Around the pond…
Here’s what I’m seeing these days around the pond. . .
There’s Lizard Tail plants growing around the edge. They like wet places, obviously!
Lizard Tail Plant (Saururus cernuus)
More surprisingly, a butterfly bush is growing on the bank. How it got there, I have no idea.
Butterly Bush (Buddleia davidii)
There are morning glories growing wild, mostly white ones.
Morning Glory (Ipomoinea . .)
And of course, we see lots of these flitting around. . .
Taking a short break!
There are also a whole lot of frogs in the pond, but getting a picture of them is rather difficult!
But once in a while I catch one. . .
We hear a whole lot more than we see!
I’m sure there are a lot more things living in the water than I’m seeing, but that’s it for now!
Old Allis Chalmers Tractor
The Farmer has an old Allis Chalmers tractor. It was out of commission the last couple of years, and he decided he needed to get it fixed so he could mow the fields this year.
So two or three weeks ago, he hooked it up to the truck with a tow rope, and I pulled him and the tractor to the repair shop. (For some odd reason he wouldn’t let me get over 7mph before he was making frantic hand signals for me to SLOW DOWN!)
Anyway, he told the guy to “get it running”. The repair guy called last week and said it was ready, so this past Saturday we drove to the repair shop and The Farmer drove the tractor home.
Even the tractor looks happy to be coming home!
I thought the repair bill didn’t seem too bad, and the tractor was finallly running again. The Farmer went out to mow the main pasture.
He was happily mowing away…
It lasted ONE hour until the tractor broke down again.
Yeah, it seems the repair idio… uh, man… told The Farmer the water pump was bad, and he needed to replace it soon because it would likely go out soon.
To me, this begs the question, WHY didn’t the repair guy call The Farmer and ask if he wanted him to replace the water pump? I mean, the idea was to get the tractor running, yes, but for only an hour?
At that rate, I figure The Farmer paid about $2 a minute for the use of the tractor.
Suddenly, that repair bill doesn’t seem so reasonable any more.
Children on the Farm
In this particular instance, GRANDchild on the farm.
Ellie and her parents are headed back to Canada. In fact, she and her Dad flew out of Nashville yesterday and made it home about 9pm last night. Ellie’s mom is driving the car back, so it will be a while before she makes it all the way home, especially since she’s stopping in Minneapolis to see friends.
It’s been really great having them one non-stop flight away, and I took full advantage of it to go see them several times this spring. But it had been well over a year since they had last visited the farm. In fact, it was February 2009, and I have a post with pictures from then in “The Cutest Little Cowgirl.”
Ellie and her dad went out to help with chores one morning. Not being around animals very much, Ellie isn’t too sure what to make of them. She was willing to throw corn out to the chickens and watch them come hustling up, and maybe even liked the baby chickens.
And she was fascinated with the peacock strutting his stuff and rattling his feathers to make a racket. Now when we ask her about what the peacock does, she shakes her head to imitate his ruffling his feathers, which is pretty funny.
But the llamas? Well, gosh, they’re BIG! Although Miss CrankyPants Keira is fascinated with little kids and was on her best behavior, Ellie still wasn’t too sure about this much-bigger-than-her critter.
Ellie and Keira, the llama, checking each other out.
It was okay if Daddy wanted to feed that furry monster, but just don’t get TOO close!
"Dad, are you SURE that thing is safe?"
Even with lots of reassurances, Ellie wasn’t buying into the idea that wooly critter was safe.
"Look me in the eye now and tell me the truth!"
Then when our nosy little goat joined in to check Ellie out, that was just too much for her!
"GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
Having animals trying to sniff her and nibble on her, and just getting up too close and personal was a little much for Miss Ellie.
She much preferred the company of “Hey Ewe!” . . .
"This soft critter is more like it!"
We sure enjoyed visiting, and it’s rather sad to have them so far away again.
But Ellie did great with her surgery and subsequent therapy. She’ll have more therapy this summer, then starts school in the fall. Wow.
Grandchildren grow up much too quickly!
Farmer Firebug
Saturday was rainy here, and a perfect time to get rid of all the excess feed bags from the feed room and all the empty cardboard boxes sitting around in the basement.
Farmer Firebug likes to make bonfires, so this was a task for him.
This is part of our “clear the basement out” project. A BIG project!
Lumberjack on the Farm Again!
The Farmer just can’t resist. Every 3 or 4 months, he has to play lumberjack on the farm. We have lots of trees around here, and as is the way of things, some of them die. One of those dead trees is close to the house. I think it taunts him, “Come on, you want to see if you can cut me down, you know you do!”
Of course, the problem is to cut the tree down without knocking down the electric lines right beside it that are going to the house. Or the many different fence lines near it. Or gee, how about the tree falling onto the house itself??? Yeah, that’d be great. I guess we’d see how good our insurance is. Picture calling up your insurance agent, “Harvey, I need to file a claim. A tree fell on our house.” When he asks HOW that happened, let the hemming and hawing begin!
To give my heart even more palpitations than usual, instead of a regular saw, The Farmer decided to carry a chainsaw up the ladder to work on this tree.
There he goes, up into the tree!
See all those electric lines? Oh, and I neglected to mention there’s also a big transformer on the electric pole nearby!
Once he was way up in that tree, and after I’ve asked him if he’s kept his life insurance paid up, he whipped out his chainsaw.
Now to put the chainsaw to work!
I stood on the ground and watched this big offshoot of the tree trunk quiver. Beside the electric lines. Close to the house.
Meanwhile, The Farmer concentrated hard on the job at hand.
The Farmer is intent on his work!
It is well he concentrated on what he was doing. Have I mentioned all the electric lines near the offshoot of the tree trunk he was sawing?
An electric line here, an electric line there, electric lines everywhere!
Eventually he sawed through far enough he felt he could pull the limb down in the direction he wanted it to go. He was done playing tree surgeon.
So he put one end of a rope around the tree limb, and the other end tied around a big walnut tree in the backyard.
Part of his rope system includes a winch, or “come-along” as he calls it. (I’m not sure if that’s a southern term, Okie term, or redneck term. Also, please note that’s a wInch, not a wEnch – he’s not allowed to have those on the farm.)
The Farmer and his wInch.
Once he’s tightened the rope as far as he can with the winch, he starts pulling on it.
Heave ho, and down the tree will go!
It didn’t take long, and I barely got the camera up and “rolling” before the limb came down!
.
That was fast! And fortunately, or no doubt because of the Farmer’s most excellent planning . . . the tree missed the electric wires, house and even all the fences. Of course, it also didn’t mash down the pallet fence around my trumpet vine and lilac bush because the top fell against the guide wires attached to the pole for the electric lines and transformer.
Guide wires to the rescue!
All that remained was to get the tree off the guide wires and trumpet vine, and cut it into pieces.
As Hannibal of the A-Team used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”
A job well done.
I guess it was another good day for the Lumberjack On The Farm.