Let Sleeping Dogs Lie......

Dogs sleep a lot!

They aren't sleeping here, but it perfectly illustrates their preferences.  Baxter loves the sun and Charlie loves the shade!

Clean Up

This past Friday we met some family members at the picnic grounds to clean up several years of neglect.  As the saying goes, many hands make light work.  With chain saws, heavy equipment, our little Scotty truck and good old fashioned hand labor, we cut up dead and fallen trees, limbs and branches and pruned live trees.  It looks so nice, though there is more to do.  We ran out of energy around 7pm with a pledge to return in two weeks! 

Reynald and I spent the night in the SS with burgers on the fire pit.  They were so good!

Drama in the east

We had a little rain a few days ago.  By evening the clouds were moving on towards the east.  The sun setting in the western sky was a bit uneventful but to the east the sky was dramatic.  A few photos......

Sun set on one side.....

and reflected light in the eastern sky.

working and playing

We have been cultivating our stubble ground, making summer fallow.  We started this project about two weeks before we usually do, because it is terribly terribly dry this spring.  Cultivating creates a dust mulch that helps preserve what little moisture we have.  That, combined with a heavy straw residue that creates a mulch, conserves moisture and prevents drying down deep from the surface.  Hoping for rain, but that's just a hope!

Cultivating!  This is one of my favorite spring jobs on the farm.  

Nice to have a drink holder built in to the back of the buddy seat.  

Satellite guidance alerts you, asking if you are alive, if you have not turned your tractor for a predetermined amount of time.  I am alive by the way!

Speaking of hope, sitting on the porch in the evening, with a glass of wine or a beer is our goal but not always achieved for various reasons.  Conditions that prevent front porch sitting include work, cold weather, wind, meetings. 

Finger prints on the glass prove that I'm actually drinking this wine!

However, last night I was able to sit on the front porch, with my Corona to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and join book group via zoom.  It was a good night!

Construction project

I have been struggling with my strawberry bed.  I used to have my strawberries on the south side of the garden but they got too much shade from the fruit trees so I moved them to the north side of the garden, where they got more sun, and they liked that better.  But, strawberries like to run and I felt the need to contain them some how.  I am a person that likes boundaries so I decided to build a slightly raised bed.

We used lumber from a barn that we are going to take down.  Nice hefty boards from interior livestock stalls.

It took me two days, but I did this all by myself!  Looking forward to harvesting gallons of berries in the future.

Again, in my quest for neat and tidy, this was not working for me!

Construction in progress.....

Strawberry plants in these five gallon buckets in water.  

Filling the sections with composted garden and yard trimmings.  

Berries planted, soaker hose in place.  I know this stressed the plants, and this project really should have been done last fall.  But, it's finished now.  If I keep the plants wet they should recover.