I've got earworms

"And another one gone and another one gone; another one bites the dust." Yep, Poppy caught another mouse. But they just keep coming. Tonight I saw one in the tack room and tried to help Poppy find it, but it seemed to just disappear. Then I saw it – a hole in the corner. I'm going to get some steel wool tomorrow to stuff in it and see if that takes care of their access.

I try to check stock tanks and water buckets frequently, not just to make sure everyone has water, but also to make sure it's drinkable. Occasionally Lance poops in his stock tank, and occasionally I'll find a drowned mouse in one of the sheep buckets. This morning there was something much bigger:

UGH! At first glance I thought it was a RAT; at second glance I realized it was a ground squirrel. Needless to say; I dumped and scrubbed the tank before refilling.

That unpleasant find speaks to how dry it is right now. This is our typical summer weather, but it always seems to surprise some people who think of NW Oregon as perpetually wet and green. The other day after working Stella I hosed the sweat off her before turning her out. Freshly bathed horses invariably roll and Stella always chooses a fairly steep slope to do it on which is entertaining. The photos I took show that the grass is toast. Our lawn looks about the same.

Yesterday Rick and I took Poppy for an afternoon walk. Rick wanted to go somewhere other than up our hill or to Willamette Mission State Park, and chose the E. E. Wilson Wildlife Area. We found ourselves walking a long, straight, deserted blacktop road with gravel crossroads and rectangular concrete foundations visible in the weeds, faint reminders that this area used to be Camp Adair. Hard to believe that once upon a time this bucolic scene was once basically the second largest city in our state, had it been incorporated – and that it was such a flash in the pan!

There were dozens of apple trees on either side of that road, all of them different, so clearly planted and not volunteers. I was fascinated by the variety; these are just a few of them.

These were the darkest red apples I've ever seen

These were bronze!

Today was a rare Sunday that Brian didn't have to work (and Rick did), so I pressed my son into service. Our 'hay guy' had three tons of beautiful second cutting orchardgrass hay saved for us, and we needed to get it out of his barn and into ours. The bales were heavier than his first cutting, but we got 'er done. On top of that I watered, did laundry, and started a jar of fermented eggplant (using my new fermentation springs and lids that I first saw here), making me feel a little like the old Enjoli ad; "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan...."

And for those of you who come here just for Chuckie content (I'm looking at you, wyomingheart!), here he is with his friend Poppy on the deck this morning.

That's it for the weekend at . . .