Log Ness Turtle

Like Bessie at Loch Ness, getting a clear photo of the turtle in our pond just doesn’t happen.

I just can’t get close enough to get a good picture before the turtle sees me and dives under.  At best, there’s just a nose and the top most part of the shell showing when the turtle comes up for air.  A lot of the time, all you can see is the tip of his nose.

In view of that (pun intended), I told The Farmer what this poor deprived turtle needed was a log to sun on.  After all, it must get pretty tired paddling away while getting a breath of fresh air, right?  (Of course, no mention was made of my ulterior motive of being able to get a better picture of a turtle on a log as compared to one mostly submerged.  )

The Farmer readily agreed, though I suspect he knew both my motives for the idea of a floating log in the pond.  However, since he had all that wood from the big tree limbs that fell on the house, he decided he’d take up the challenge and yes, put a log in the pond.  For the turtle, of course.

Being a most excellent MacGyver sorta clone, he knew if he just threw the log in the pond, the wind would have it swept up against the banks most of the time.  What I… uh, the turtle… needed was the log staying out more towards the middle of the pond.

Farmer MacGyver had a plan.

It required a couple of posts and some slender waterproof rope.

He pounded a stake in the bank on one side of the pond, then tied one end of the rope to the stake, and another part of the rope around the log.

Then he threw the log in the water.

Once he had it in the water, he adjusted the bright orange rope around the log in what he considered the best position.

It was getting a little warm, so The Farmer took off his vest, and walked around to the opposite side of the pond.  He pounded in another stake and tied the other end of the rope to it.

Once he did that, he went back around to the other side and made some final adjustments.

And there it is, a nice log floating in the pond, holding serenely in one place.

Now, if only that turtle would crawl up there sometime to enjoy the sunshine while I’m out there with a camera in my hand!

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P.S. I went out to the mailbox after I finished this post, and guess what I saw?  Yep, a turtle trying to crawl up on the log.  Only it wasn’t the big turtle we’ve been seeing, it was a much smaller one!

We have not one, but TWO turtles! Or maybe I should say, at least two turtles, cause for all I know there might be more.   There’s the big one we’ve been seeing, and you can see that one’s head in the lower part of the picture, a little to the right of center.  And now the little one trying to get up on that big log.

Turtley Awesome!

Farmer Firebug

I’m sure I’ve mentioned in past posts that The Farmer is a bit of a firebug.

Well, remember the big tree limbs that fell on our house?  He had all that wood to burn that he cut up and moved down to the bottom pasture. 

This past Saturday there wasn’t much wind, so he decided it was time to set fire to it.  He gathered up a bunch more little twigs out of the front yard to add to his pile and help get the fire going.

That seemed fairly innocuous, so I left him to his devices and kept working inside.

Later, I decided I’d check on him and see what he was up to.  Well!  What he was up to was not only burning his pile of wood, but burning off part of the bottom pasture!

It seems he decided since that area’s all swampy, he’d just let the dried weeds burn off.  And there he was allowing a huge fire, and hadn’t even hollered at me so I could take pictures.  Bad Farmer!

He had quite a conflagration going there for a while.  The smoke was so dense at times, it made it look dark outside.

Our Farm Collie, Toby, helped keep watch to be sure the fire stayed within bounds.

I was amazed at how much racket the fire made.

I can’t imagine what it must be like in a really big fire, like a forest fire.  The noise must be absolutely deafening!

The Farmer used an old broom to beat out any fire going towards the woods or rest of the pasture.  It looked a little worse for wear by the time the fire was out.

It really didn’t take long for the fire to sweep through the swamp and burn off all the dead vegetation.

Fortunately, any little critters had time to make a run for it or bury themselves down in the mud.  There was no evidence of any crispy critters once the fire burnt out.

Just so ya know no creatures were harmed in the making of this post.

Removing The Tree Parts From The House

Last Friday, part of a tree fell on our house.  One of the neighbors called to tell me there was a tree on the house (I’d noticed), and he had a couple of chainsaws available to help remove it.  I thanked him and told him I’d pass along the information.

However, by the time The Farmer gets home from work, it’s a little late to start such a big project, so he opted to do it Saturday morning.  

Our youngest son, aka the Cave Geek, offered to help.  I offered to help.  The neighbor had offered to help.  But the first I knew he was even working on it, he’d already got a lot of the limbs away from the house.

Yes, Mr. Stubbornly Independent was well on his way to getting the job done, and though we once again offered to give him a hand, he declared it was really a one-person job.  After that, I just stood around and took pictures and wisely (I thought) refrained from offering advice.  

Fortunately, the only real damage done was to the gutter.

It got rather bent out of shape, and the edges of the roofing got a little crinkled, but otherwise, there didn’t seem to be any real harm done.

The Farmer got all the tree away from the side of the house, then started cutting it up into manageable pieces.

Fortunately, the biggest tree part that fell on the house was dead wood, so not as heavy as it might have been.  After he cut the tree in pieces, he threw those over the fence for later carting to his burning place in the bottom pasture.  (The Farmer is a noted Fire Bug.)

After the big stuff was out of the way, there were still a lot of small branches and twigs left on the roof, so Farmer climbed up there to get them off.

The easiest way to get the smaller stuff off the roof was to sweep it off.

Just look at that!  Who would have guessed the macho Farmer knows how to use a BROOM!

While he was on the roof, he decided to clean out the gutters.  They fill up as fast in the spring from fallen tree “fruit” stuff as they do in the fall from fallen leaves.  After crawling around on the roof, the Farmer took a break.

But he wasn’t done for the day.  Oh no!  I may have thought he was, but then I looked out and saw him up in a tree!

He’d decided to cut off some more of the dead wood to prevent it from falling on the house in the next windstorm.  However, this tree has power lines running through it.

Of course, those power lines were one of the reasons I wasn’t thrilled about him getting up in the tree, so he didn’t mention those plans to me.

But he got the more limbs down, so I guess he was pleased with that.

He certainly had a bunch of wood for burning when he was done! 

And I think he finally wore himself totally out, so he took a rest by the rose bed with his best buddy, Toby.

After he’d rested a while, he did manage to cart a few loads off and burn them, but there’s still a lot of wood left in that pile.

I’m thinking it will be a while before all that fallen wood is totally gone!

Looking for Signs of Spring

We had a fair amount of wind yesterday, and a few showers.  This morning the weather was lovely, so Toby and I went for a little walk in the woods.

Almost as soon as we got in the woods, we saw new plant growth.  That’s a nice sign spring is on the way!

There were also signs of wind damage, with a smaller tree blown down across the creek.

It will probably be swept away the next time we have enough rain for some high water.

On the way back towards the house, I noticed lots of patches of bright green grass, already growing 4 or 5 inches tall.

Hey, I know it’s just grass, but it’s green, and it’s growing! That sure looks like a sign of spring to me.

Speaking of things that are growing…

Looks like to me that our lovely llama diva has a more rotund mid-section than usual. Sure hope this isn’t just wishful thinking and there’s a little cria growing in there! Her due date is April 1st, and I would love to see a healthy little one arrive on time.

That would be a GREAT sign spring was here!

Water Woes

If you’ve got animals, you’ve got to provide water. In winter, that can sometimes get to be a problem since it’s got to be water, not ice.

When we first moved here, I used to chop ice out of buckets in the cold weather. Then we invested in heated buckets, and that made things a lot easier. However, that only keeps what water that’s already in there from freezing. Sooner or later the buckets need refilled.

If it’s only cold for a day or two, I can wait until the water hoses are thawed out and use them. But when it stays cold day after day, there finally comes a point when I have to carry water.

Yesterday I was about to that point, but the weather was warmer, and I was hoping to be able to use the hoses by mid-afternoon. I got busy and ended up going out a little later than planned. Mistake! 

When I walked towards the wellhouse to turn on the faucet, an unwelcome site met my eyes… there was a big puddle of water in front of the wellhouse, and streams of water gushing out of the two drain holes a few inches from the bottom.

 Not good.

I hollered for the Cave Geek to come help me move the lid off the top of the wellhouse and we peered in. Water a few inches deep and gushing up from somewhere.  In a panic, I called The Farmer.  Easy temporary solution … flip the circuit breaker so the pump doesn’t keep bringing up more water.

It took us a while to find the right circuit breaker to flip, but the water is all drained out.  This afternoon The Farmer crawled in and out of the wellhouse a few times – giving those new knees a workout! – and figured out what he needed to fix the problem.  He went to the store and bought his supplies, and hopefully tomorrow he’ll be able to fix it easily, and without raindrops falling on his head!

Cause we’ve had enough water in that wellhouse already!