Yesterday The Farmer got brave and decided to try walking around a little outside without his walker.  The first hurdle was getting down the porch steps, which he actually managed very well.

He wanted to see his best buddy, Toby.  Now this dog is a poster critter for ADHD, and prone to jump up on The Farmer, who did NOT discourage Toby from doing so when he was a pup.

At this stage of the game, however, that would be a definite no-no.  Knocking The Farmer on this backside would not be a good idea, no way, no how.  We don’t want to be back in the hospital getting new knees repaired!

Therefore, the game plan was for me to shut Toby out of the backyard so he and The Farmer could commune over the woven wire fence.

Here’s a little video of them communing:

I don’t know who was more excited to see the other, The Farmer or Toby!

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I gave myself and Toby a Christmas present this morning, and went for a walk back through the woods. We hadn’t been back there since before The Farmer’s knee surgery, so it’s probably been about 3 weeks.

While The Farmer was in the hospital we had a lot of rain. Over a foot of rain in fact. It filled up the pond and flooded the bottom pasture and across the road below our driveway.

I looked to see if the flood waters had moved the tree that fell in the creek a month or two ago, and sure enough, it’s disappeared. And I do mean disappeared. I have no idea where it ended up! I couldn’t see it anywhere. I thought it would get caught in one of the bends of the creek, but the water was so high, there’s no telling where it floated off to.

At first, I thought this tree might be it…

However, when I got to looking closer, I noticed it has a line of barbed wire connecting the fallen tree to the upright tree beside it, so obviously it wasn’t the previously fallen tree from further up the creek.

This one isn’t actually in the creek, but just has part of the tree hanging out over it.

It rained so hard you can’t see where the tree broke off except for a patch of smooth, bare dirt.

There’s always a lot of trash that washes down the creek when it floods.

I thought it was interesting to see this plastic crate caught in some tree roots along the creek bank.

The water was much higher than usual, and muddy. That didn’t deter Toby from splashing out into the middle of the creek and goofing off.

“Aren’t you coming?”

I declined to follow him into the creek today. Considering I wasn’t wearing boots and how deep and fast the water was running, it would have been a very cold and very wet adventure!

On the way back home, we walked through a different area of woods than our usual route.  I noticed a lot of persimmons on the ground.

I was rather surprised to see so many.  The persimmon trees I’d seen earlier were already pretty bare of fruit.  However, when I looked around and spotted the persimmon tree nearby, I could see there was still fruit WAY UP in the top of the tree.

 That’s the trouble with fruit trees in the middle of a wooded area.  The trees grow way tall, and there’s no way you can get to the fruit.  I guess the birds and squirrels and raccoons and whatever other critters like such stuff can enjoy it however.

There’s certainly a good bit left for them to munch on!  With persimmons, hickory nuts, walnuts and acorns, there ought to be plenty of food available for wildlife able to reach it.

I was pretty tired by the time Toby and I made it back out.  Guess sitting around in the hospital with The Farmer kind of blew any conditioning I had.  We’ll have to get back in the habit of walking after chores each morning so I build up a little more stamina.

Walking in the woods is a pleasant way to get a little exercise!

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Almost every morning when I’m out to do the morning chores, my canine companion, Toby, and I go for a walk. We go down through the bottom pasture and into the woods.

We have about 4 acres of woods on our little farm, so although not real big, it’s enough to get in there and not see any civilization.

We had some rain a few days ago, causing a lot more leaves to fall off the trees and carpet the path.

Going into the woods and under the bigger trees makes me feel a little like I’m a hobbit or elf or something, treading along through Middle Earth in the Lord of The Rings.  It’s so tranquil, and a great way to start the morning.

Our usual path through the woods takes us by a big hackberry tree (Celtis occidentalis). The morning sun and a low limb makes an interesting pattern of shade on the big tree’s trunk.

This is the same tree that had all the slugs crawling up and down the trunk earlier this year.  It’s too cold now for such critters to be sliming their way up and down the tree, so we didn’t see any today.

We passed by an old fallen log with a covering of moss, plus an added decoration of a bright red leaf.

Eventually we meander along the creek. With the sun shining so brightly today, it made some nice reflections of the trees in the water.

In the deeper areas of the creek, we can usually see some minnows swimming along. They zip by pretty quickly, so it’s hard to get a picture.

The reflection off the water also makes getting a decent picture difficult, but at least you can see there’s little fish in there!

It doesn’t matter how cold it is, Toby has to splash around in the creek.  He loves playing in water!

Many of the fallen leaves have caught on some rocks in the creek and made a little dam, slowing the flow of the water.

They’ll eventually float away, especially if we get more rain and it raises the water levels for a while. 

Further down the creek there is a fallen log.  It’s been there a long time, and has created another bit of a dam in the creek.

The water and floating leaves rush over one or two little sections.

Listening to the water flowing along is quite soothing.  Maybe a walk in the woods would be better than medicine for high blood pressure or depression!

Here’s another little video taken from the bank hanging over top of the end of the log.  I kind of like this one because at the end a walnut goes floating over and bobs in the water.

On the loop back through the woods, there are ferns here and there. It may be fall, but some things are still green.

Sometimes we wander around the paths in the pasture at the end of our walk, but that’s more fun in the spring and summer when there are butterflies and other bugs livening up the place.

For today, That’s My World is a walk in the woods.

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Yesterday I went out to do the morning chores wearing shorts and a tee shirt.
Today when I went out to do chores, I wore jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and a light jacket.

It is past the middle of October, so I guess I should expect this to happen.  A cold front and a little rain moved in during the night, but I don’t think the rain amounted to much. 

I’m afraid this weekend won’t be as warm as last weekend either!  Since it was up in the 80’s last Saturday, after all the hay was in the quonset hut, I decided it was time to give Toby a bath.  I’d put some “spot-on” flea meds on him a few days previously, but he was still polluted with fleas, digging and scratching almost constantly.

I used cold water from a hose (or hose pipe as one of my southern born & bred friends says), but Toby didn’t seem to mind.  He loves to play in the water anyway, and seemed to enjoy being scrubbed all over.

And at least now he’s not scratching at fleas!

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Okay, so technically we don’t actually make hay while the sun shines, as our farm isn’t big enough to warrant buying a hay baler. Instead, we buy hay from someone who sells small bales, as they are much easier for us to handle.

It’s not always easy to find good quality hay in small bales, because most farmers bale the great big rolls of hay. I reckon finding people to work in a hay field during hot summer weather is rather difficult these days, and big rolls of hay can be handled by one guy with a tractor and the proper equipment.

However, it’s still good to get hay while the sun in shining, because you don’t want wet hay! Storing a bunch of wet hay is a good way to a) end up with moldy hay, or b) set your barn on fire.

Obviously, moldy hay isn’t good to feed the animals. And just as obviously, you don’t want the hay to catch fire because it was wet. Sounds a little weird to say storing wet hay can result in a fire, doesn’t it? It’s that good old spontaneous combustion thing!

If you’re not familiar with the phenomenon, it happens because wet hay can create a high relative humidity in the air around it.  This allows plant and microbial respiration in the hay which generates heat, elevating the temperature of the hay.

As the hay gets hotter, the microbes die which causes “oxidative chemical reactions” that increases the temperature of the hay even more. Once the temperature gets to 140 to 150 degrees, the process accelerates and by the time it hits 175°F (80°C), farmers are advised to call the Fire Department.  No kidding!

If the hay temperature gets to 212° (100°C), the process is too far gone to stop. The temperature rises rapidly at that point and the hay is almost certain to catch fire.

Of course, a lot of things affect if and when this happens, but the critical factor that starts it all is wet hay. So there we have it, the reason why it’s good to make hay while the sun shines!

And the sun was shining brightly this past Saturday when we got our hay. It took The Farmer three trips to get it all hauled. The guy selling the hay helped him load it at that end, then when he got home, The Cave Geek and I helped unload it. 

Actually, I only rolled a few closer that fell short of the storage hut. The men did most of the work, while Toby and I watched. That sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?

 The Geek became quite adept at tossing those bales into the shed so all The Farmer had to do was toss them on the stacks.

It’s tiring work, and when the bales quit flying through the air, Toby went in to inspect the new pile of hay.

He and The Farmer are best buddies, so while The Farmer rested from his labors, Toby kept him company.

And now we’ve got hay to feed when the grass dies back during the coming winter. It feels good to be prepared!

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The water is down, and the tree is now long wise in the creek instead of across it.

Toby helped me check things out, but he wasn’t brave enough to jump in the water today!

The top of the tree is still spanning the width of the creek bed, but another bout of high water will break off a lot of those branches as they dry out and get brittle.

It’s still cloudy today and looks like we could get more rain. I guess that would be good, as we’re still way behind on rainfall averages. It just plays havoc with my work cause of the “rain pain”. Such is life!

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Every morning, rain or shine, hot or cold, the critters need fed. So every morning except Saturday, when The Farmer does the chores, I’m outside taking care of critters.

Since I’m already in my outside-doesn’t-matter-if-they-get-dirty clothes, that’s a good time for a walk too. The Farmer keeps paths mowed in the bottom pasture, and Toby and I go round them at least once every morning.

But I missed going in the woods like I did in the winter and early spring. A couple weeks ago I told The Farmer about trying to go in the woods, but the growth was so dense, it was just too much hassle, so I gave it up.

Fast forward to the next Saturday. The Cave Geek and I were inside working on something. It was a nice fall day, so we had the doors open. We kept hearing this noise. Cave Geek thought it was a shop vac. The people next door have been doing some remodeling so that wasn’t unreasonable. I thought it sounded like a weed eater.

Later when I went out to check on what The Farmer was up to, I discovered we were both wrong. The sound we were hearing was our riding lawnmower stopping and starting way out in the woods, cause The Farmer was mowing a path for me.

How sweet is that? I merely mentioned I missed being able to walk in the woods, and he came up with a way so I could do it again. It’s really cool. Kind of reminds me of a state park or something. All we need is little signs here and there.

Now, I enjoy walking in the woods and so does Toby, but the dog has a MAJOR phobia about electric fences. He won’t cross one, he doesn’t want you to carry him over one, he doesn’t want to come within light years of one.

My favorite theory is one day he indulged in his favorite hobby and hiked his leg to leave his mark, this time on the electric fence. I think perhaps some rather sensitive parts got zapped, and thereafter there was NO WAY he was getting close to the electric fence.

Since the path into the woods started at a spot where the electric fence going around the bottom stood, he wouldn’t go into the woods with me. Never mind that The Farmer took down the fence there, he knew there used to be an electric fence in that spot and he didn’t want anything to do with it.

That was the first day.

The second day he finally realized the fence really and truly was no longer there, and by the time I came back he was sitting just inside the woods waiting for me.

On the third day he followed me right into the woods and kept close.

By the fourth day he’d decided this was a lot of fun, and before I even got to the woods he was bounding ahead of me and running around in the underbrush.

Now when I head for our walking area, he’s way ahead of me and goes toward the woods.  Today he discovered it’s great fun to wade around in the creek.

I doubt he’s over his phobia, but one thing is sure and certain, he’s discovered there’s no fence barring his entry into the woods now, and he’s loving it!

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