The weekend...

Finally some nice(r) weather.

We got the lawn mowed Saturday before Sunday's storm.  

Rose and I extended the egg layer hen yard with hog panels adding an additional 15'x15' yard area and then added the meat birds in with that group, they seem to be getting along OK. It was time to get the chickens out of the barn, the four roosters are just starting to crow, they're funny, they sound like adolescent boys crackling errhk, errhk, erk, instead of crowing sometimes.   Our turkeys are still in the barn for now.

I went out an picked red raspberries again in the morning on Sunday behind the woodpile, I picked 5 quarts, I'd already picked 5 quarts a week ago too.  Raspberry crisp, or raspberry bars, turnovers... I can almost smell it...

Mowed 3/4 of the field Sunday and paid for it the remainder of the day, it was still hot on Sunday.  I was going through some 5 foot high goldenrod in places, and because of the shaded areas below the pines it was tropical damp.

Monday Rose has started prepping the south side of the house for paint, we plan on painting the North and South sides and if we have time and mother nature permitting we'll get the front done too.  Remembering this a a hundred and twenty year old house there's always a little more than just pressure washing and scraping, there's popped nails, 120 year old paint (hard as concrete) still peeling in spots, and there's always clapboards that have cracked and need replacing.  The clapboards on the house are pine, we're replacing the cracked ones with clear cedar siding.

STARTLED Awake around midnight last night the dogs insisting there was something out there towards the chicken pen, I woke up and ran to the stairs calling out to Rose who didn't answer because she was looking out the window with the dags and didn't hear me.  So I ran down to see what a ruckus was, we of course couldn't see or hear anything, the dogs were still very upset so I let them out, they quickly patrolled the front and side yards and gave the all clear.  Something really upset the dogs!   

So today (Monday) we're closing up the hens for the evening,  Rose looks over towards the pond and lo and behold 1/4 of the "Old Man Pine" a huge mufti-stemmed old pine down by the pond had a 24"+ branch 60 feet or more in length let go for no apparent reason, probably just rot...  and apparently crashed to the ground Sunday night,  (remember the barking dogs... we had the A/Cs running and didn't hear or feel it, the dogs did!) the tree dropped across where I had mowed on Saturday all the way across the road behind the workshop.  Whew!   And crap, what a mess...

Just picked my first tomatoes of 2013 "Mortgage Lifter" tonight, white bread, 1/2" slices of tomato, slathered with mayo.  It doesn't get much better than that, well maybe with bacon, I didn't have any bacon...  It'll do.

Oh, and we saw the doe "Black-tail" and her twins last night,  (we were beginning to wonder, we hadn't see any deer in a couple weeks) they came out to check on their field we mowed, making sure we dd it right I guess.    Rose saw "Big Ears" and her skipper a couple weeks ago. 


That's my story...

Mowing fun

I decided to mow my overgrown lawn last night just before dark so I wouldn't have to mow it today in the oppressive heat, the mosquitoes were plentiful as were those damned deer flies.  


They were on me in a flash, I hurried to the mover, unhooked the trailer, jumped on the tractor and took off, I got about 12 feet and the tractor sputtered and died.  "Great! I'm out of gas", went to the shed to get the half full gas can and found a deer block I 'd put there last week half eaten by something.  Whatever it was it was only interested in the corn in the block, there was plenty of shredded block on the floor but all the corn was missing from what was on the floor.  Anyway, I grabbed the jug and managed to fill the mower before being totally drained of blood.  The tractor started and I was off.

I noticed the dragonflies were following me around the yard by the dozen bobbing and weaving and generally staying out of my way, they were taking out all the mosquitoes and horseflies as they got near me.  Pretty amazing,  I was not bothered by a single mosquito or deer fly the entire time I was mowing.  

How cool is that!

Just because...

It's twins for Blacktail

 Whitetail doe that we call Blacktail and her "twins", It's amazing they were born a month ago and we're just seeing one of the twins for the first time.  They were just heading back into the pines as I got the camera up for a few quick snaps.

Life's a Beach, Hampton Beach NH

Muscle shirts, stuff my grandkids do...

 So this Is how muscle shirts are supposed to be worn?  Over the ears...

Turns out I been doing it wrong all this time.

Keeping cool on the 4th

 James & Jason had a blast playing on the slip n slide...

New Boston's 250th Parade

 Great day, we all got up early and drove down to New Boston Center, we picked a nice spot in the shade and hung out for an hour before the parade.  Great weather, lots of fun.