Lately

I haven't been great at taking pictures lately, but I've got a few of some random things we've been doing lately, so I'll share those.  We're still trying to get the house back together, and that seems to be having an effect on every other aspect of our days.  The garden is slipping, but it's still growing, so that's all that matters right now. School is almost over, so that will be one fewer thing to worry about!

The kids are in 4-H, and their club leader comes up with fun things for them to do at each meeting. This meeting they had a wildlife person come and bring 2 owls to show the kids, and then they got to dissect owl pellets (what the owl regurgitates after eating...mostly hair and bones).

I got a new bale of hay.  It may not seem exciting to many people, but I love unloading a brand new bale of hay.  I get these huge round bales when I can. They're about 6' tall and about that wide, and weigh around 1200 lbs.  It's not fun to unload, but we've got a pretty good system worked out that involves little effort on our parts!  We put a strap around the bale, and connect it to a strap around the very large tree behind the hay shelter.  Then we just pull the truck away, and the bale slides to the back of the trailer. It takes a few times of backing up and pulling forward to get the bale situated just right over the pallets, but it's not hard at all.  Then, the bale just tips down so one end is on the pallets, and we drive out from under it. Simple!

The animals are happy...this bale is alfalfa, and they love it.  The extra protein is good for Ida (who is in milk), the growing lambs, and the ewes who are regaining their body condition now that they've weaned their lambs.

Don't you know the best hay is at the top of the pile?

The chicks are growing fast and got too big for their cardboard brooder box, so they had free run of the barn for a couple of weeks.  Now they're out in their outside pen, but I didn't take any pictures of that yet.

Since we don't have much in the garden yet, I bought some lettuce, kale, and peas from the couple who bought Nessarose and her kids. They have a market garden and sell at a local farmers market.  They were even kind enough to swing by on their way home from market. How great was that?

The dogs had a lazy day yesterday. It's amazing how one dog can take up an entire king sized bed!

I noticed the cherries on our wild sour cherry tree were ready to pick, so I went out yesterday and picked a good amount of cherries. I also picked some mulberries from the tree in the sheep pasture.  I made a berry crisp for dessert last night, and it was so good. I didn't even think to take a picture after it baked, though.

Mulberries!

We were sitting in bed watching tv yesterday evening, and Buford kept coming up to my side of the bed and rubbing his face on the mattress.  The second time he did it, I looked closely at him and saw his face was swollen.  His lips and one of his eyes were so puffy, poor guy.  It was either caused by a dose of Heartgard (which he has had before with no reaction), or he may have been stung by something earlier in the day.

I gave him some benadryl, but only had the liquid children's kind...so that was fun.  He hated it, but it worked very well.

He's back to normal this morning.  :-)