Drought, There I said it...

Drought 2020

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads!

The heat will continue at least through Fathers Day. Saturday morning's hot even at 8am, you can tell it's going to be another scorcher.  I may just have to join the dogs in the pool today!

Hannah and Zeb in their Pools (How it it the dogs get two pools?)

Deer are coming into the deer yard nightly still, the does are not showing off the fawns yet though.

Update:  "Robin" the robin is doing well and still eating like a pig. The ground's to dry to dig worms so we'll have to buy some more today, probably pick up some meal worms too.

"Robin" the robin!

Rose and I are hanging in there hope you are too!

 

Deer and a fallen Robin

Mid June and it's Dry, Dry, Dry

June 18th 2020 and it is hot! Supposed to be right around 90 degrees the next 4-5 days. They are starting to talk drought, really? my grass has been brown for weeks.  The dogs are still digging holes here and there to try to expose the cool soil below, but there is no cool soil below, the soil is bone dry even 6" down. Maybe some rain coming our way next Monday-Thursday next week, let's hope. We'll be keeping a close watch on this to ensure our well doesn't go dry, if this continues we may have to sacrifice the vegetable garden.
 

No fawn pics yet, we have 3 deer coming in every evening to the deer-yard.  Rose thinks all 3 have fawns parked out along the borders of the field, time will tell. I need to pull the trail cam and replace the batteries.

This Whitetail doe came in last night at 7pm, early enough to avoid the rush that arrives at later in the evening. 

Robin - This wayward guy (Robin chick) was under the maple trees Wednesday morning, sitting in one of the holes the dogs dug.  He must have fallen out of the nest above that we couldn't reach even with a ladder. Luckily for him the dogs couldn't figure out what he was, and we're standing over him smelling him/ her when Rose suspected something wasn't right, she scooped him up, I assembled s bird cage and we're now the proud caretakers of a Robin chick that eats every 30-45 minutes.

We went to the hardware store to buy some worms to feed it and they had no worms available, all they had were Dillies and night-crawlers so we got the Dillies. He/she is eating 3-4 worms every 45 minutes to an hour now so the dillies being larger than worms are working out for us.

The little guy survived the night, when I removed the cover we put over his cage at 7AM  he opened his eyes and woke up, I was hoping he wouldn't be an early bird like some around here that start chirping at 5:00AM in the morning.

 

Stay Cool Folks!

June 2020 Covid-19 and the Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl
The dry weather is taking it's toll on plants around the farm,  while our 2020 vegetable garden is in and growing, I do have concerns about keeping it watered long term if we don't get some serious rain soon.  Every day we see the weather reports talking about rain those reports soon disappear before it arrives.

Chipmunks, our latest plague here in New Boston, I've never seen so many, the dogs have caught at least 3 in the past couple weeks, and I've caught 4 going on 5 shortly in the Havahart trap. We drive them up the street on the other side of the river and release them at least two a day since I started trapping them hoping they can't find their way back. Chocking it up to the dry spell, they're digging holes all over the place in the yard.



Woodchuck and her kids, our next eradication project, they cause all kinds on havoc on the farm.  Digging huge holes all over the place.  I'd be OK if they just had the one burrow, but we now have 4-5 burrows that must be filled in.   hmm, Groundhog stew might just fit the bill.

 

The Deer, Rose thinks that we have a fawn already, one of the does is coming in very regular now.


 

The weekend and a day out at the range

A Day Out Shooting

I took the day off Friday to make a long weekend.

Fun Stuff!  Rose and I took a drive up to Hillsborough and went shooting with Jarrod, Crystal and the boys today. Jarrod had invited a couple of friends along too. We all had a blast, shot on Saturday were a nice pair of .22 cal revolvers everyone had fun shooting, 9mm pistol, .30-06 rifle, .32 Win Special, .38 pistol, .380 pistol, a .223 AR rifle, and a Mosin-Nagant rifle.  Jarrod and the boys got to shoot their great grandfather's Lever Action .32 Winchester Special rifle with a peep sight, the rifle still easily hits pie plates at 100 yards.

L to R Justin, Me, Jason, Jarrod, and James

L to R Justin, Me, Jason, and Jarrod

Jason shooting the Ol' .32 Winchester 

James Reloading magazines amongst the boxes and boxes of ammo ready for the day

The Strawberry Moon

Friday Skies off towards Monadnock

Poppies are Poppin'

Rose saw a doe with a fawn out in the field yesterday, she called me but I wasn't fast enough getting the camera... next time I promise.

Was a cool night tonight with a light breeze, so we lit the fireplace in the back yard and had some smores. 

Several Does came out while we were sitting around the fire. Three does in all came out  tonight, they chased each other around. Two of the does were spending a lot of time with their tails up peeing, Rose says that's usually a precursor to calving.

 Overall a great weekend I'd say!