Firefly Festival #3!

We celebrated the fireflies this weekend at the farm with the third annual firefly festival!  It was so much fun.  We started on Saturday with the first guests and lots of party preparation, and partied on through Monday afternoon, with energy to spare.  Having party hosting practice just makes each year better than the last.  Even though the weather forecast promised nothing but storms and floods, the sun was shining, the breeze was constantly cooling, and our only brief shower was over before we even got wet.  The kids didn't seem to mind that the swimming pool was frigid, either.  Everyone brought delicious foods and beverages, and we kept the blender whirring mixing drinks.  

After many rounds of corn hole, second helpings of burgers, chili dogs, and some of Joe's home grown brats, followed by a cup cake overload, we gazed at the millions of fireflies dancing in the fields, and then settled in for a true bonfire.  Brandon and I tend to burn small fires inside our metal ring.  Safe and cozy fires, with chairs pulled up close and we barely make a dent in our wood pile.  Not this year.  This year, we attempted to clean out the wood pile and had an exciting roaring blaze!  The metal ring was completely covered in a blazing inferno of logs and old lumber.  When a new log was added and the fire was stoked with a shovel, giant clouds of sparks would rise high into the sky flowing in twisting eddies of hot air.  

In the wee hours, those of us who hadn't yet found our beds, backseats, or tents, were discussing the beauty of the hot coals, and someone said it was a shame we didn't have a pig to roast over the fire.  Wait a minute - I have a pig!  I have had, for some time now, a small pig in the freezer, given to us by our good neighbor.  I wasn't sure what we would ever do with it, so we decided to try to cook it on the fire!  Mom and I seasoned it with herbs and spices, and wrapped it foil.  I wondered if anyone sleeping in the house would wake and hear the crackle of the foil at 2 am and wonder what I was up to.  

Hot coals were dug from the fire ring, and the foil wrapped piggy was buried inside.

The next morning, I dug the foil package from the remains of the fire, and we all laughed to see that it was cooked to ashes!  We cremated that poor pig, instead of cooking him.  It was so burnt, even the dogs weren't interested in it.  Now we know, that is not the best way to roast a pig!    

Thank goodness we weren't relying on our barbecue skills for breakfast, right?   Instead Jamie cooked a giant campfire breakfast scramble.  Onions, peppers, and potatoes were cooked in coconut oil and then scrambled with three dozen home grown eggs!    

Once the giant omelet was out of the frying pan, Jamie cooked up sausage patties and warmed some frozen blueberry pancakes, which were served with honey and butter.  It was the fuel we needed for more time at the corn hole boards and dips in the frigid swimming pool.  I'm already looking forward to the next party.  

Old Timer Gorilla

Last night was my first night conducting a bat survey for the summer survey season.  It was also the first night, in many years, where Brandon didn't come with me as my field technician.  After a few weeks in horrible field conditions during a previous survey season, a job nick-named by those who participated as "adversity training," where trucks got stuck in mud, lightning storms threatened lives, and all the survey sites involved hiking for miles through mud with heavy gear, he was less interested in giving up a summer of studio work for a summer job.  I tease my boss that she broke Brandon's spirit with that job, and he's throwing in the towel.  In truth, we have a menagerie of animals and gardens that can't be abandoned for days at a time, so someone needs to stay home in the summer, and Brandon is thankful to be able to dedicate the time to his studio practice.  

I miss spending the night hours with Brandon while we wait for bats to be caught in our nets, but working with someone new is fun too.  My new coworker is a recent college graduate.  

This morning, as I was getting dressed in my hotel room, I paused for a moment when I noticed my travel sized q-tip holder.  It's meant to be disposable, but I have refilled it many times over the years, and I keep it in my travel toiletry bag.  I paused because I realized that my q-tip holder is as old as my new colleague.  I've been traveling, with q-tips, for as long as he's been alive.  

I've noticed that recent work related documents refer to me as a "senior" ecologist.  When I participated in a workshop earlier this year, to learn about a new analysis software for identifying recorded bat calls, I made friends with the two young ladies that sat at my table.  These smart women were just getting started with their careers and marriages, and as we talked and got to know each other it came home to me that I might be one of the old timers now.  When we talked about work related stuff, I tried to keep myself from comparing everything to the way it used to be, like an old timer would do.  What happened to the folks that used to be the old timers?  Retired now, or worse, I guess.  If they are gone, then who the heck knows what's going on?  Not me, surely.      

Last week, someone even asked, while standing over my shoulder, "Rain, you're getting grey hair aren't you?"  Ack! 

Despite the all the jokes about mid-life crisis, and being over the hill, I find myself a little surprised that the signs of my maturity are surprising me.  Not that I'm forty - I still have five months in my thirties, thank-you-very-much, but it's no coincidence that I'm noticing all these things now.  Even my body is announcing to the world that I am a fully matured primate with life experience, and I have the grey hair to prove it.  If I were a gorilla, you could tell by my silver hair that I was quite successful at living, right?  

A Fawn, A Snake, A Flower, and A Boob Sandwich

I've been working and traveling in beautiful Tennessee this week.  I got to spend several days hopping on and off one of these small four-wheel drive ATV's that has the side by side seating.  Normally, I prefer to walk during our field surveys, making sure not to miss anything and preserving the quiet of the forest and increasing my chances of seeing the wildlife and hearing the calls of frogs and birds, but when there are thousands of acres to cover in a matter of days, I'm thankful to be able to zip up and down the mountain trails risking my neck and frightening the forest residents with our dust churning wheels.  We must of spooked the mamma deer, but I'm sure she didn't roam far from her new born fawn.  The fawn was so still and quiet as it hid from us, that we had to reassure ourselves that it was still alive by watching for it's nostrils to move when it breathed.  

We startled a tiny black rat snake baby too, and when it dove into the creek to hide from us, and I reached in to pull it out, the accomplished hunter and outdoorsman guy, touring me around the property, said "you're crazy!" and stepped far away from me. Ha!  The snake was barely the size of pencil.  I'm sure it's teeth were so small I wouldn't have felt it, even if it did try to bite me.  For some reason, when manly-men types show their fear of teeny snakes, I have to suppress an urge to chase them while chanting "it's gonna get ya!"   

Parts of the forest were sprinkled with pretty red and yellow flowers called Indian pink (Spigelia marilandica).

We even got to ride a ferry across the Cumberland River.  For lunch, we stopped at a local gas station with a sandwich shop.  A large grumpy lady was making sandwiches as fast as she could, and expressing how overwhelmed she was by having a line of at least five customers, who all wanted different kinds of sandwiches.  Sheesh.  When it was my turn to order, she slathered both pieces of my bread with mayo, set them on the counter in front of her, and then reached across the counter for some lettuce, which caused her giant bosoms to press into the mayo on my bread.  When she stood up, some of the mayo was now on the front of her shirt, and my bread was slightly flattened.  She decided not to notice, and I was to intimidated by her to say anything, so I ate a boob sandwich for lunch.  It was a pretty good sandwich, really, but I giggled while I ate.  

Milkweed Relocation

Milkweed, the food of the monarch butterfly, grows in my goat pasture.  Milkweed is on everyone's list of plants which are toxic to goats.  It's also on everyone's list of plants to protect in order to save the butterflies.  What to do? 

I've seen Peaches nibble a leaf or two, but surely the goats wouldn't eat so much of it that they would make themselves sick unless there wasn't anything else to eat, right?  But, Light River did get bloat last year, and I can't think of anything else in the pasture that could have caused it.  Despite my friends recommendation that Roundup will take care of my "weed" problem, I don't want to kill the milkweed.  

I'm going to try to relocate it, even though it's already grown bigger than the recommended transplant size.  Apparently, it's a little tricky to transplant because it has a deep tap root, which is nearly impossible to dig up without breaking.  It's a perennial though, so if I can manage to relocate the plants, they will come back each year.  

After doing the evening animal shuffle - locking the donkeys in their yard, and letting the goats have access to the big pasture.  I gathered a bucket and a shovel, and dug up three of the plants.  The problem with gardening with goats is that they want whatever I have, so it was a challenge to stay focused on my task while trying to keep them from eating the milkweed in my bucket.  

Hattie the donkey was interested to see what was in my bucket too.  I set one of the plants with it's big root ball on the post while I negotiated the gates.  I thought I dug a pretty big root ball, but the plants started to wilt right away.

I decided to plant these three at the top of the herb spiral.  Milkweed isn't an herb.  Dang it, Rain, you're already messing it up!  In my defense, I wanted to plant them somewhere very noticeable, so I won't forget to water them.  Plus, they might look really neat on the top of my herb mound, especially if they attract some butterflies.  Or, it might look really goofy.  We'll see, right?  

Because they were already so droopy, I decided to cut the top off the plants.  Since I trimmed the roots when I dug them up, it seems only fair to trim the plant to a size that can be supported by fewer roots.  Look at all that white milky sap.  I can see why they are called milkweed, although if they changed their name to milkflower, they might find more admirers.  

I asked all my co-workers if anyone would like to give a milkweed a home, and despite Brandon's predictions that no one wants my weeds, four folks offered to take them.  Hooray for butterflies!

Peaches, Plums, and a Beet

 

Look - baby peaches!  This poor little peach tree only has two branches, but it's got more than a handful of little peaches growing on it.  The first time I saw them, I did a double take.  I never really expected to get actual peaches from my peach trees.  Unfortunately, the tree also has a fugal infection which is causing the leaves to turn red and curl.  I'm not sure if the tree will be able to pull off a full sized peach, but we'll see.  

These strange little green globes are plums!  I've never seen a plum in it's natural habitat, so I was excited when they appeared.  I assume they will be purple when they are ripe.  Let's hope I get to eat one before the chickens and goats get them all.  

The cherry tree, which only got three cherries last year, has dozens of little yellow cherries on it.  The apple tree too.  But, the pear tree, which has always been so generous with it's fruit, timed it's bloom poorly this year, and now I only see a smattering of pears when normally there would be hundreds.  

Brandon made the first hay of the season.  He mowed the field next to the donkeys, and then the next day he raked the cut grass onto a tarp and stored it in the barn, out of the rain.  It smells so nice, and is such a pretty green color.  Since the forecast calls for rain nearly everyday, we're experimenting with drying the hay under roof.  I'm hoping to keep up our hand baling through the entire growing season this year, and see how many bales we can make.  

You probably can't see the changes I've made to the greenhouse, but I moved the piece of plastic to the back corner to kill the veg, and planted tomatoes where the plastic used to be.  It does a wonderful job of killing all the weeds, and leaves nice worm filled soil to plant in.

The consensuses is that these volunteers are cabbage, not kale.  Which is weird, because I didn't grow cabbage last year.  Were did they come from?

A friend of mine is moving, so he gave me these cute yellow tomato cages.  I've learned from experience that this type of cage is rarely big enough or strong enough to support a giant plant, but I'm doing it anyway.  At the end of the summer, when this spot is a tangle of fallen over plants, I'll remind myself, again, to use sturdier supports.  

I think they will work well for the three pea plants to escaped the chickens wrath.  The peas growing in the greenhouse are twice as big as those growing in the garden.

Beets have pretty stems and leaves.  

Green Grass and Iris Blossoms

Remember how I was saying how ugly our backyard was?  Back in February?  Well, green grass and some iris blossoms look much better than mud and doggy chew toys!

The little trees that I planted several years ago are starting to look like trees!  Even the tiny red bud seedling that kept being lost in the weeds in years past, is as tall as me now.  I'm looking forward to the shade these trees will provide someday soon.

The hardest part about moving from our old house was leaving my plants behind.  But, now that the bulbs and peonies that I transplanted are beginning to thrive in their new home, I feel like my old friends are right here with me.  

The herb spiral is still a work in progress.  Cleaning the the green algae from the siding helped me see the backyard with rosier glasses.  

We've been moving stones around as we figure out where we want borders and walkways.

Just taking these pictures inspired me to pull some weeds from the perennials that grow around the old cistern.  We haven't been taken over by weeds yet, so I'm enjoying all the growing green leaves.  We've been hatching plans for a railing around the pool, and we've even hinted to ourselves that we might put painting some of our outbuildings on the list.  Oh, boy!

Weird-O

I'm sitting at my computer with a desire to write a blog post and use pictures of my cute puppies, but I'm not sure what the content should be.  I could tell myself about the tiny plums that are forming on the little tree I planted by the barn, or about the fuzzy almond shaped fruits growing on the baby peach trees. Did you know immature peaches look like that?  Or, I could tell us all about the tomato plants now growing in the greenhouse soil, or the tiny lettuce plants I transplanted in the garden.  

Or, maybe, I should write about our beautiful Wendigo, in honor of her first birthday.  Although, I'm sure no one but Brandon wants to read about how much we love this sweet dog, and he rarely reads the blog.  As he says, "I don't need to read it - I live it, baby."  Ha!

If I wrote about how in the middle of the day, at my office, while I'm tapping away at my computer, or in a meeting listening to folks think through some challenge, I sometimes have this strong desire to feed the donkeys an apple core, or pet their silky noses and search for burs or ticks in their forehead fur, I might sound like a weird-o, so I should probably keep it to myself. 

Once, in grade school, I forgot it was picture day and wore an outlandish t-shirt with the word weird across the top, and it had a big O on the bottom.  Like a weird-o.  My year book photo was my smiling face with the word weird written below it in big orange letters.   Uh uh.   

Jump Rope with Goats in a Storm

A couple of days ago, I arrived home from work as the storm clouds were gathering in the sky.  The wind was tossing the tree limbs to and fro, and I could smell rain on the way.  The goats called to me from their shed, begging for dinner.  I rushed to toss the chickens some grain, and then to grab the goat halter, so the goats and I could take a quick stroll and they could fill their bellies with green leaves.  

I put the halter and ten foot long lead rope on Peaches, the big goat, and if Peaches and I walk swiftly toward some brambles, the River brothers will follow.  If I don't have Peaches on the leash, then the herd will start eating the first thing they come to (my fruit trees!) and I can't persuade them to follow me to more appropriate forage.  

I call "come on goats! come on goats!" and pull Peaches along until we arrive at the overgrown fence-line where there are weeds and brambles aplenty.  On the way, the Rivers express their excitement by leaping onto the trailer and threatening to head butt the dog.  Their playfulness makes me laugh.

The goats get busy stuffing their faces, and I stay busy keeping up with the lead rope.  Leading a goat on a rope is like playing goat jump rope, only the goats don't jump.  Instead, the rope goes over and under their bodies as they step over it, and on it, and wrap it around their necks and legs, while I constantly untangle them.  It's very interactive.  

When it started to rain, the goats seemed a little nervous, but were fixated on food, so we stepped beneath a shaggy cedar tree and enjoyed the sound of the drops hitting the vegetation and the chewing and ripping sounds of the plants being eaten.  The donkeys ventured out into their pasture despite the light rainfall, so they could keep on eye on our progress, and began to nibble grass.  I stood under that fragrant tree, watching my animals do what they do, and I listened to the rain, smelled the fresh leaves, and could feel myself let go of the work thoughts that had occupied my mind all day.  Plenty of time to pick those thoughts up tomorrow...  

and then CRACK!!!, a brilliant bolt of lightning arched across the sky!  Thunder rumbled and the donkeys kicked up their heels and raced for the shed.  The goats and I were right behind them, running across the wet grass just as the sky opened up and the rain poured down on us like getting splashed by buckets.  Whew!  We scrambled back into the stall, out of the rain, and everyone was excited to be safe again.  I stayed in the stall with the animals for a while, waiting for the rain to let up and watching the world get a shower.  All that wet fur has an aroma of it's own.  It wasn't long before everyone was happily eating dry hay.  By the time I got back to the house, Brandon had dinner in progress.  It always good to be home.  

Chicken Milk, Anyone?

Hey Rain, wanna play with this dirty old glove?

Who wouldn't! Right?  

The dogs and I have been enjoying the springy green lawn, and the blooms on the locust tree and the iris beds.  Puck's old creaky hips are glad for the warm weather.  He's too dignified to wrestle with Wendigo over a slobbery old glove, but he still shows enthusiasm for long rambles with the goats or brisk jaunts around the donkey fence.  He doesn't hear well anymore, so Brandon and I joke that Puck is the only one not tortured by the crazy guineas, who are noisily going about their nutty spring-time behaviors.  When I see Puck lounging in the sun with a satisfied grin on his face, I imagine he's thinking "Ah, the little farm is nice and quite these days. It's so relaxing."  

We've started running the pool filter and dosing the water with chlorine.  So much algea grew in the pool over the winter it looked black and we couldn't see to the bottom of the pool.  The guy at the pool store reassures us that the water can be made clear again.  We've been back flushing the filter everyday.  

When I described our pool excavation to my engineering friend, and told him how we left a nearly vertical wall of soil, he shook his head and tried to explain to me that correct way to stabilize the soil was to excavate it to a a nice stable slope.  But that would have been so much more dirt moving!  If you remember, it took us all weekend with a bobcat just to dig the hole.  If we had to slope the cut wall too, we wouldn't have been able to finish.  So, we left it vertical, and now the slope is forming on its own as the wall slumps and slides, piling dirt along the pool wall and creating the gentle grade that it needs.  Nice.    

The frying pan special gang are turning into some very pretty roosters.  They haven't started acting too manly yet, so I'm enjoying having a giant flock to feed and look after.  

They like to relax in the shade inside my barn, and pile up on the goat milk stand.  Chicken milk, anyone?  Just kidding.  I don't milk the chickens.

The smattering of lettuce plants that sprouted in the greenhouse have been generous with their leaves. 

I bring in a bundle every couple of days, and we pile it high on sandwiches and make fresh salads.  I have a list of garden tasks that I want to accomplish very soon, but so far, it's all I can do to keep up with my seed starting experiments and stay ahead of the weeds around the plants I have.  This morning I discovered little caterpillars eating the herb plants!  After all these weeks of keeping them alive, I couldn't believe something was trying to eat them before I even got them in the garden.  I squished those bad bugs with my fingers, and their green guts smelled like basil and sage.