Busy Days and Baby Goats

The two does due to kid in April did. Here are Bonnie Belle's surviving twins: Bella Donna and her golden brown wether brother... (a third kid was born dead)

And here are Cindy Lou's twin doelings, Lou Anne and Lou Ella

 They did not stay still for long so I asked Johnny to come hold them for a photo where I could see both of them. That was a challenge. Their mom stood watch over the squirming twins.

Most of my time in dry weather has been spent pruning the dead limbs off the lower trunks of the pine trees in the arboretum. Below is a "before" photo.

And then after limbs are off but still lying on the ground... hence still a fire hazard...

Johnny did much of the picking the limbs off the ground and loading them onto the tractor wagon...

And here is what the pine forest looks like now...

Johnny burned the huge pile of dead limbs in the middle of a field. As dry as the weather has turned now, burning season may end sooner than usual. For that reason, he also worked at getting the trees that came down this winter out of the woods along Agency Creek. In the process, he turned my primitive trails into major thoroughfares.

... with a seat carved out of a stump too big to move...

He transported them out of the woods into the horse field to be split for firewood and stacked in our wood shed. That can be done even after chainsaw use is shut down for fire season.

Today I started opening up old trails that grandkids and I made some years back. These trails have a long way to go to look like Johnny's super highways, but they're walkable. Sort of.

They start at the bridge Johnny made several years ago over the little creek. Yes, there really is a trail on the far side of this bridge. It turns right and disappears behind the bushes, but it's there!

Once a month, I still do my beached (dead) bird survey for COASST. For the last two months, Johnny has driven me there and then gone to survey eagle nests for a friend who has surveyed them for years but is now in Ohio caring for his 93 year old mother. We send him reports and photos. This month, no eagles were attending any nest so we don't know if the nests are not in use (one was attended by two eagles last month), failed, or just what. Johnny will check again next month during my beached bird survey. We did, however, see an eagle on its usual fishing perch across the Little Nestucca River.

It is on top of the flat-topped fir in the center of the photo below...

A little closer look...

... and closer...

...and closer still... (I love my Nikon Coolpix P90 camera)

... so long as I have it braced against the car window. It is a little too heavy for me to hold steady... or to carry a distance. All the other photos above were taken with my Panasonic Lumix which is light and okay for close-ups.

When not doing surveys on the coast or pruning pines or birthing goats or cutting trails, I'm weeding the garden... which may take all summer. I dumped horse manure everywhere for fertilizer and now I have grass everywhere. Johnny took a photo of me trying to liberate the blueberry bushes.

When I can talk a birding friend into it, I get some time off hiking them around the property and throwing feathers to the swallows for their nests. Here is friend Loree doing the feather tossing honors... (photo by Johnny with his camera)

Friends Dawn and Mary have also been here recently, enjoying the birds and our trails that Johnny cleared. One of these days I'd like to get them all here at the same time. They are all good birders and very much help at spotting and identifying our birds and wildflowers and wildlife.

Although we may pay for this warm, dry April weather later on, we are sure enjoying it now.