The heat returns

Of course. Because I spent yesterday canning. I think it's some sort of cosmic requirement that it MUST be hot during canning season.

After our wonderful rain and some cool, overcast days last week, this week dawned sunny and warm. The next few days are headed for the 90s again! :-/  Oh well, summer deserves a "last gasp," and it'll stretch out the garden's production.

As predicted, the rain brought nearly instant green. See the green haze across the dry lot?

Unfortunately, I think it's all weeds.

I was going to pick our own prunes and apples and work on them yesterday, but a farm store chain sent out an email that all remaining produce from last week's boxed produce promotion would be 50% on Sunday only. Hoping to score enough tomatoes to restock our pantry shelves, I drove into town to check it out. Came home with two big boxes of RIPE tomatoes, a box of pickling cukes and a bunch of dill. Finished the day with 21 quarts of canned tomatoes, five quarts of condensed tomato soup (and enough puree for another batch in the frig), and three jars of pickles lacto-fermenting on my kitchen counter. Since the rest of the cukes won't wait the 2+ weeks it will take to see how those pickles turn out, I'll have to put them up conventionally.

Very timely addition; I was down to my last two quarts!

The hens enjoy the cast-offs and trimmings

One of our Buff Orpington hens went broody at least 2 1/2 weeks ago, and is still at it.

I've never had a broody hen before. She's a determined thing! If you pick her up and set her on the floor, she'll just brood there for awhile. So we've taken to putting her out in the hen yard, where she will usually scratch around for a bit before going back to her – empty – nest box. That's right, she's not sitting on anything. Silly, stubborn girl.

I hope she doesn't waste away!

I have lots of sheep photos to share, but this has gotten long enough and I have spent too much time on the computer already. Produce waits for no woman!

Full steam(y) ahead, at . . .

REAL RAIN!

After two-plus dry months, we got a tantalizing, dust-settling sprinkle Wednesday night. Then yesterday afternoon, the clouds opened up and it rained through last night. This morning, our rain gauge showed an impressive (for this area) one-day total:

Woot! Everything is cleaner – and will be greener in short order. And I do mean short order – the grass seems to wake up overnight with 'nature's irrigation'! Relieved of watering duties for now, I enjoy the loveliness around me (click to biggify the beauty).

Singin' 'bout the rain, at . . .

Meanwhile, back in the honeymoon suite...

...Nightcap and his ladies are just hangin' out. Here's the handsome mister:

Yesterday Sarai seemed especially tired. I can only hope that means she and Nightcap had a good romp the night before!

I already have a list of B names that relate to "nightcap" (thanks mostly to Google, since I'm a teetotaler) – Brandy, Bourbon, Baileys, Buttered Rum, Beam, Bacardi, Benedictine, Barenjaeger, Balvenie, Baijiu, Bartender and Barista. Do you have any other good suggestions?

For the less sheepily inclined, here are some pictures of my happy dahlias:

That's it for today from . . .

September sanity

After last week, I'm hoping my title isn't just wishful thinking!

Morning light across the meadow

Breakfast time for our horses

Laura and her mare Tang

Have spindle, will travel (and spin!)

Laura's spinning project

Range cattle

Pronghorn antelope!

In spite of getting to our destination at 10:00 Friday night, and getting home last night well after dark, we had a good weekend. Some parts were even WONDERFUL! ;-)  My young horse was a trooper, doing great on the high-line (the first night), in a single-strand electric-tape paddock (after the first night), and on the trail. It was great to have fiber-pal/horse-friend Laura there to spin, ride and chat with; she was a welcome distraction from the oft-times challenging task of parenting a rebellious pre-teen. The weather was nice, the scenery beautiful, the flora and fauna fun to photo-stalk; the only real problems came from people. There was the aforementioned parenting challenge; the group of idiots who partied a mile away on Friday night and through their carelessness started a small forest fire; another family who drove away from their hunting campsite in the middle of the day, leaving a big campfire for a group of horseback riders (us) to notice and put out with limited resources; and another group of hunters camped near us who put out their campfire but left a small truckload of cast-offs behind for others to clean up (three chairs, a canopy, a large wire dog crate, an archery target, etc.). Sometimes it makes one ashamed to be a part of the human race!

Laura and I rode by the still-smoldering result of carelessness or indifference

Good thing forest service personnel were still onsite!

When we rode up, this campfire was still blazing!

So now I'm working my way through Mt. Washmore and a couple clients' jobs while thinking about the trees begging to be relieved of their bounty of prunes and apples. The water is running in the garden since we are still dry and dusty here, and I'm sure there's produce to be picked there as well. I'd best get back at it!

That's it for now (don't be surprised by more photos of our campout) from . . .