicles on the road.  Anyhow, I spotted a silver SUV coming towards us, and I thought it was the near neighbor, an nice older lady that I had been meaning to visit.  I peered nearsightedly at the windshield as the vehicle approached, and at the last second I realized that it was, in fact, not my neighbor, but some good-looking young man that appeared half my age. My eyes went back forward and the mismatched battered work glove on my left hand came up in the standard, "Hello stranger, I see you" greeting that I employ in such cases.

The SUV passed, and Peko and I kept going, me half jogging and stopping and proceeding until several 'have to drip pee on this spots' later, I thought I heard an aircraft overhead.  So while Peko was sniffing and trying to summon forth the obligatory drop of urine, I swiveled my head like a turkey in a rainstorm trying to locate the source of the sound.

Then I spied the silver SUV coming back towards us.  In the intervening span since it had initially passed I had realized my personal appearance.  I was wearing a pair of size 12 Kamik snow boots of the Firebird's that were so large I had to put on a pair of afghani slipper socks to keep my feet from sliding around in them.  I had on a pair of jeans I had been basically living in.  The aforementioned mismatched tattered leather work gloves.  Several rattie hoodies topped with an old navy blue goose down nylon snowcoat, which had suffered enormously from contact with bits of pasture fencing and was shedding feathers and down like a goose caught in a weedwhacker.  And my hair hadn't seen a comb and I think my head must have resembled the fur on an orange persian cat that got too friendly with the strand of christmas tree lights.

So I did what any self respecting woman would do in such circumstances, I stuffed the unruly mess of hair into one of the battered hoodies, wiped the drip forming on the end of my nose on the back of one of my gloves, turned an about face, gave Peko a yank. and kept going.

It seemed forever for the SUV to come up behind us, perhaps I was really building momentum in my horror of the situation.  I could suddenly hear the bass speakers thrumping along, and as the vehicle came abreast I hazarded a look out of the corner of my eye to see the passenger window half down and the driver leaning over.

Then I heard the music.  LEd Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love, Robert Plant in the midst of belting out, "I just wanna make LOOOOOOVVVEEE to you!"

Well, the driver must have got a good look at my face, perhaps it was my smirk or maybe I had cookie crumbs stuck to the snot on the end of my nose, but he then accelerated to the end of the road and turned left.

I guess Cabin fever only goes so deep in February.

Local Flooding

Please Play Ball

Haying my Herd with the Dog

My friend Tonia over at allnaturalsimplelife.blogspot.com. , makes taking a good picture of a goat look simple. Ha-it's impossible!

I am never particularly motivated to take photos of my own herd, usually because I have my hands full when I am around them. Hay, grain, water, chainsaw...lol.

This afternoon I decided to try and get pics of the ones whose feet I have trimmed in the last few days-sorry no pictures of hoof rot, of which there were several cases.

I put my camera in my new Turkish shoulder bag ( a gift from Boss after a recent trip to Turkey) and slung the hay under the other arm and headed out.

I took four times as many pics as I am posting. Goats just don't hold still for a camera! And the light was bad, even though it was overcast late afternoon. Still, I came up with a few to share

Here is Moonshadow, or moo, or moonie. He is our only polled goat. His horns had been removed when we bought him, also at auction. I saw him advertised in a local buy and sell it guide and called the woman to find out she had indeed taken him to auction that day, so I know that he is Nigerian dwarf and pygmy cross.



Cricket the Beautiful and her white face. She was bought at auction and was also sick as a weanling. Nic the cashmere weck is to the left, stuffing his face. I made up the name weck since he is what I call a wether with buck characteristics. A pain in the *** is more like it.

Nic had a retained testicle and I banded the down one, rendering him sterile but he is just like a buck. He smells worse than 19 bucks at the farm combined, and coddles his group of does and kicks the crap out of the wethers. I couldn't give him away,(I tried on Craigslist) and don't care to eat him, so he is still with us for the time being.



The small doe in the center is Anna, Cricket's daughter. Cricket is all white, Anna's father, Derek, is brown with black points. Anna is so cute but wild even though she was born here. The herd took her in. Her Grandma, Daphne, our herd queen,the black pygmy yawning in the front, tore down the fence and had Anna sleep with her every night in a little house while her mother slept in the cold outdoors against the house.
The face in the far left is Moonie-no horns.



Anaken, three year old Alpine wether. Look at that nice straight topline! If I was going goat dairy, I would try and get a couple of Alpine does. Anaken was the runt of a pack of around twenty Alpine bucklings at auction, and had coccidiosis rather severely, so he is on the small and scrawny side.



and lastly here is Peko, who loves to race along the fence as I carry the hay out tot he goats. He barks viciously at them to keep them in their places. Here he is in the pet cemetery, next to Louise's grave with his tennis ball...Gandalf's grave is in the background on the right.

Saturday

Firebird CR

Today was a raptor day. This morning Willow spotted a golden eagle flying over the house. Then later we heard the call of a broad tailed hawk, and spotted a pair hunting right around the house. One would fly ahead, perch on a tree, and call, then the other flew up, and perched, still behind, and they tagged tandem out of sight through the woods.

We went fishing this afternoon, late. The Firebird went along and caught his first fish of the season, a small large mouthed bass. Now they are tied one each. Two folks had used boat trailers to put in bass boats, and in short time the first one came to put in.

We had a nice chat and learned their catch of the day was a 7 pound bass. The Firebird headed home after they left-Willow wanted to stay, but right away the second boat came in.

Younger guys, bigger boat, and they took more time then the first ones. The water in the cove was well murked up by then, so I convinced Willow we should head home and try again soon.

While the second boat trailer was backing up, Willow spotted a bald eagle flying down off the pond.

I am going to have to nick name her eagle-eye with all her sightings.

Trimmed Nicholas' hooves today and bug sprayed all the goats. Peko had a bath. It took three of us to drag him into the bathroom, but he is all soft and shiny now.

Tuesday

Busy couple of days. Put a big push on to get the rest of the wood order stacked. That early dusting of snow, now pretty much gone, worried me. Hard to stack wood that has an ice glaze, and I hate to dig it out of the snow cave that happens if I leave it in a pile under a tarp.

I was sure that I was shorted on the order, but I was wrong. Looks like it was about right. 2.7 cords on that last order, about 2/3 cord left of S's order, 1/3 cord left of last year's, plus a small pile of goat wood. Hopefully it will be enough.

Oh, yeah, it's all stacked. I was shooting for four days of stacking and did it in three-2 days worth of stacking today just to get it finished.

Jenny (Genevieve) had her hooves trimmed today. She has major pockets between both front clews. I tried to flatten them out as much as possible, but one was quite bad and it would have required taking an awful lot off. Boss would have gone further, I am sure. I hoof and heeled it and will try and keep a good eye on them. Maybe go in for another touch up in a week or so.

Caesar, Jenny, Moonshadow all are showing loss of pink in the inner eyelid. Everyone is due for a worming, but I think I will use up the last of the wormer on those three and then hit them all again as soon as I get some more wormer.

Peko had a bath.

Missed a phone call tonight, no message, so I hit *69 to get the number. Was an out of state area code, sounded familiar, so I reverse directoried it. Was given a name an address, right down to the street address. Well, that didn't sound familiar, so I googled a bit tonight.

No kidding, within 15 minutes I was on a family blog with pictures of a young couple and their kids. Plus I had their phone number and home address. Isn't that scary? That just creeped me out!!!! Don't they ever watch those crime shows? Ack.