So Much to Do...

Things don't slow down on the farm for a pandemic. Life... and death... go on.

Fifteen year old Shirley "Puppy" went to sleep and did not wake up on June 16. She had been failing gradually after her remarkable comeback from strokes a year ago. Her story here: https://finkfamilyfarmstories.blogspot.com/2018/03/shirley-puppy.html

Although we intended to wait a year or so before getting another Livestock Guardian pup to help Mister McCoy, who is ten, fate intervened in the form of an ad in the local paper for Great Pyrenees/Maremma pups from the same farm Shirley Puppy came from fifteen years ago. We went and bought  one on Sunday, June 21.

 
The next day, Monday, Johnny mowed all three hay fields. The weather report was no rain until the following Sunday.

  I hurried to the coast on Tuesday to do a Black Oystercatcher survey at Cascade Head before my part of the hay saga began. Johnny stayed home and raked all three fields. The day before I'd helped in the heat with gates and animals and also weeded... managing to get a touch of heat stroke. I don't do hot weather well. Johnny loves it.

 I found no Oystercatchers on the coast, but I did find cool weather and lovely scenery.

These grassy ledges on the cliff is where BLOY have nested in the past... no sign of nesting this day

The rock where BLOY have nested in the past

Pigeon Guillemots

Wednesday I mowed the lawn before my friends and Qi Gong partners came and did Ren Yuan in the front yard, socially distanced and with masks on afterwards. We are all in the dangerous age range. Johnny raked hay again in the afternoon while I weeded, picked strawberries, watered the greenhouse, etc. It was cooler.

Thursday I made a quick dash to Sheridan for feed and other errands. My first excursion out in months. Johnny baled hay.

Friday and Saturday we hauled hay from fields to barns with the help of a local handyman friend.  Johnny re-raked the broken bales and baled them again. All the hay from one field went into the llama shed to be fed to horses. It was stuffed to overflowing.

 In fact, we had to put the last load into one of the buck pens. I'll feed from there to the horses first... well, after I finish all the hay that I stacked on my EZ Go.



The other two fields are full of lotus and that hay goes to the goat barn... Here is our last load going into the goat barn...

The goat barn was also stuffed to overflowing...

 ...overflowing into the aisle of the buck barn... and into several wheelbarrows... Bales that didn't survive the last hay elevator trip stayed on the flatbed trailer... to be fed gradually...

 
Saturday night, it rained. Not much, but enough so Johnny was very relieved all the hay was under cover. I was relieved we were done hauling hay!

Now my poor neglected garden may get hoed and mulched, raised beds weeded, flower beds weeded... between naps...

A Break from Haymaking

Johnny has worked hard repairing haymaking machinery, then cutting, raking and baling the small fields between and around llama area, goat barn, machine shed and orchard. He cut part of them last week and we put the bales in the barn on Friday, May 29, before the weekend rain. This week he did the second half and we got them in the barn yesterday, June 4. Rain expected tonight. It's always a wonderful feeling to have hay safely in the barn without getting it rained on. We still have the three big fields to do but will wait for longer stretches of dry weather. Hopefully, I'll get photos then.

Today we are taking the day off to do other things. I hiked through the woods with friend Mary, watched the Kestrel nest box for awhile, and took photos. Johnny "relaxed" by mowing the church and library lawns and chainsawing down dead trees. Each to his own...

As Mary and I hiked through the arboretum (staying one behind the other more than six feet), I stopped to take photos of the beautiful Japanese Tree Lilac, now in full bloom.

At Agency Creek, we spotted a young buck deer downstream from us, walking upstream and across. My photos don't let you see his antlers well but, trust me, they were there, unbranched.

 After the buck reached the far side and disappeared up the bank, my attention was brought closer by a robin flying to a mossy clump on a branch in front of me... and feeding a chick!

The nest is in the tree with the horizontal branches reaching out... near the top center of this photo...

and here it is closer...

 and closer...

 We waited for awhile but the robin did not come back to feed while we were there. As we left, Mary noticed a Robin sitting on a branch across the creek... just waiting for us to leave. So we did.

On our way to the Kestrel nest box, we smelled the wonderful fragrance of a wild rose covered with blooms. Wee bumblebees were working the flowers.

After wandering through the woods and out into the south field, we heard lots of begging sounds coming from the nest box. The baby kestrels have a much older sound than the first time I heard them a month ago. Papa Kestrel was stationed atop the box, keeping watch as his mate took off for awhile.

We walked back to our viewing spot and ate lunch and watched for Kestrel activity. As we watched we were entertained by butterflies of various kinds, mostly feeding on horse manure which must have minerals they need. Here is a Lorquin's Admiral.

Mary discovered a colorful caterpillar on a leaf near her. She suspected it had dropped from the tree above. She was right. It's a Forest Tent Caterpillar.

After ending our Kestrel survey where we witnessed adult comings and goings but no fledglings yet, we walked back past the barn and the grazing horses. Jessie Anne was being closely attended by a family of Brown-headed Cowbirds. They happily gobble up all the insects Jessie Anne stirs up for them. I'm sure she's happy to have them do that.

 Also by the goat barn are sunflower seed feeders. A Purple Finch and a Black-headed Grosbeak were eating on opposite sides of one of them.

 Waiting for our return was fifteen-year-old Shirley "Puppy". She doesn't navigate too well anymore, but she has a hearty appetite and loves people... including Mary, who loves her, too.

 It was a good day with good company. Now let the rain begin!