Birds

 I kept seeing birds flying into the milk room yesterday. Then saw this. A pair of barn swallows is building a nest. I love it! Now I can't wait to hear little babies soon.

These little chicks are being bad. I let them in the coop this morning because I was bringing the 4 legged creatures over. Now I guess they don't like being penned up. Mommas are not happy anout this situation at all.

In the garden this week...

I am amazed at these tomato plants! Already have little green tomatoes! And the smell so good. I love how tomato plants smell. I just go out there and rub a leaf all over my hands so I can smell it all day. They should make tomato perfume. How cool would that be? Then in the middle of a cold winter, you could spray some tomato smell on you and it would remind you of summer and a big red ripe juicy tomato! Oh my, that sounds so good!

So, my husband came out to the garden a few evenings ago, to check it out. I put him to work, like all good wives should do when their husbands wander out to the garden, right? It was cool, he had nothing else to do obviously. So I made him stake the rest of the tomatoes. He's gonna be eating these soon, so why not work a little? He did good. Now I just need to tie them up. They are growing so fast!

This is a Rutger tomato plant. I have 10 of these. I think there are 40 plants, 5 different varieties.

This is a Black Cherry plant, with little green tomatoes! I can't wait til these are ripe. They are an heirloom cherry.

This is the yellow squash, zucchini, cabbage and pepper row. The squash and zucchini just grew like weeds the past week or so. I've lost 2 hot pepper plants. Don't know why.

And the corn looks pretty good so far. I need to get some more to plant where lots didn't come up.  But haven't grown corn in a few years.So excited to get some good fresh "roastin' ears", as my husband calls them.

Looks like all the sunflower seeds I planted down the middle of the crowder peas row are coming up. That should be pretty.

It was so cold today here. I don't know what's going on, but I'm glad. Because the shearer has yet again put us off til NEXT weekend, if nothing happens. This has been going on since March. The lady up the road who has 15 Finn sheep didn't even get hers sheared at all last year. She's supposed to get her sheared by the lady doing mine. So no wool for her for 2 years. I sure hope my sheep's wool is going to be ok, waiting this long. I know I will be much better when they do finally get sheared. I have been stressing out about this for too long now. I think I will be looking for another shearing person for next year.

Good morning!

Freja and Olga, at my studio door this morning. Good morning, girls! Have a nice day. It's only supposed to be about 71 today. Isn't that nice? I need to go ride my bike. I'm down to 218 right now! So need to really start exercising. I hate exercising. Really hate it. I'd rather walk or ride my bike. But need to work on my mid section bad.

I've had a few animal escapes this week. I think it was Sunday, I looked out at the sheep in the South pasture and saw Clack, the wether, on the road. Yes, he was on the road. He'd climbed through the barbed wore and over the laid down chain link fence, right onto the road. My neighbor saw him and ran him back in through the far gate. So I had to put them all over in the North pasture, with the chickens. And the 2 momma hens and 3 chicks. Who are outside of the coop. And sleep in the corner of the middle stall. Where the sheep go into at night.So later that night, I peeked outside to check on everyone. And heard loud chickie chirping going on. Ran out there to see what was going on and where the chicks were. They were on the other side of the coop, with the mommas. So I got the sheep back over to the studio yard, and the mommas and chicks went back to bed. All was well again. I guess I can't let the sheep back over there til the chicks get bigger and can roost.

Then yesterday, driving up the driveway, I thought I saw Bubba. But it wasn't Bubba. It was Freja. In the yard. Olga was at the gate, looking at her.  So I jumped out and caught her. I have to leave the leash on her because she is hard to catch sometimes. So I'll just step on the leash to catch her.  Got her back in. And husband comes out to see if  I'd gotten her. He said she'd been out about an hour. All my fig bushes and blueberry bushes were still ok. The maples still had leaves. He said she just stayed right near Olga the whole time.  So we had to fix more fences. Darn goats and sheep!