June, wonderful june

Say hello to Bob, a Great Horned Owl of the genus Bobblehead. Here he is on the job, guarding the strawberries. He manages to intimidate the berry thieving robins but the crows just laugh at him. Crows love a good joke.

They know how to pull out the new corn seedlings to get at the kernel beneath the ground and got nearly half the crop before I saw what was going on. We re-planted in the blank spots, (thus the two sizes of corn plants. ) We put Bob on the fence and the crows were furious, roundly cursing him out til one brave soul landed on the fence, slowly sidled up to him and announced to the others, " He's a fake!" and dinner was back on. The corn has been under cover ever since but should be safe at this size to unwrap.

The first of the strawberries are ripening but since we havent had a decent rain in a month they are small and sparse. No berries for market this year, I will need what there is for jam.

The grafting workshop I went to at Corn Hill Nursery in April paid off for me. More than half of my grafts took! Eventually the host branch beyond the grafts gets cut off and the new grafted branches grow to take it's place. ( I didn't have grafter's bees wax so I melted an old beeswax candle, That's what the purple is.)

Every day has a multitude of tasks, I wake up in the night thinking I want to do this and this and this...Some of it gets done, everything takes longer than planned. A whiff of lilac on the breeze can put me off track til I go bury my nose in a blossom...June has so much to enjoy. This month watering and weeding are eating up the days. Already we are by our 5th Farmer's Market in the Village of St Martins.

So far I have had lots of different salad greens, radishes, beet greens, kale, chard, chinese cabbage, granola, chewy healthy bars, and hummus.
Next week I will have the first...

cucumbers!

Dear little Freckles is dutifully raising another brood of 11 meat chickens. They are now at the gangly teenage stage but still try to crowd in underneath mama hen when they get cold. At this point about 3 will fit so when one crowds in under the front 2 come rolling out from behind. She is extraordinarily patient and loving with them.

May was a sad month for us. We lost Chicken Little, star of my children's book, and a fox got Thing One, my Polish pet hen with the wild hairdo topknot. The fox took 2 more good young laying hens so the flock has been confined to their run since then. They are not at all pleased.

The worst thing that happened in may was losing Celine, my mini mare I had for 20 years. She went way overdue with her foal and it finally presented in an impossible way with no front legs forthcoming. It was a nightmare and the vet could do nothing but euthanise her, so we lost both.

There is an indefinable sadness in the barnyard that doesnt seem to be abating, Celine was such a long term presence...we have decided to buy back one of her foals, now 7 years old and we look forward to her coming back home in mid august.