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Sunday, August 31, 2014

I'm Back!


Looks like I have been gone for along time from this blog.  Needless to say, the Pekins are grown and actually three have gone to freezer heaven because there were to many males.  However, remaining male and female are too noisy and badly behaved for me to continue my Pekin adoration.  They will be going to freezer heaven in the fall.  The female is not yet laying eggs and I am waiting to see if she does soon.  Otherwise, they will both be gone.

The Muscovies are doing well.  Unfortunately they like to sit on eggs frequently and I have one in a separate pen right down sitting on eggs and some ceramic eggs (she doesn't seem to care what she's sitting on).  Another hid under our shed all summer and managed to hatch exactly zero ducklings.  I did have to fence around the shed to avoid another such incident.  Then one built a nest under a car (not one we drive).  We pulled the eggs out and moved the nest, but that was not to her liking so she went back in with the others.  Now, the Muscovy male has decided to show he is boss and runs the Pekin male out of the Muscovy pen, or just blocks the door and keeps the male prisoner.  Ducks are such sooo cute.

Pekin pen taken over by Muscovies

"Lone Ranger" nesting under the shed





My garden has done really well.  I have peas, beans, and carrots galore, chards and lettuce and the tomatoes have set on but are not yet ripe.  I even managed to keep it more or less clear of weeds!  This is what gardening used to be like before the grass took over.


Lettuce over 12 inches in diameter


We were going out to the cabin for the Labor Day weekend, but going in the road was quite wet with numerous puddles.  We decided if it rained as predicted, we'd still be there mid-week.  We left after about 2 1/2 hours when the clouds started building up.  It rained on us about the time we got to pavement, which is good since the gravel road was still very wet.  It rained here overnight and it appears to have rained in the area of the cabin repeatedly (judging from radar).  If it clears, we are going to cut down a dead tree and some branches off others.  I did cut some down the other day but the remaining ones require two people to safely cut them out.  For some reason, the tops of the trees were not as filled out as in previous years.  Considering the amount of rain, I would have thought they would have done better.

This is a peacock that was wondering about for some time.  He had an annoyingly loud cry, usually early in the morning.  Seems to have disappeared for now.


We took pictures of wet road, wildflowers, birds, etc at the ranch this year.

Swallow nest on the Hut

Wildflowers

Interesting prairie "art"



Horned lizard



Very wet roads

The road to our cabin was completely overgrown

The butterfly is a mourning cloak that hatched from a caterpillar I found.  The wings never dried properly so I put it outside in the cage I have for such things and it lived about a month.

More evidence the drought is over!  Heavy rain has been very common this summer.


Time to sign off for now.!