Hi friends!
I have new baby cow photos! Not many because obviously the mamas did not want me anywhere near, but baby cow photos nonetheless!
Honestly, do I even need to write a post this week? What could I possibly say to top baby cow photos? The all black one is a little 5-day old boy, and the other is a little 3-day old girl. Such cuties. My uncle is the absolute best too, as soon as I stepped out of the flatbed cab because goes, “You have to go see the new babies” because he knows me so well. He also knew I’d forget while we were talking and loading hay, so he made a point to lead me up to the correct corral so I wouldn’t miss them.
My biggest piece of advice? Surround yourself with people as excited about baby animals as you are.
Anyways, its still hot, and unfortunately a lot of the west is on fire, so photos and working outside have a new element of hazard. But the sunsets have been very red and gorgeous, so that’s the only brightside. This time of year is a little sobering, because I live right next to brushland, and realistically, I’m one cigarette-carelessly-tossed-out-a-car-window from a very, very, very bad day.
I don’t talk about work on here much, and I prefer to keep it that way, but I will say that I work for a very news centric company (which is a blessing/curse for a news junkie like myself) and the amount of fire warnings and evacuation alert notices that are popping up is just borderline unbelievable. It’s not a cloudy day out, but it’s smoky enough it feels like a rainy day. Honestly, just in the time it’s taken me to rough out this opening set of paragraphs, I’ve lost sight of the surrounding hills and mountains. The smoke is getting intense.
We had the farrier out to see the girls. I don’t know if I have talked about Jimmie before, but he is one of the loveliest humans you’ll ever meet, and I count him more as a friend than just my farrier. He does absolutely wonderful work on the girls, I keep them barefoot, and he keeps their toes able to do that.
He has also pulled me out of a couple scrapes, sold me a lovely trailer for too good a price, and allows me to pick his brain constantly with horse questions. I absolutely adore him, and I love weeks where I get to see him.
Honestly, some weeks just feel so magical, when I get to see family members I don’t normally, and friends I haven’t chatted with as well.
Speaking of, due to the heat and smoke, it’s almost been like wintertime in terms of being stuck inside, which at first threw me way off because I like doing outdoor things, but it has now settled into building out some projects and getting a few things done. Not anything helpful like laundry or dog-grooming (which I am trying to work out how to do myself since this area seems to lose groomers faster than they can be hired), but things like cleaning up the DVR and organizing the spices. Busywork.
My favorite thing though, since my outdoor work has to be severely limited and mostly finished my about 10 am, is that I have been able to find more time for game nights with friends. We used to play almost every night in college, but adult life has knocked us down to once or twice a week. Which is still supremely better than not playing at all, since I was out of luck before we had a decent internet setup. We used to play mostly board games, whereas now we play online (although tabletop simulator has helped, virtual board games for the win).
We have so many new pumpkin blooms and the plants have mostly merged together into one ginormous plant, which hopefully means lots of pumpkins. One of my little plants is struggling, and I am really not sure why, just overnight he seemed to get really miserable, but I am hoping he will come back and join his siblings.
My peas are just about ready to eat, in fact we may end up picking some for dinner tonight and the lettuce is looking fantastic too! We should have some wonderful summer salads soon. I know we planted some other things, but I’ve lost track of what is where, so I’ll have to consult Dad on how the eggplants and tomatoes are doing. I am hopefully for the watermelon and eggplant, as those will be fun to cook with. We also have a volunteer mystery veggie, I think it’s jalapenos but I am not sure.
Nellie had some more fun with a swollen leg, but I think we finally got it under control. It’s just the extra strain on that bad leg of hers, but she’s so happy-go-lucky that she forgets to be a little careful. I really don’t know how to tell a 900-pound animal not to jump for joy when they are happy. So instead, I just call the vet and ask for the equine equivalent of ibuprofen and they laugh and write me a prescription. Speaking of my sweet girls, we are having a serious fly issue and I’m massively unimpressed with the fly spray I purchased, so if anyone has a preferred brand they can suggest or a recipe for effective homemade fly spray, please share, I would love to hear about it.
We are officially in the lazy days of summer, which is always fun, although admittedly not usually this warm, so we’ve taken lazy to a whole new level. But the kiddos are starting to worry about the next year of school (they go back in August here, and get out in May, which is so weird to me because I always started in September and got out in June), we have a brand new college student in the family who is very nervous and excited to get started, and generally we are settling in for those pretty sunsets and sweet tea and cozy mystery style evening… assuming it cools down.
And while I am not inviting it in any way yet, as I am still enjoying the summer, I am starting to mentally plan for the fall, which will bring baking and decor changes and lots of holidays and harvest activities. This is my favorite time of year, the calm before the winter-based storm.
I did also finally (very late) get the blog turned to summer theming, it took a while to get a decent photo and the colors right but now everything should be pretty and yellow! Hopefully you guys like the change, because I sure do! I am already thinking about the fall theme so I can get ahead, but that will obviously need to wait until the farm is dressed in fall colors.
Until we chat again my Friends!
The Farmer's Blogger 