Autumn Azalea And Wooly Bears

This weekend I noticed that not only is the camellia bush hanging in there and blooming, but the Autumn Azalea bushes in the same flower bed have decided to have a last hurrah and throw out a few blooms.  I guess they decided to live up to their name, since they are from the Encore^® Azalea Collection.

This first one is an Autumn Debutante Azalea.

It’s a light pink, whereas the other one, Autumn Sangria Azalea, is a hot pink.

Having checked those out, Toby and I decided to go for a walk in the woods.  We passed The Farmer in the bottom pasture.

He was busy burning old feed sacks and boxes.  I don’t know how we seem to accumulate so many boxes, but there always seem to be a bunch around here.

There was a nice bright yellow leaf caught in the weeds.

Some day I need to figure out what kind of tree has that leaf.  We have a lot of them around here, whatever they are.

Right beside the path going into the woods there is an old tree that’s been stuck by lightning.  At the base of the tree some fungus balls were growing.

I haven’t seen any quite like them before.  There’s nothing in the picture to give you a perspective, but they’re all about 1 inch across or less.

Of course we can’t go back in the woods without taking a stroll along the creek.  It’s got lot of leaves floating on it.

They especially collect along the sides, or around obstacles like this fallen tree.

I don’t know about other American Working Farmcollies, but our Toby LOVES water.  The highlight of a run in the woods is to splash across the creek and back at least once.

Given the opportunity, it’s more like 2 or 3 or … more times.

On our way back to the house, I stopped and turned over one of the salt bins.  This is the same one I found a black widow spider under earlier this summer.  Thankfully, this time it was a more innocuous discovery.

Whether you call it a wooly bear, wooly worm, or more properly, the banded woolly bear, we find a lot of them around here.  They hatch late in the summer or fall, and overwinter in this caterpillar form.  What’s cool is that the little wooly worms survive freezing by producing a cryoprotectant in their body.  How about that, this cool little woolly bear produces its own antifreeze!

Next spring, the little wooly worm will eat and eat, snarfing down all the grass and weeds it can.  Then it pupates, and the fuzzy little wooly bear turns into the Isabella tiger moth:

Of course, while it’s still a fuzzy little wooly bear, you’re supposed to be able to use the banded woolly bear to predict what kind of winter is on the way.  Supposedly, the thinner the brownish red bands, the harsher the winter will be.  So if the wooly worm is mostly brownish red in the middle, winter will be mild.

Considering how wide the brownish red band was on the wooly bear I found, looks like if the folklore is correct, we ought to have a mild winter!

Friday’s Farm Fotos

Another Friday, and I think I’ll share some of the pictures I took around the farm this week to make it another Friday’s Farm Foto’s Day!

This first one is of Samson, our male llama, out in the main pasture grazing.

All the animals seem to enjoy the medium length grasses in the main pasture, although the llamas like to browse the taller weeds along the fenceline too.

However, they don’t stay there all the time.  They have a routine, and part of the day the sheep and llamas and goat are in the back yard.  This particular picture is of one of our shyer Shetland sheep, Valrhona.

Of course, our farm collie, Toby, can be found in the backyard almost any time, along with some chickens, plus the peacocks and peahens in their pen.

The signs of fall are everywhere, but when the sun shines just right on some of the trees along the edges of the bottom pasture, the leaves glint and make it look like the trees are full of white blossoms. I did a double take the first time I saw it. After all, it’s not time for trees to be in bloom!

Except, of course, the camellia is still blooming. Some of the blossoms look pretty ragged, but I don’t think this Grandaddy Long Legs minds.

Did you know that these critters, also called harvestmen, aren’t really spiders?  They may look like one, but the biggest difference is that spiders have two body segments, whereas a Granddaddy Long Legs has an oval body that is only ONE segment. They also do not produce silk or a web, so turns out they are not true spiders.

The ferns back in the woods are still nice and green, but then, they stay pretty green all winter.

The creeks and sloughs are full of colored leaves that have fallen from the trees.

Meanwhile, when the sun warms things up, there’s usually at least one little turtle on the long floating in the pond.

However, they are still very shy, and don’t let people get very close before they plop back down into the water and disappear.

And while our lone wandering white rooster is still AWOL, it seems we may have missed a couple of younger chickens that are roosters.  I looked out our dining room window yesterday and saw at least two roosters fighting.

There was a third one nearby that acted like it might join the fray, but since it never did, I’m not sure if we have 2 or 3 young roosters running loose.

This morning I looked out to see a bunch of squirrels running up and down the fence posts.  This one peered inside a rotten post. . .

I think he’s wondering if he put any nuts in there.  Maybe I should tell him he’s looking in the wrong direction.

Cause there are some big nuts inside the house!

The Dead Animals Need Love

We came back from the grocery store yesterday to see a pasture full of dead animals.

Buried among the weeds was our Maremma, looking like nothing more than a pile of old white fluff.

It kind of looks like I just threw a white fleece out in the weeds.

The other dog, Toby the Farmcollie, looked done for too.

There he was, toes up, and dead to the world.

Worse, this apparent plague seemed to get the hoofed animals too.  There was a lump that was once a cute little goat.

And alas!  Even the llamas looked like goners.

What caused this dreadful plague? Why were all the animals keeled over like that?

In a word, sunshine.  After days and days of rain, we had a beautiful day with bright sunshine and the animals were enjoying stretching out and soaking up the heat.

The cure? Well, dead animals need love.  All I had to do was walk out there closer, and up popped heads, and the lump of a goat came to life. . .

As did our llama lady. . .

… and all the other “dead” critters.

They just can’t resist seeing if I have any treats or pets for them.  They sure do enjoy attention, so like I said, all the dead animals needed was a little love!

Wish it was that easy all the time!

Friday’s Farm Fotos

It’s been a while since I posted some miscellaneous photos.  So here we are, a snapshot in time, pictures from today around the farm.

First I went out and fed the chickens.

It’s still kind of drizzly out.  We seem to be having a monsoon season here, and I must say, I’m getting a little tired of it.  The chickens don’t seem to pay much attention, however, nor do the guineas.  Here’s a couple of keets from two different age groups. . .

They’re starting to look more like adults, and a whole lot less like babies.

The mutant chimera chick was getting a share of the grain.  It’s still looks strange.

Noticeable in his absence, however, is the lone white rooster running around in the pastures.  We caught his compatriots a few nights back and put them in a pen by themselves.   He was roosting in a catalpa tree by the sheep shed with some other chickens.  The Farmer got hold of him, but did not KEEP hold of him and the rooster escaped.  I guess the rooster figures he doesn’t want anywhere near us in case we try catching him again!

Out in the main pasture I can see some of the trees in the neighbor’s yard have turned color.

The colder, rainy weather has brought down a lot of leaves.  Most of which are boring brown, like these in another neighbor’s driveway:

In spite of fall being here, there is still lots of green grass and grazing.  Keira and Cinnamon like to spend a big part of their day in the main pasture, munching up on the grass.  Samson is also out there, but doesn’t seem to worry about being so close by these days.  I’m hoping Keira is already carrying a cria.

The dogs were out playing this morning, but as soon as they saw me with the camera they stopped.  They were more interested in what I was doing.

Neffie is the white dog, our Maremma.  Toby is an American Working Farmcollie, though I think he’d rather play than work.

Walking back to the house I noticed there are still berries on the Tea Viburnum.

The camellia bush still has a lot of blooms and even buds, along with numerous visiting bees (or hornets or whatever they happen to bee).

And now I BEE-lieve that’s enough pictures for today!

Getting Fleeced Again

The little flock of Shetland sheep we have left, our retired ewes, are starting to get nice looking fleece again.  They looked pretty ragged right after we sheared them.  I’m afraid we will never win any awards for our shearing technique!

I caught them under their favorite trees this weekend.  When it gets hot, this is where you’ll find them.

Of course, there are always guineas running around!  You’d think we have a thousand of them, the way they seem to be everywhere and are always in whatever pictures I take of the farm animals.

Since we don’t have as many animals grazing these days, we allowed the bottom pasture to grow up wild again, and that’s what you see in the background.  (It’s also where I took most of the pictures of wildflowers in the “Of Rainbows And Wildflowers” post.)

Of course, we also see a lot of this running around in the pastures with the other farm critters.  Toby does like to carry his boards wherever he goes!

Guess that’s The End!