Heating Oil $4.84 per gallon... Yikes...

   Our heating oil provider just sent our Oil pricing for the year Heating Oil is now $4.84 per gallon. That's going to cramp the old budget this winter, $4.84 per gallon for heating oil in NH.  Last winter we paid $2.89 and thought that was bad.  



   Thinking about adding a second pellet stove and laying in a couple extra cords of wood, we're also looking at gas stoves.  Luckily we've had two relatively mild "cold wise" winters here in New England hopefully this one will be the same.  (Less snow would be nice.)

Remember... 1st day of Summer pic...

Hah, I'm doing some testing of blog post application in Firefox 3

clipped from dsanborn.wordpress.com

Spring Whitetails

Does everywhere...

The deer are back with a new batch of fawns here in my backyard in NH, no, sorry, no fawn pictures yet, I need to mow the field before we see the fawns up close.

I missed a photo op of a fawn nursing yesterday, and a shot of a little skipper hopping the fence, seems I'm missing more than I'm catching lately.

I really need to get a new lens, while my 17-85 F4-5.6 is a great lens at the distances I'm shooting I need more, the L series will help too. The 70-200 F2.8 L series canon lens, ahh... But at $1,200 though I'll have to wait until my camera is making money again. I'm looking at the 70-200 F4 L lens at $560 is probably where I'll end up for now.

Garden is coming along...

Well here we are two weeks into June and so far we're doing well, the second planting of cantaloupe, and watermelon are up. We're picking Broccoli...

I had to spray the beans, something is eating them up.

The potato beetles have arrived, i handpicked a few I'll have to spray/dust the potatoes this weekend, I think it really paid of buying certified Maine seed this year. I think every one I planted came up.

The Mosquito Magnet is empty I need to refill the propane tanks, that's OK the grill tank died last week as well might as well fill them both.

Our nightly visitors

We have a couple nightly visitors now, mid-dinner most evenings now (The mosquito's must be horrid in the woods) two does and a fawn stroll out for a nibble in the field, stay for an hour or so then saunter back into the brush.

I'll have to mow the field soon or we'll lose them in all the bramble.

No pictures of the fawn yet other than a little brown patch through the weeds about 10 feet from the doe.

They're baaacck...

The Whitetail deer are back with their fawns, Rose saw her (the large pregnant one we saw last week) at dinner, and was out looking with James when she spotted the fawn tonight.

The vegetable gardens

The gardens are all in now. We finished replanting the squash, and pumpkin seed that the Oriole pulled right out of the hills, peas (sparse row) and some beans (4' section didn't come up) that refused to come up were replanted on Sunday in 96 degree heat, ugh! Potatoes are coming up great this year, we had a bumper crop last year too. Summer squash, tomato, kale, broccoli, are doing well, the only real failure thus far has to be the lima beans but, then again I don't like Lima's...

Whew! It is HOT!

It's officially a heat wave, we've been at 95+ Degrees for four days now. The gardens (except for the annuals we forgot to water on Sunday) seem to be coping better than we are.


We're melting, pretty much any activity this week really requires a shower after, Watering the gardens, usually an enjoyable stint is melting Rose away. I think that even the mosquito's have given up...

And the rain came down...

Finally... we got some much needed rain, not a downpour, a nice two day long drizzle. You can hear the mosquito's growing and buzzing just out of sight.

This rain really helped the garden out, most of the beans have sprouted, and we're hoping the remaining squashes come up too.

Orioles seed stealing...

We found out today what happened to our 15+ hills of winter squash that have not come up yet. I had just finished watering the hills 5 minutes earlier and a female Oriole jumped right up onto one of the hills and started to dig in the mud that was there now. I thought they must be using the mud for a nest until I saw her pull a pumpkin seed from the hill and fly off with it! Ugh... Well at least we know now, and will replant all the hills a little deeper and maybe with milk jugs over the plants until they've germinated and are up.

Gardens are growing

The gardens are coming along. We put up the deer netting in hopes of saving the beans I've heard they love more than we do...

Tree Swallow sitting on their eggs now

The tree swallows that have befriended our gourd houses are sitting on their eggs. She watches as we go back and forth to the gardens and doesn't seem to mind that much.

Sunrise

Sunrise in New Boston

Cecropia Moths in the Garden

These two Cecropia moths were mating in the garden Elm tree.