281 Steps

That's how many it takes to get downstairs, start the first load of laundry, put coffee in the microwave and let the little dachsie out for a minute.

How do I know?





Our boy couldn't be home last week for Mother's Day. Thousands of young men couldn't be. Soldiers, men who live far away, men like himself, whose jobs take them out of state for weeks at a time.

I missed him just the same, but it is one of my jobs as a mother to accept that our young people have made their own lives....good ones and I am proud of them all.....

 

And the waiting was worth it as there was all the fun when he was finally able to come home this weekend.

He picked up the tractor and he and his dad got it fitted up with new batteries and the required hydraulic couplers to hook it up to our tillage tools.

Then he ripped the disks over a field that has lain fallow for several years, one of our best. Then tried to chisel it, but wound up turning it over with the moldboard plows.

Went to the races with his dad, brother and brother-in-law. I guess despite a rain out they had a great time.

And bought me a phone. For someone who grew up having no phone sometimes and party lines others, any cell phone at all is a wonder. I have used a little one he got me many Mother's Days ago very happily, even though it quickly became outmoded.

However, I did wish for a pedometer and none that we could find worked. I step very softly....

This phone counts them very nicely. (Among other cool things too numerous to mention).

So now I can look at my morning's activities, which sometimes seem like so much when still clouded by sleep and realize.....if I am going to meet that 10,000 step goal I am going to have to get moving...... 

Sunday Stills....Pointy Things

Lots of pointy things this time of year......

For more Sunday Stills.....

All the News

New Tractor

New Rocks

New Kittehs

Elvis's babies!

A dog killed Elvis...so these are all we have left of a pretty super cat

New Shameless Bunnies and their mama

Not Quite Frozen

Neon Moon

It appears that it didn't freeze last night.

Becky and I went out around ten and covered the snapdragons anyhow, even though it didn't quite feel like it was going to be frosty.

It was sure chilly though. I took a blanket out to spend a little time in the quiet of the sitting porch and needed both.

Frieland LF Bama Breeze

Sure worth it though. I'm not going to count it on my farm count, but I am pretty sure I saw a Peregrine Falcon. It was clearly a falcon of some kind, very sharp, pointed wings and all. And it was large, kinda crow-sized. 

However, I could not get a good look at the facial markings, so it will remain an almost, but not quite, sighting.

Amazing though what we see from this little farm in the middle of NY. At the same time there was a buteo up at Bald Eagle height, way at the edges of very high clouds. Even at the absolute outside range of my admittedly not very powerful binoculars, it was just a light-breasted, dark-winged speck. Probably just a Red-tailed, but I have never seen anything but an eagle that high. And it was definitely not an eagle.

Also not an eagle

The Old Pasture Lot was alive with Bobolinks and Red-winged Blackbirds. What a chorus of joy and clamorous welcome to spring. I do love Bobolinks!

Another Day

Come, walk with me

The corn lilies we weeded out of a friend's garden and tossed down along the driveway in hopes they might grow are thick and green and thriving.

Up in the Heifer Pasture

Commotion up in the horse yard. Killdeers going crazy. I walked up in case a varmint was pestering them. The male was swirling up and down in Sunny's yard. Then the female came by carting a neatly cut-off egg shell in her beak. She dropped it and went back to the nest. 

Watch out for the Widow Makers

 Hatching I'll bet.

Much twittering in the chimney at frequent intervals. Sounds like hatching there too.

Watching me, watching you

Baby Tufted Titmice begging frantically on the feeder.



Asparagus Stonehenge up in the yard. Another day, another dinner.

Fence man

Following the boss up fencing. Felt like the Secret Garden with the wind buffeting us wildly. All we needed were some moors.

House Wren...check

 We all swim in our own river, just like the fish in the Mohawk. However, our river is a river of air, flowing through the trees, around the rocks and across our faces. Today it is straight out of Canada, cold but as sweet as spring water and good to breathe. You can almost see its outlines; it is so darned vigorous.



The gentleman in the video below was following me from tree to tree and singing up a storm....maybe he was conjuring up that wind...I don't know....sorry about the shakiness....

Last Frost?

Bought this pink lilac when the kids were small and we lived in town
Moved it up here and it is going ok

Maybe...maybe not. However, temperatures in the high twenties are forecast for tonight into tomorrow morning. They had been predicting forties, but the feel in the air last night said they were going to be way off. You can feel a frost coming if you pay attention and believe your senses.

Thus last night the boss and I brought the trays of tender annual flowers and vegetables in off the sitting porch ...which by the way has been rearranged to allow at least one more person to sit out there.....plus all the shabby old geraniums I put out to call the hummers to the feeders.

They are pretty ratty, but I grew most of them from seed and I keep them going, winter after winter, just for something green around the house.

Nothing permanent is planted out, except a few snapdragons the kids bought me for Mother's Day, and onions, carrots and beets. I'm hoping the Candy Onions can take the cold. Never grew them before, spent a lot more money than I normally would for sets, and with the long dry spell it was a real struggle to get them going. 

Shame to lose them now. I will cover the snapdragons.....

Anyhow, even though it has been in the eighties for the past ten days to two weeks, we know better than to trust upstate weather in May. Brrr.....

Speaking of Rock Stars

 Guess I married one. Look what the boss brought me yesterday from the heifer pasture.

He was out building fence.

See how this weird concretion of honey-combed limestone seems to have flowed down
over the granite boulder in the center?

I have admired, nay, lusted after, this rock for years and years and years. ....some folks like diamonds...for me it's field stone every time. However, as you can see from the distant shot of the skid steer bucket, it is HUGE! And it was all the way at the back of the heifer pasture at the top of the hill behind the hill in yesterday's middle photo (see previous post).

Note the odd shelf around the bottom,
as if the stone sat in the bottom of a limestone cave or something

I never even asked. It wouldn't have been fair to expect someone who works so hard to bring me something so difficult...just for fun

Thus when he came down yesterday and sent me out to see what he had brought me I was thrilled. This an amazing hunk of landscape. Now to decide where to put it.

Thank you!!!

Asparagus

Used to be I was the only one in the house who would eat it.

The volunteer plant by the back door was adequate to keep me happy, but I planted a little bed up in back anyhow. It somehow survived years of barely noticeable care......

Then Jade and Liz moved in. He liked it. She had always hated, it but when she was expecting Peggy it turned into one of the few things she could eat. So that made three.

Last night I picked and cooked a little batch. Becky took a taste and lo, another convert.

Good thing Jade found out from my uncle, who has always grown it, how to use the rototiller and lawn mower to rejuvenate that little patch I planted. He counted at least forty new spears popping up after I picked.

Will this little rock star like asparagus too? Only time will tell

Good thing we have lots of butter.

Rain

I rarely dare wish for rain...except for it to fall on friends in distant states where it is always dry.

Over the past twenty odd years a local pattern has emerged wherein all too frequently it begins to rain sometime in late spring or early summer, and just never stops until the whole region is under flood watches and warnings for weeks on end. Crop work is impossible.





It is dangerous to wish for that. However it has been abnormally dry for several weeks. Wild fires have started all over the area, many of them caused by people who feel they are above the law and the burn bans, and things had kinda stopped growing.

We were watering garden every day, not a cheap deal with the amount we pay for our water. I finally began kind of carefully hoping for just a gentle overnight rain to get things growing.

Last night we got it and you should see the green we woke up to!




It is like a pirate's treasure box out there, with gold from the Gold Finches, rubies from the Cardinals, and miles of emerald in every field and roadside. No Oz glasses needed.

Alas, we are predicted to get some of the less welcome sort of rain this afternoon, with violent thunderstorms and heavy rains predicted.

Last night was nice though. 

Happy Mother's Day

Love you mama.....

Sunday Stills.....Danger

Flooding

Tornado

I had big plans for this week. Everywhere you look on a farm there is danger. Unfortunately planning is as far as I got....so these are from the archives. Sorry.

For more Sunday Stills.....

Syvilagus Standoff

Who's that I spy nibbling my greenery?

Do I know you?

Stranger! Oh, noes, Oh horrors!

Out, out, damned spot! I was here first!

Or...Showdown at the Long Lawn Corral.....do click for enbiggenment