Flooded Creek

There seems to be a lot of rain falling all over the country.  We’ve had a bunch here lately, but at least we don’t have to worry about the record level flooding of the Red River like the folks in Fargo, North Dakota, and on into the Manitoba, Canada, area do.

Nevertheless, we still got a lot of rain a little too fast, and by yesterday morning the creek that runs along one side of our property was flooded. 

It backs up a lot when it gets to the culvert/bridge just down the road from us.  There’s just too much water and not enough space for it to run through!  The culvert also gets clogged with debris, and that constricts the water flow even more, and it has to go somewhere.

The Farmer decided to check out the flood waters before he left for work and walked down as close as he could get to the bridge, then headed back.

Thankfully, since the bridge is past our driveway, we don’t have to worry about flood waters over the road when we want to drive somewhere.

However, The Farmer was worried about the flood waters getting into his pond.  When it was built, they made a high bank on the side closest to the road, hoping to prevent that.  So far it had worked, but he decided to check it out.

It almost worked this time, but in a couple of spots there were trickles of water flowing into the pond.

There wasn’t enough water to worry about, but we’ll just have to see what happens next time we get a lot of heavy rains.

When the creek floods, the water also backs up into our bottom pasture and flows through the adjacent woods.

As you can see, the water runs over the fence line, which is why we have an electric fence there.  It’s easier to fix when the fast waters tear the wire away from the posts, or the debris just flat out breaks the wires.

The ground was so saturated with water, the earthworms were bailing out everywhere.  The grass was polluted with them, and I could barely walk down the driveway without stepping on one.

The guineas chose to stay high in the treetops, even though it rained on them all night. 

Of course, I wouldn’t accuse guineas of having an excess of intelligence.  They obviously don’t even know enough to come in out of the rain!

All this wet weather makes our Maremma LGD (livestock guardian dog) look pretty ragged since she’s all white.

She probably looks like a lot of folks in dangerously flooded areas feel – a little rough around the edges.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’re done with the rainy weather, so time to hunker down and wait it out!  I’m just thankful we got the basement water-proofed a couple of years ago, so I no longer have to spend hours and hours with a shop vac trying to drain the rising pool of water in the basement!

I guess there’s a silver lining in every cloud after all.

The Joke’s On Us!

After numerous times this winter of hearing the weatherman tell us we might get snow and nothing ever happened, last night we kind of laughed off all predictions of the white stuff.  After all, we got through December, January and February without much more than a few flakes, so the first of March would seem pretty safe, right?

Wrong!  The joke was on us when we got up this morning and there was snow swirling around in gusty winds, and even a layer of snow on the ground.  Amazing!

Church services and other Sunday activities screeched to a halt as closing after closing scrolled by on the tv and computer screens.  The animals hunkered down in their sheds, not sure what to make of so much white stuff carried around in wicked gusts of wind.

The sheep, being the hardy souls they are and protected by a nice layer of insulating wool, were the first to stir out of their shed once the weather cleared a little.

A few of the guineas also ventured out, though the strong wind made things a little precarious. This guinea was hanging on for dear life while the fence swayed back and forth.

After fixing some blueberry muffins for breakfast, I got on my layers of winter clothing and ventured out into the cold, cruel world.  Once all the animals had feed, hay and water, I figured Toby and I needed to take a walk in the woods while we had an opportunity to take pictures of so much snow.

Now I’m sure our northern neighbors are rolling their eyes at my definition of “so much snow”, but remember, it’s all relative!  And to us, this much snow is relatively lots!

We walked back to the creek first thing.

From there, I looked across at the neighbors woods.  It was obvious to see which way the wind had been blowing from the snow plastered on the sides of the trees.

The snowy creek banks lent a bit of softness to the scene we don’t often see.

It didn’t last long however.  It had obviously stopped snowing by the time I went out walking, and by the time Toby and I got out of the woods the sun was shining brightly.  There was a hawk flying high overhead enjoying the better weather.   (At least I suppose it would rather have sunny skies, but maybe it was just looking for dinner.)

The daffodils in the yard were in the shade and still surrounded by snow.

Now when I look out the windows, I see bright sunshine, and just a few little patches of snow left behind here and there in the shade.

Mother Nature’s snowy joke didn’t last long!

Merry Christmas!

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!

Friday’s Farm Fotos

It’s been another busy week, and I’ve had to concentrate on work stuff almost 24/7 (except for a few hours sleep here and there). Because of that, I haven’t had much time to post on most of my more “personal” blogs.

So to catch up, here’s a few pictures from the past week. This first one is from last Saturday, when The Farmer was busy working on the peafowl pen. The chicken wire on top was getting old, and something tore big holes in it. I think that “something” was probably raccoons. They like to eat the dog food. In fact, I pretty much know to start looking for holes when I go to check the peafowl’s bowl of dogfood and every morning it’s totally empty. They don’t eat that much on their own!

You can see some of the big holes.  Obviously, The Farmer is standing in one. 🙂  He decided instead of putting more wire there, he’d make a wood roof.  That will give the peafowl a little more shelter in that area, then they have the aviary to go into for lots of sunlight and fresh air.

Some of the peafowl like to search for even more sunshine, and run through the grass with nothing but their feathers on.  Then they tantalize their mother by standing just outside the aviary.

This, of course, puts the mother peahen in a fowl temper, since she can’t reach them to peck them into good behavior.  She clucks at them, and paces up and down on the other side, and they just continue to merrily run all around on the outside.  Some day they will get a rude shock when they can no longer fit through those 4-inch holes in the bottom wire panels of the aviary.

Toby and I continue to take a morning walk in the bottom pasture. Most of the time it’s a fairly short time, just walking once around all the trails. But there’s usually something interesting to see.

I’m not sure what kind of bug this is, but it was enjoying getting a drink from the dew on the weed.

Yesterday morning while walking in the pasture, I was thinking about writing on this blog and that I’d mention all the hummingbirds seem to have left, when I almost ran smack dab into one!  The little hummer was enjoying some nectar from jewel weeds (Impatiens capensis).  I don’t know which one of us was more surprised, but it didn’t stick around long enough for me to take a picture. (They rarely do!)

Then this morning when I was coming up on the front porch, there was another hummer checking out some of the wire bugs I have hanging along the top edge.  That one didn’t stay around long enough for a picture either.  I don’t think these are the regulars, but hummers on their way to points further south.

We’ve been enjoying some excellent weather this week with cool nights (down in the 50’s), and warmer days (up in the 80’s).  I love this kind of weather!  In the mornings, the llamas and Neffie (our Maremma LGD) like to stretch out in sun on the shorter grass in the main pasture. The Farmer keeps it mowed down so I don’t have to wade through wet weeds to get to the well house in the mornings (Thank You Farmer!). 

Keira was stretched out too, but every time I’d try to get close enough to take a picture, she’d sit up. I guess it must feel good to soak up the sunshine on a cool morning. 

While they’re soaking up the sunshine, the guineas are foraging for seeds and bugs. I think as they get older they get stupider. I say this because as you can see here….

… the half-grown keets still have enough sense to just fly up and go over a fence. The adults, however, run up and down the fence looking for a way through. It’s only about 4-foot tall, mind you, and these birds can fly to the tops of some very tall trees around here! They just seem to forget what phenomenal fliers they are when confronted with fences.

The chickens seem to use their brains a little more, and they like to do things with a little more flair. We still have one chicken sitting on eggs in her bright purple bucket. We knew there was also one of the hens sitting on a nest under The Farmer’s work shed.  She came out this week with four little chicks.

She’s taking them out to forage around today, so it won’t be long until they’re running around all over the place too!

I’ve always got a bunch of pictures and it’s hard to choose just a few, but I reckon that’s pretty much the highlights for this week.

Like I said, it’s been another busy week on the farm!

Friday’s Farm Fotos

Here we are, another week come and gone.  And since, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said,  “Art is long, and time is fleeting,” I guess it’s time to display some pictures (as close as I can come to art) from this past week of time down on the farm! 

Actually, it’s rather fowl around here these days.  There are two groups of guineas running around with keets.  The older group that started out with a couple dozen are now down to 9 half-grown keets.

The second group fared even worse.  They started out with 18 keets and now have 4.  Of course, the first group has 7 adults watching over their 9 keets, whereas the second group only has 2 adults looking after their 4 little ones.

Our Mama Peahen seems to be doing okay with her little peachicks.  Although I believe they think their mission in life is to give their mother a nervous breakdown.  (Hmmmm, sounds a lot like human kids, huh?)  They’re small enough to get through the fencing at the bottom of the aviary, and run around outside in the grass while the mother paces back and forth inside calling to them.  They ignore her until they’re good and ready to hop back over the bottom board and follow Mom around.  Like I said. reminds me of human kids!

Notice the cardinal in there with them?  I throw sunflower seeds on the ground for the peafowl, and the cardinals often come and help themselves.  We do seem to have a tendency to feed the wildlife around here, intentional or not!

We have the 4 surviving peachicks from the 10 that hatched in the incubators outside in their own pen for now.  I think one of them is going to be a peacock, which is good.  I only have one male peafowl right now, and he’s getting old.

This youngster fans those feathers and displays every time I give them fresh food and water.  He also has a propensity for pecking at me.  I hope that goes away!

Not all the hummingbirds have departed for points further south yet.  There’s at least 3 of them out there still fussing at each other.  They’re so territorial!

I like this picture because you can see her little tongue sticking out!  Ummm, that was good stuff!

The butterflies are enjoying the last days of summer also.  We still have several flitting around the butterfly bushes, enjoying the nectar.

It’s hard to get pictures of them sometimes, because like the hummingbirds, they don’t stay still very long!

Before you know it, they’re in flight again, and it’s hard to focus in and get a good shot!

Close by one of the butterfly bushes there’s another garden spider on the hunt.  This one has had HUGE success, having caught a cicada in her web.

Wow!  If you take into account her long legs, her prey is actually bigger than she is!  That ought to keep her pantry full for some time!

Thanks for visiting, and hope you enjoyed this weeks photos!