September on the Farm

Hot and dry, this September. But the farm continues to prosper in spite of not enough watering. The roses have had none at all... and no pruning. There are too many things to do and it's too hot to do them most of the time. But everything muddles along somehow... I walked around the farm this morning taking photos...

First stop, the greenhouse with the tuberous begonia that friend Velta gave me many years ago...

 
Then out the front door of the greenhouse to where I planted seed potatoes. One is blooming...

And on to the blueberry/iris bed where a Naked Lady arose a few days ago...

Then to the Dahlias that need more frequent watering than they get. They try anyway...

The roses have really been neglected this dry, busy summer. But some refuse to give up...

 The one below is a climber... not many leaves but reaching the top of the six foot fence and trying to bloom without getting eaten by the llama, who loves roses... to eat.

 Then I walked into the arboretum that is really scorched and dry. The Eucalyptus trees in the Australia section don't care. It must feel like home to them.

The line of roses at the back of the carriage house, never weeded and never watered, are mostly dead, but one must be under a drip from dew off the roof.

 I wandered back into the veggie garden then, which gets watered almost daily. The corn is very happy. And delicious!

 Only one watermelon has survived...

 But lots of pumpkins!

 And tomatoes...

And zucchini and patty pan squash and burpless cucumbers and sweetmeat squash and acorn squash and yellow beans. And a few tiny melons. Among other things. Oh, and lots of weeds.

 The pear tree in the front yard has been loaded. I picked the ones I could reach with a ladder this Labor Day weekend. They are in boxes in the back room to gradually ripen.

 Off to the barn, then, where some of the goats were out grazing...

 Below is beautiful Cleopatra. She was the only doe that milked through from the previous year since the others all got bred by the escape artist buck (now sold and gone). Cleopatra is still milking well on her lactation begun in 2018, so she is on her third year without a dry period.  Wonderful goat!

 And then it was time to turn the horses out. Nightingale, a smoky black, and her palomino mom, Jessie Anne.

Mr. Smith (Rogue Hill's Skybird)  with his dappled butt.

Walking back through the orchard I took a photo of one of the apple trees loaded with apples. Johnny will have plenty of apples for cider and sauce.

After returning to the house, I remembered to walk out to the front yard and take photos of the hardy fuchsias blooming there. So pretty.

Along the path between house and shop is a long, long line of Autumn Joy sedum, beloved by honeybees and butterflies. This year, there are many honeybees on the flowers. Two are visible below if you can find them.

They are harder to see in the below photo but I like the picture so...

 And of course it wouldn't be a post about our farm without at least one bird. The California Quail did not cooperate this morning (there are about 60 of them), but the male American Kestrel that owns the south field was on a fence post in the distance when I let the horses out.

The livestock guardian dogs, McCoy and Annie, were fast asleep in the heat while I was wandering around. They roam around all night and in the cooler morning and evening hours. Annie Puppy is growing by leaps and bounds, and does a lot of leaping and bounding so it's a relief when she's napping. I'll do another post before long with photos of her.

In spite of the heat and drought, it's a beautiful, bountiful September on the farm.