Mystery Picture

Reflections

I know some of you are curious so I decided not to make you wait to long but first I want to say thank you to those who ventured to guess what was going on in this picture. When I looked at the picture this morning I wondered what I would have thought if I didn’t know what it was. I think I might have went with a lightning bolt striking to set the fire or even a meteor falling into the pond. (Not very likely though.)

The short answer is: My husband was burning off the dead cattails in the pond. (Keep reading if you want the full story.)

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The Rest Of The Story

For several weeks my husband has been talking about wanting to get rid of the dead cattails in our pond.  He has even jokingly asked me when I was going in the pond to get rid of them. I know he was joking because he knows that I am not going into the water until it warms up. Nope! Not me! I’m not that crazy!

In past years he has cut the cattails during the winter when the pond is frozen solid enough to walk on, but the unseasonably warm winter we had did not create the proper conditions for him to do so.

I wasn’t surprised on Wednesday evening when he asked me to bring his shorts and a towel to the farm because he was going in the pond and get rid of the cattails. You may remember this post when you learned that my husband has been known to do crazy things.

Rather than cut the cattails he decided to use our propane torch/flame thrower to burn them.IMG_6471 (2)

Since the torch does not shoot the flame far enough to reach the cattails from the bank of the pond, he had to wade into the water, about midway up on his thighs, and stretch the hose across the water to burn the cattails. The photo is the cattails that were still burning after he emerged from the water.

Thanks again for playing along.

55 Things #20 – Full Flower Moon

55 Things, Reflections

Click here to learn more about my “55 Things” and here to view previous posts in this series.

You might remember that in March we only had intermittent views of the full worm moon and in April while others were viewing the full pink moon we were treated to a different act of nature. (click the month to read those posts.) So on Wednesday evening when the moon was rising and the skies were clear I headed to the farm to view the nearly full flower moon. It was still 24 hours before peak fullness but I didn’t want to take any chances on missing it. Below are some of the views from that evening.

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The orange glow in the foreground is from the campfire that I was sitting by.

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Sun setting in the west as the moon was rising in the east.

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The sky to the south as darkness falls.

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Before I explain this last picture I thought we would have a little fun and see if you can guess what is going on here. Leave your guess in the comments below. I will provide an explanation in my next post so be sure to follow along.

Did you see the full flower moon?

 

Chicks and Pics

Chickens, Chicks, Hoop House, Pond, Reflections, The Farm,

The Flock

It was nearly a month ago that we decided to get 6 chicks to add to our flock. Supplies of chicks in the farms stores were already running low but when my husband called me from our local Tractor Supply Store and asked me what I thought about getting 6 straight run Australorp chicks. I said “let’s do it”.

Normally we only buy pullets (females) and choose breeds that are good layers. Australorps are one of the breeds we already have in our flock and since we lost our rooster in November buying straight run (unsexed) chicks would give us a good chance of getting at least one replacement rooster.

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Ranger was quite curious about the babies. We could only let him look from a distance because when we let him see close up he wanted to bite or eat them.

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Last week the chicks were mostly feathered out so they made the move to the farm. During the day time they were in this fenced enclosure with netting over top. We also left their crate there in case they need to get in out of the weather. At night time they would go into their crate then into the coop with the rest of the flock. They are adapting well to life on the farm even on these cooler days and cold nights.

For the past few days my husband has left the enclosure open so the chicks could roam around the chicken yard. Last night they all made it into the coop on their own.

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Then this afternoon I found them all hanging out on the roosts in the coop. They are growing up so fast. 🙂

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As they have grown it has become apparent that at least some are not Australorp chicks. The Australorp should be solid black; not black and white striped as the one in the front is.

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They also do not have feathered feet as three of these chicks do. Whatever breed(s) these birds are they seem to be hardy and intelligent, so we are pleased with them so far. It will be a while before we know for sure how many are roosters and how many are hens, but we are hoping for one or two roosters. That would be ideal for our flock. I am looking forward to hearing that cock-a-doodle-doo again.

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The rest of the flock has really been enjoying spring.

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This made me laugh to see them all lined up along this ditch. They were scratching up the dead leaves to find grubs and bugs. Yumm! Good eatin’!

Inside The Hoop House

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The plants in the flats will be transplanted in the garden(s) once the weather breaks.

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The plants in the boxes will be harvested as they grow. I expect to start harvesting small amounts of lettuce and spinach in about 7 to 10 days.

Another Spring Chore

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The weather was warm and sunny on Friday so I decided to clean up the beach area. I needed to rake the leaves out of the water.

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Even though the air temperature was warm, the water was still frigid, so I needed to wear my boots.

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Trooper, on the other hand, thought the water was just fine,

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and after getting a cool drink he decided to relax while I finished the job.

Have you got a garden started?

 

55 Things #19 – Celebrating May

55 Things, Reflections

Click here to learn more about my “55 Things” and here to view previous posts in this series.

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In the U.S. We have a couple of holidays that we celebrate in May. The first is Mother’s Day which is always celebrated on the second Sunday of May (May 10, 2020). The other is Memorial Day which is observed on the last Monday of May (May 25, 2020).

For those who don’t celebrate these, or might want to get an early start in celebrating this month, I thought I would share with you some other options.

May 2

According to Days of the Year.com May 2 is Naked Gardening Day. As much as I love gardening I have to tell you that I will not be celebrating this day. I certainly won’t judge those who opt in, but I can imagine this activity being both uncomfortable and dangerous. No Thanks!!! I do, however, believe that there was a time and place when naked gardening was the way to go. The time was “In The Beginning” and the place was The Garden of Eden.

May 4

According to World National Days.com May 4th is Respect for Chickens Day. This is another day that I won’t be doing anything out of the ordinary. I always treat our chickens with respect. I greet them with “Hi Girls” as we arrive at the farm and they run up to the car; I thank them while I collect eggs from the coop; and I bid them a “good night gang” as we close them in the coop at night. So however you might decide to celebrate Respect for Chickens Day you can be assured that our chickens are being respected also.

May 7

World National Days.com also lists the first Sunday in May (May 7, 2020) as World Laughter Day. This is a day that I would like to see everyone make an effort to celebrate. In fact I think everyone should make an effort to laugh at least a little everyday. So why not start your celebration today?

Will you be celebrating any of these?

If you could pick a holiday for everyone to celebrate what would it be?

Do you have a good joke you would like to share?

 

 

 

 

Asparagus Season 2020

Asaparagus, Reflections,

I mentioned in one of my recent posts that we had been working in the asparagus patch and it seems that we completed this work just in time for the season to begin. While walking through our asparagus patch on Monday I discovered the first two shoots poking up through the soil.

Last year our asparagus crop was a bust. It was April 23, 2019 when I posted on my blog that I had noticed the first shoots popping up. But the rainy cold spring that we had seemed to stunt our crop. I picked enough for two meals, but since we were seeing very few spears emerge we decided to let what did come up go to seed in hopes of producing stronger plants this year. It seemed like only about 20% of our plants were even producing through the month of May.

We didn’t really pay much attention to the patch for most of the summer but in early fall when I walked through it I realized that most ( 80-90%) of our plants had leafed out and gone to seed. We were quite surprised and truly grateful that so many plants had survived. Even though the amount of rainfall we had in the spring was record breaking we knew we needed to make some changes in the asparagus patch to try to prevent a repeat performance.

My husband started in the fall by removing the welded wire fence that enclosed the area, then after cutting the patch down he dug some trenches to allow for water run off. We monitored it through the winter since we had more rain than snow this year and the drainage trenches were working well.

We decided to just use plastic deer netting around the patch while the asparagus is in season to keep the deer from running through and nibbling on the spears. My husband pounded the metal posts in.

We also decided to burn off the dead plant debris and all of the weeds that had begun growing up. Hopefully this will have destroyed any asparagus beetle eggs that may have been left in the patch and eliminate them as a problem this year.

 

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Here is a photo of the patch after I burned it off.

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This is the flame thrower/torch that I used to burn of the weeds and debris.

My husband and I then worked together to put up the deer netting on Sunday. As I mentioned I saw the first two spears poking up from the ground and with over an inch of rain forecast over the next three days all we can do now is pray that we don’t see that repeat performance.

Have you been enjoying any outdoor activities?