Old Trees, Pear Eating Turkey, and Praise for Shade

We take advantage of the shade provided by our two old trees nearly every hot day.  It's a good day when I find myself sitting in their shade, sipping a tasty beverage, and admiring the view while dinner is cooking on the grill.  These two old trees protected us from the sun for years while we worked on this old house and lunched on the lawn, and more than one visiting friend has had some excitement when a tiny black beetle drops down their collar from the pears overhead.  

The old silver maple leans, and looks very dramatic with all those dead pale limbs reaching.  The dead wood on this tree goes all the way to the ground on one side, and provides habitat for mushrooms and lean brown roaches that come out at night to horrify amaze guests gathered by the campfire.  Some learned the hard way that sitting too near the tree after dark can result in a thrilling roach encounter.  

In years past the pears would fall faster than we could use them, and by this time of year the ground would be littered with bruised pears and the wasps would feast.  I think the mole must focus his worm hunting excavations under the pear tree due to the years of organic enrichment.  But this year, things are different.  We have Turkey!

Turkey, plus a dozen giant meat hens that are months beyond their freeze by date, are excellent pear clean up.  They eat every dropped pear, every day.  In the mornings there will be dozens of pears on the ground, and by the evening there are zero.  When a pear falls with a thud, Turkey comes running!  When I said to Brandon that Turkey might taste delicious because of her diet of pears, he gave me a look like I was threatening to eat the dog!  Do we have a pet turkey?  

With daily pear fruit clean up, instead of concentrating the nutrients harvested by the pear tree right at it's feet, Turkey is spreading all that good stuff around the yard.  And stockpiling it on the floor of the chicken coop, so I can put it in the garden.  She's a genius!

Occasionally we whisper about cutting the shabby old silver maple, or removing big limbs from the old pear with the hollow trunk.  Every year we put it off, and collect the fallen branches for the fire pit, and say thanks for one more summer of shade.

The little forest on the east side of the house is growing fast, and promises years of shade to come.   

Even the old locust tree near the driveway, given up for dead, has sprouted from the roots, and makes a little shadow.  It's a good place to mix cement, or for Wendigo to take a nap.

Fixing Foundation Cracks and Fence Holes

If I'm remembering correctly, the upcoming winter will be our fourth here at the little farm house.  Our first winter, the year of the failed rocket mass heater, was cold.  The second winter was warm on the inside, thanks to our factory made wood stove, but the water pipes under the house froze more than once.  Last winter, we put straw bales all around the foundation of the house to block the breeze from entering the cracks in the stone foundation, and the pipes never froze.  But then in the spring, we had a huge messy job moving water logged straw.  

Brandon was determined that this was the year he would fix the gaps in the house foundation.  Using a concrete mix plus some white gooey stuff, to make it more flexible, he patiently crawled around the entire house and troweled it into all the gaps. 

It took several workdays, and multiple sore back muscles, but he finished the job!  It's bound to help, right?  Plus, he's plugged up many of the snake and mouse access points. 

The house foundation isn't the only project he's been working.  He tackled one of the jobs the goats and I have been hoping for, which is to add enough fences to allow the goats into the overgrown fence line adjacent to the small back pasture.  The old fence line has a woven wire fence that is tangled with vines, shrubs, and small trees.  By connecting the side of the small pasture to this old fence, it allows the goats to browse all those leaves.  In just a few days they devoured so much of the tangle of vegetation that they identified some week spots in the old fence.  

Nibs also figure out that the old fence has perfectly sized holes for him to get his horned head stuck!  If you've ever tried to push on a goats head, then you know that they instinctively push back.  Trying to push a young goat back through a fence is nearly impossible, but now I know the trick.  If I put my hand under his chin and lift up, he's helpless to resist.  He's strong neck muscles only work one way, and it's easy to make him lift his chin and then maneuver his horns back through the fence.  It's a good thing this old fence is in the shade, because he's been stuck multiple times and had to wait for help.  He's been stuck enough times that he doesn't even cry now, he just stands or lies there calmly and chews his cud. 

Brandon has poison ivy all over from patching holes in the fence as the goats find them and escape.  When I came home from work to find all the boy goats (except Nibs, who was stuck!) roaming the yard with their bellies so stuffed that there sides were distended, and I told Brandon that they found another hole, he said with exasperation, "I don't even like goats!"  What!?! Ha!  

Cute Pictures of Hattie

 

I had over twenty-five hundred photos on my phone.  From what I could tell, they were mostly pictures of chickens, plus lots of garden photos that I never shared with you.  My phone was resistant to storing any more photos, so I had to clean out my files.  In the process, I found some cute pictures of our Hattie girl that I want to share with you and future Rain.  These pics from last winter show how small and adorable she was.  

Rufus may be more classically donkey handsome, but Hattie's face had character.  Silly, like a Sesame Street character!  

I think the donkeys are cutest when they have full winter coats - like shaggy hay monsters. 

Hattie's eyes didn't leak much in the winter, and there were no flies to irritate her.  We enjoyed the cool months and did our best with the hot ones. 

Rufus is wary and shy, but Hattie was an extrovert, and loved treats so much she would be brave when she needed to.  She even let the farrier trim her hooves without a fuss.  

 

Hattie's voice was scratchy and higher pitched than Rufus, but she wasn't afraid to use her voice.  She brayed for food and attention. 

Her scruffy look was emphasized when part of her face was shaved for the surgery that removed the tumor the first time. 

I've reached out to some donkey breeders and put the word out that I'm looking for a friend for Rufus.  Rufus seems to be okay without his companion for now.  Yesterday flies were irritating him and he rolled and rolled in a dusty spot and laid on his side in the dirt and flipped his tail back and forth in the dust so that it would fling dirt all over his belly and underparts.  He created a cloud of dust in the air and seemed happy to lie in the dirt and let the sun bake his dusty hair.  He's sleek right now, with hardly a clump of shaggy winter fur.  He shed it all just in time to grow it back!