Look! We got a new kitty!

Nah…not really. He just dropped by to poop in our yard. And to play with Andy. Andy and the cat have played before. Andy warned me that kitty likes to be very cute and cuddly looking, and then when you try to pet him, he flips out and attacks. So we’re standing there working on the duck tractor and the neighbor cat wanders up, flops on the ground, and begins rolling around on his back, mewing and showing his tummy.

“Awww…he’s so cute! He wants me to pet his tummy!” Andy says gleefully.

Do I even need to say what happened next? At least no blood was shed…though, Andy did squeal in a very girlie way.

Two more pictures…because pictures are fun. First, the iris rooty thing my mom gave me last year bloomed!!

And finally, I made hay! It’s lawn hay! This weekend I raked up all the grass Andy had mowed in our “front yard.” A lot of ended up mulching the garden, but I stuffed some in these boxes to use for bedding for when we get our ducklings. Hopefully it doesn’t burst into flame.

I have come to really enjoy using the scythe. Some people knit to relax, some drink, but I’ve found that decapitating large swathes of grass with a big razor-sharp blade is the thing for me. And while it is tiring after an hour or two, it’s not exhausting, which surprises me – but I suppose if I am mowing things properly, the tool is doing most of the work, not me.

There is hardly any water coming down our little brook into the pond, the result being that the pond is probably 1.5-2 feet lower than it should be. Over the weekend, I cut down all the weeds infesting the channel it runs down, and dug a little trench to encourage the water to go to the pond. It now does so, but at a trickle. Then again, a trickle is pretty much all that comes out of the pipe that goes under the driveway. there is a larger pipe that goes under the driveway, but the water on the other side cannot be encouraged to enter it (I’ve tried). Perhaps it is just for ‘heavy water flow’, and the smaller pipe that stuff comes through right now is just a french drain that goes under it.

The end result is, I don’t like it, since the water comes into the ditch on the other side of the driveway much faster than it comes out our side – my believe is right now, a lot of it is disappearing into the ground. I also notice the ground on the pond side of the driveway is quite soft – I’m waiting now for the driveway to slowing sink and crush the pipes that go under it. Maybe when Cabol’s dad comes to visit we can get some shovels and start diggin’ up the driveway until we hit the pipes, and put in some proper draining so the brook fills the pond and then continues on to yards unknown through the (now dry) riverbed on the other side of the pond!

Loafkeeper Farm is proud to present to you the first two official farm critters…

Pumpernickel…

…and Sourdough (she’s in there somewhere)!

Here’s what the folks at Green Fence Farm have to say about these two fuzzy girls:

Both are daughters of our herd ram, Zeus, a powerful herd ram with great fleece. [Pumpernickel] is solid black, born 5/7, daughter of LRB-030P, a black ewe with lovely fleece. She twinned easily, has lots of milk, and is a great mother. Your lamb is grandaughter to our leader ewe, and that line gives us the best wool we have — soft and plentiful.

[Sourdough] is a solid white daughter of TNY-937P, born 5/18. Her mother is an easy going, fabulous mom. She has a gorgeous white coat of ringlets already and is growing like a weed.

We’ll be bringing them home at the end of summer. If you have some free time, we could use some help getting the barn fixed up and the fencing set!

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been gazing longingly at the huge, empty fields I drive by each day. Some of the fields I see have cattle grazing. One field had ducks grazing (…and may still have ducks grazing, but the grass has grown into an ocean that would engulf teeny duck bodies). A lot of the fields, though, are empty.

As I drive by these empty fields day after day, I think to myself: “If one of those huge, empty fields were mine, I would fill it with furry sheep, milky goats, and guarding llamas! It’s not fair that someone else should own these fields and not use them!” I then pout a bit and start to scheme on how we can convince our neighbors to sell us a bit of their unused land.

The thing is…those fields _aren’t_ empty.

They are (or were until recently) extremely full.

About a week ago, I noticed that the grasses in many of these empty fields had been cut and turned into long, drying windrows of sunny green*.

Those fields are hay fields.

My drives past these fields during the last week have been like watching slow-motion animated flip cards. One day I’d drive by the fields full of tall, dark green grass…the next day the grass was cut and drying….a couple of days later the grass was hay–rolled or stacked into bales…then finally the bales were gone and the fields bare. I never see any farmers, and the strange multi-pronged machinery is always silent when I pass, so it seems to me that this change happens on its own.

Now when I pass these fields, my lust for the seemingly empty fields is replaced by drooling over the luscious, fresh hay. “Oh, how I wish I had some of that hay! Why, if that hay was mine, I’d stack it up in my barn to feed furry sheep, milky goats, and guarding llamas when winter comes!” Mmmmmm…hay.

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*Slightly poetic aside: I love drying-hay green. There are tons of greens around here, but drying-hay green is my favorite. In reality, the sun is sucking up the moisture from the grass, but it seems to me, instead, that the grass sucks up the sun.

Today I whipped out the scythe and started to go to work on the front yard. I seemed to do better once I got the hang of honing the blade regularly as I worked. And there I was, really getting into the swing (haha) of things when…the glue on the handle decided it did not want to work anymore. Now I need to search the entire house for where I put a 2 fl oz bottle of Gorilla Glue.

Today I went out and planted the tomatoes, peppers, and various herbs that have been sitting in their little flats on the back porch. Unfortunately the garden plot is 1/4 of the way down the hill, and there is no water down there. We need to get water run down there.

Most of the garden plot seems to be a home for ants, both little black ones and red ones. I think we came to an understanding, however, where if they did not bite me then I would not return with something nasty (like an anteater) to eat them all.