Summer is Flashing By

This is how Grover rides in the Honda Pioneer, also known as "the buggy".  He loves to ride in it, but insists on standing with hind feet on the seat and front feet on the dashboard, with his ears blowing in the breeze.  Obviously, I was not moving very fast when I took this photo since I can't really drive and shoot at the same time.  Rowdy gets the passenger seat and is more than happy to sit on the seat.  Things get a little crowded when Sam joins us.  Sometimes Grover will hop into the bed then.  Not always.

I dug up our garlic this week.  With the continual rain, the weeds were rampant, so I first used the weed trimmer around the perimeter, cutting down the last of the asparagus as well as weeds.  Oddly enough, I found about 5 new stalks of asparagus, which I brought home and put into pasta salad.  I did not expect to see new asparagus in late July, but it has been cool and rainy.  I will check for more later.  But the garlic did well and I think we will have enough to get us through til next year.  For now it is hanging in the summer kitchen to dry out.  Some bulbs will be set aside for replanting in October.

I also checked in on the bees on Sunday.  The hive is strong, lots of baby bees in various stages and honey being made and stored.  I gave them a 5th box with new foundation to draw into comb.  I had to pull all the wax from most of the frames that were in the hive that died over the winter and get rid of it.  It had dead bees and stuff in it that was just unpleasant, so I put new wax foundation into those frames.  The buckwheat seems to be done flowering for now, but I think it will flower again.  It has definitely gone to seed.  

If you click on the photo to enlarge, you can see the clusters of brown buckwheat grains under the flowers.  I think I would have to gather a lot of these to make a batch of pancakes!  


Another crop on our farm this year was put in by my neighbor's grandson:  corn.

 This is way up in what used to be horse pasture and its purpose is as a food plot to attract deer.  It is field corn, not sweet corn.  I think he has also planted turnips and clover.  He also has several trail cameras up to see what will be attracted.  I like to know where those are so I can avoid them on my walks.  



Grover and I have now completed 16 weeks of agility classes.  We are enjoying it.  He gets very excited when I tell him it is time to go to dog class and he likes to practice in the yard.  We are up to working on 6 weave poles out of the ultimate 12.  He is doing pretty well and I set up my tripod yesterday in the yard to get a short video of us practicing.

weaving

Turn your volume down if you don't want to hear my high-pitched encouragement to Grover through the poles.  I do not know how to edit video, so you will see a false start at the beginning.  The dog must always enter with the first pole to his left shoulder in order to be correct.  This is one of the hardest things for dogs to learn and we started with 2 poles, then added 2 more and now we are up to 6.  We are still doing 6 in class, so I will add more when the instructor says we will add more.  Last night in class, we did a sequence starting with a jump, then the weave poles and then into a tunnel.  Then we did jump, weave, tunnel and back through the weave poles coming out of the tunnel.  That one was tricky.  

I didn't post last week.  Just didn't have enough photos and content.  My mom visited and she and I spent a good bit of time organizing the new kitchen, figuring out what to put where, etc.  And then on Sunday before she headed for home, Sam's parents came over and I cooked beer can chicken on the grill and we had a nice dinner on the deck.

As for fiber-y stuff, I finished spinning a bobbin (approximately 4 oz) of fawn alpaca singles for the blanket project.  It is not very inspiring spinning and now I need to do another one to ply it with.  That will give me a pound of 2-ply fawn to add to the black I have done and the white I am still working on.  I plan to do some brown as well, so 4 colors in all.  

Have not started or finished anything else, though I should have my lace-y purple cardigan off the needles today.  I sure hope so.  I will be able to make good use of it yet this summer and it will be perfect for early fall.

We have had a lot of thunderstorms this past week.  Monday morning, I looked out the back door to see this incredible lighting.  This was about 7:30 am.  I have not edited it at all.  It was gorgeous!  There are a couple places (just above the alpaca barn and then up to the right) where the sun coming up (which would be to the extreme left in this photo) was touching the treetops on the hill and lighting them up.


And here is a shot of a "teazel" just beginning to bloom, looking down on it from above.