Monthly Archives: May 2016

May 8th. That was the last time I blogged. Holy cow, y’all. I’m not sure I’ve ever gone that long!

I have no excuse, really. Have I been busy? Yes. But, no more than usual this time of year. At the moment I am waiting for my suuuuuuper slow technology to work so I can upload pictures.

Since I’ve been here we all nearly needed to get our boating licenses, what with all the rain. I was beginning to fear summer would never come. I’m still afraid we may have an overly wet summer.

Normally waiting for May before shearing means the sheep are more than ready to lose their wool. It’s a relief when it finally all comes off, and they happily wander back to the hay, feeling light and cool and happy.

This year? Not so much.

First, I had to pen them in the garage, of all places. It has been so wet and muddy that there was no good place to keep them where they’d stay dry waiting for Emily to get here.   I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what a bunch of sheep penned together for 3 days will do to a space; it was quite a mess to clean up afterward.  As for letting them back out into the field after getting shorn….well.  It was not only still raining, but much chillier than you’d want for your newly-naked ovines.

But yesterday – yesterday at last! We finally had a day with no rain at all. It’s been gloriously sunny and hot. It’s felt downright luxurious to be able to check on and feed the animals, weed the gardens, and collect eggs without getting rained on the entire time.

The downside, of course, is finding two giant black snakes coiled up together in one of the coops yesterday afternoon. They’d availed themselves of the eggs in there and left at some point of their own volition. I have no idea where they went, but now I have the heebie-jeebies big time.  I didn’t disturb them, because lord knows I had a million scenarios play out in my head of how I’d manage it, and none of them ended well for me. Thankfully, our neighbor across the street has offered to come get them out  for me, should they return.

They’re not back today, thankfully. I walked very carefully into all the gardens and kept a wary eye out while weeding and spreading out diatomaceous earth (I’ll conquer those squash bugs this year, dammit).  I had to replant the melon and cucumbers, thanks to some sneaky vole activity (why can’t the snakes pick on the voles instead of the chickens? Gah!), and I had to gather back the errant chicks that had squeezed out of their pen. I saw no snakes. I hope it stays that way.

And look! Radishes are finally coming in! And chard!

And little white flowers on my ever-expanding raspberry bushes!

Miss Piper, lounging in the hay

Sweet Dilly is FINALLY off steroids. Hopefully her platelets and red blood cells continue to stay within normal levels.