Who turned up the heat?

 Who turned up the heat?

 

Wow is it HOT!  91 on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be 92, we watered the garden good for the third day in a row.  Everything looked pretty good.  Swiss chard is ready to pick already.
I hilled up the potatoes, I'll mulch them later this week. Tomatoes have buds as does one of the Acorn squash.  This heat is hurrying everything along, we'll have to fertilize this week.

Those tiny things in front of the chard under the white strings in the pic above are carrots.

We have a bunch of these weeds, lamb’s quarters named because they were said to taste as good as a lamb’s quarter. They are over Roses new wild flower patch, they are supposed to be great eating, that said there are folks that eat Dandelion, and Fiddle-heads that we also have in abundance but have never eaten them either...

We picked up some fireworks for the 4th of July.  Yes I can wait...

The blueberry bushes are loaded, unfortunately the birds are also very interested, I ordered some bird netting but of course it's late... hopefully the netting arrives before the birds get them all.

Rose has already seen the Catbirds picking ripe berries off the plants.

Rose filled up the pool for the dogs, they had a blast.  The only unfortunate part is they like to go lay in the dirt after a dip in the pool so they need to be hosed off before they can go in the house.

 Hannah and Zeb we're having a blast in the pool

My pool

Got my Frisbee

Hannah, just lounging in my pool....

Rose heard a chipmunk complaining loudly down by the barn Sunday night and then heard a familiar screech.

Turns out it was 3 Barred owls up in the old Elm tree.  We have been thinking that the chipmunk population seems to be going down around here.  It was too dark to get good clear shots of all three.  I do hope they stick around.

Stay cool out there.

 

 

 

 

Smokin' and Fawn

We're Smokin'

 

Jarrod's clan came over on Sunday, we smoked up a mess of ribs in the smoker. Best batch I've made to date, 3 hours in foil, 30+ minutes of smoke, and back in for 30 minutes in the smoker slathered in Sweet Baby Rays sauce, most of the smoking sites on the web say 3,2,1.  Three hours in foil, 2 in the smoke, 1 in sauce. Jarrod thinks that we could use more smoke next time. Maybe...  Plenty of time to test new recipes.

Mmm, Ribs!  Smoke is still rolling out of the smoker.  These ribs are getting the smoke, this is pre-sauce.
 

Ribs and sides, OMG, were they good, fall off the bone tender.  We're going to do this again real soon.  Smoker is out for the summer...

We have fawns!  Tuesday morning fawn

Looking like one single fawn and a set of twins, no twin pics yet.

Oh, but wait, there's more...

Mom and daughter came strutting into the deer yard side by side tonight

Mom Doe is ready to pop

She's huge...

We seem to have a lot of fawns born in miserable, crappy, very bad, rainy weather, like tonight. (so maybe...)

Stay Safe out there...

Fathers Day & 4 AM

Fathers Day & 4 AM

I heard the dogs rambling around at 4AM this morning that's never good.

Stumbled my way downstairs to let them out, Hannah ran out front and barked once, just to let the world know she was on duty. She woke early on Saturday too. Then had a blowout in the house Sunday morning, she does not feel good...

Rose and I have been mowing and weed wacking, It's dry we still could use some more rain. Supposed to rain Saturday, it didn't.

Went over to Mom & Dads Saturday evening for dessert, Surprise Lisa and Shawn were over there too. We had a great time, hanging around till the mosquitos chased us out just about dark.
 

Jarrod, Crystal, James and Jason were over at Dads too!

So we pulled into the yard getting out of the car and Rose says "You hear that?"  Sounded like a loud screeching noise, like a bird fighting for it's life or something...  Nope it was a Barred Owl screeching in the old dead Elm in the driveway see it?  Pretty cool!

 

 

Zeb sitting in his hole

 

Stay safe out there!

Ok, Now Summer Can Begin

Ok, Now Summer Can Begin

I got the Covid-19 "Moderna" 2nd shot on Wednesday, I will have to travel again someday and won't be able to get into Canada without the shot. I woke up Thursday morning felt exhausted, went and took a nap couldn't sleep, worked for a while, then it slammed me, ripping headache, body aches, went to lay down at around noon, got up at 2pm ate a bowl of cereal, went back to bed, woke up a couple hours later shivering, and teeth chattering, that only lasted a half hour or so, I slept straight through Thursday afternoon and evening, I got up Friday morning around 5:30am that morning feeling much better, it's absolutely true that the second shot is the one that''l get you.  The rest of the day Friday no further symptoms.  WOW what a ride.  Hard to believe you can be that sick and then feel fine the next day, just weird.  Saturday I felt fine my stomach felt a bit weird, yeah sure enough by 3pm I was vomiting.  Jeesh...  Sunday feeling fine.

What the heck, 94 degrees one day, waking up to 44 degrees the next day, this is nuts, the garden seems to be benefiting from the heat though even though the peat pot plants and tomato 9 packs we put in looked about to die of heat stroke when we planted them.  

Squash Row, this is the expansion bed, we added another 6' to the garden width

Down the beds Kale, Broccoli, Peppers, Taters, Carrot, Tomato

Maple tree helicopters, there are crazy volumes of these things, rose already filled 1/2 a trailer with them and we're not done.  She's been using the leaf blower to get them out of the flower beds and into piles. We've been talking about the helicopters from the Maples, this trailer is 3/4 full of the helicopters, flower bed clippings, and some dirt when she was finished.

Today is Saturday, I thought it was supposed to be nice and sunny and I woke up to rain at 4:30 am. At around 9 it appears to be clearing, by 11am it was nice and clear.

Cabana is almost ready, Rose has been working like crazy to get it setup nice, the back yard looks amazing.

Rose saw a pair of Bald Eagles over the house on Friday afternoon, they were headed to Everett Dam I imagine, they were headed that way anyway.

A lot of places we go folks are not wearing masks, we are still wearing masks, I need a couple weeks after the second shot, and Rose can't get the shot.

Rosie's Deer have fawns now, we haven't seen them yet, any day now probably.  Rose has seen them spending time feeding them in the cove. The does are coming in to feed in the deer yard mid day. This was the Doe Saturday morning, they always look thin after kidding. 

I worked on replacing one bad circuit breaker, or so I thought.  As it turns out the real issue was a corroded connector/connection that disintegrated and burned out, comes with a damp basement and an old house.  I replaced the neutral connection in the panel, stripped the wires back and replaced the connection with new 12 GA wire.  All's good.

The back yard looks great!  So much more comfortable to sit on with the cushions.

Sunday was clean-up day all the stuff we didn't get to on Saturday, a lot...,  I worked on the garden gates spending way to much time getting them to work right, old hoses that needed new ends, broken sprayer replacement.

We took a nice drive and ended up having seafood Sunday evening, fried clams, scallops, shrimp, fish, and a side order of onion rings, that were amazing! 

Sunrise Monday morning was stunning, it had mostly faded by the time I had my coffee, and got the camera and back outside, you should have seen it 4 minutes earlier.  It was still dark at 5am.
 

The last of the Irises is blooming as are the poppies, and even some peonies.

 The Cabana is ready!

Zebulon, with his log

Wise ol' Owl in the front bed

Crazy amounts of black cherries, they'll be everywhere.

We don't know what this plant is later it'll attract flies though, kinda odd.

Rose said we have at least one set of twin fawns out there.  These three came in last night.

Stay Safe out there. 

 

 

 

It is Hot, Hot, Hot

It is Hot, Hot, Hot 

Heat Advisory issued June 06 at 3:​11​AM EDT until June 07 at 8:​00​PM EDT by NWS Gray/Portland

...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 PM EDT MONDAY...
* WHAT...Heat index values up to 97 expected.
* WHERE...Eastern Hillsborough and Interior Rockingham Counties.
* WHEN...From 11 AM this morning to 8 PM EDT Monday.
* IMPACTS...Hot temperatures and high humidity may cause heat illnesses to occur.

Yikes...

It was supposed to be the St Matt's yard sale, could'a swore it was supposed to be the St. Matt's Yard sale extravaganza. It wasn't, it was the Goffstown Congregational church Yard sale, no matter just a smaller sale.  I bought a Fan for the office.

It was also the New Boston town-wide Yard Sale. A yearly event when it's not a Covid nightmare, we were the only folks I saw wearing masks.Not a lot of good stuff, I don't need furniture or kids clothes, saw some great Canoes, $50, $80, and $120.  All good deals, I just don't need one.  I bought a Rapala lure for a dollar, new in box Rapala, that was about it.

We got back to the house at 11:30am it was 91 degrees already from Yard Sailing on Saturday, boys and I commenced with putting in the irrigation drip hoses in the squash bed and tomato beds. Rose kept us from destroying everything we touched... We're trying Red plastic mulch for the Tomato plants this year, it's supposed to increase yields. James and Jason put in the cages, and metal posts to further support the tomato cages against the winds we seem to get most years that blow down all our tomatoes. We redid the irrigation a couple of times, it takes patience to get it right (especially in 91 degree heat), it needs to be setup so that we're not swamping the seeded beds in one area while another area dries out completely.

Let the planting begin, Rose did an amazing job making up all of the raised beds, these beds are wide enough we can plant a lot, but not so wide that you can't reach in them for picking, the stakes are there to keep hoses off the beds as we drag them to different parts of the garden. 

Jason (L.) and James (R.) were such a big help getting the drip irrigation hoses in, and helped with planting the Tomato beds, red plastic'd area, caged, staked, and planted.  The squash bed on the right is our new expansion squash bed with drip irrigation.  The garden was expanded a good 6'+ width this year to accommodate the squash that overtook the garden last year.

When we were done with the garden we assembled Roses new DR-Trimmer

She tried it out, seemed to work good, just different than our old one.

 

Today Sunday 94 degrees, it's carrots today at 8AM in the morning before the scorching begins.

We're getting some stuff together for Jarrod, a tractor, and A/C we're not using, and his pole saw we borrowed.

Rose was out in the garden early this morning, with only 1 cup of coffee in her, off she went, planting carrots and Marigolds and...  

The grass was still too wet to mow at 9:30am Sunday, I'll have to wait a bit for it to dry out.  Stuff is growing way to fast in this heat.  Ended up mowing after 5pm, only took a couple hours to finish up.

The Plum tree we got from Dad is covered in tiny plums.  If this drought doesn't progress to far we may get some this year.  All of the plums will drop off before they mature if the tree gets stressed by the drought.

Dad's crazy Plum tree

Off to the Home Depot to pick up some Circuit Breakers, appears I had one give up the magic smoke...  We were probably overloading it... and it was probably pretty old.  

Roses flowers, Zinnias and a wildflower mix planted from seed have sprouted in a couple of the beds.

Our bedding plants, Kales, Leeks, maybe beans, I cut up the potato seed so we can put those in this week, they're drying in the kitchen.

 

Kale and Broccoli

The Tomato beds, we're trying red plastic mulch this year

Poppies are ready to pop already seems to early

First time ever rhododendron is flowering it is happy, happy...

I shucked the beans from last year, the bean net is already up.

Tuesday 6/8 it's going to be 91 again today, we're supposed to get some rain, time will tell, the sun just came out. 

Summer squash have sprouted in 3 days, wow!

Wednesday it's cooler this morning, though it'll get to 88 today and it's humid.

Summer's Here...

Stay Safe!