First Day of Summer

Ahhh, the first day of summer, well, OK that was yesterday, but today is the first full day of summer. Yesterday we got 150 beautiful bales of hay stored in the loft of the barn for the winter. It is always good to get the hay in the barn. It isn't a job that we enjoy doing because usually it is one of the hottest days of the year with high humidity, but yesterday was beautiful, in fact a perfect day for bringing in the hay. With that job done we can focus on other tasks, like getting all the firewood stacked. It seems that we spend all summer getting ready for winter, and all winter wishing for summer.

The peas finally have blossoms so soon fresh peas. The roses are blooming like crazy and the peonies are stunning. I have fresh flowers all over the house, even in the loo!

Now, if we could only do something about the mozzies.....

Last Friday we got our four little ducklings, now we are down to three because Flynn thought he had to try one out, yumm? Now the ducklings and the Guinea fowl keets are safely living in the barn. We also picked out two cats from the humane society to keep down the mouse population in the barn. For some reason, Flynn would rather eat duck than mouse. We have Joe and Misty locked up in the barn so they know that that is home. As you can see, we are restocking the farm after our year away.

Next Saturday we pick up two more kid goats, pygmies named Jack and Truffle, and then we will be just about complete in the critter area.

Rainy Saturday wishing we were "home" in Australia

Spring so far has been just wild with the weather flip flopping between cold and wet to hot and dry. Spring has been taking its sweet time, everything seems to be coming on a bit later than normal and when you think that the lilacs are going to bloom for a good long time, the heat blast them all off, now that the peonies are blooming we are getting lots of rain. Go figure. Today it is 52F or 11C and pouring rain, so I have a batch of bread ready to go into the oven to warm up the house. Lucky for us summer will officially be here in the 21 of June and maybe the weather then will settle down and not be so crazy.

I have planted the vegetable garden, replanting the radishes more than once because I haven't marked when I planted them the first time, so I either weed them or plant something else on top. Everything seems to be growing well, the compost has been spread and mulch added to the garden paths. I looks like the salad box's in the kitchen garden are deficient on many things this year, but it has been awhile since anything was done to them, so when this last crop of salad goes, compost will be added to the box's. At the end of the season, compost will be added to the entire garden.

I was worried about the pollination of the fruit trees because just when the trees were flowering we had some mighty cold and wet weather, not great for bee flying, but it looks as though I have some good peach and apple set. The currents are loaded with fruit although the blueberry bushes look healthy, I can't say as much for amount of fruit, but maybe I should look with my glasses on.

On the farm side, we are down to three guinea fowl. I don't know whether our missing was picked off by wildlife or if it is sitting on a clutch of eggs. Last night they were kicking up quite a ruckus so my guess is she is gone. Our replacement keets had a problem at the hatchery so who knows what is up with that. Our cornish cross meat birds rock in next Friday along with two baby Turkeys to grow on. To top it all off, for some reason we are getting two new baby pygmy goats in two weeks which will take our goat number up to 10. We must be crazy!