Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

 Gary did some haying in the creek bottoms a few weeks ago; last month I believe.  He hasn't had the chance to get down there and get the bales yet due to so many well repair jobs and gravel hauling jobs.  The bales make great photos here in late summer though, with the fog or sun on them. As a general practice I avoid walks this time of year, simply because it is chigger and seed tick season.  I wear tall rubber boots, but still manage to get chiggers, likely from tall weeds that I brush up against.   Since I now have another dog however, I have been taking them down the hill to run a bit in the mornings. They love it. Every morning down there has its own charm; fog, sun, mist. The above two photos were of the same hay bale on the same morning, just very different angles.  I wanted to catch the steam coming from it as the sun burned off the dew.  It was the only hay bale steaming like this, and at first it made me a smidge nervous that it was smoke an...

Here is a picture of about half of our 2007/2008 winter hay supply. It is hard to believe that the girls go through so much hay. In a picture you can't really get the overwhelming sense of how MUCH hay is here, and how tall it is. But over on the left edge you can see a piece of our goose-neck stock trailer and truck. Anyway, this particular hay shed is a pussy cat's dream retreat. Any stray cat in the neighborhood shows up here eventually; much to Matilda's ire. She is intolerant of any other feline trespassers. But I will have to tell Matilda's story in a different post. This hay stack also attracts all kinds of varmints; you can see at the bottom the little triangular holes between bales. These make great dens for skunks and 'possums. (BTW-I was tagged by Michelle at NaBloPoMo , but since I don't really have that many friends who I'd feel comfortable tagging there, I will just give you a link to her site, which is really cool; she does cards and crafting...

The other day as I was sweeping for about the 3rd time that day I realized that I can almost always tell what season it is by what I am sweeping up off the floor. This is fall. I am now sweeping up dead flies. These are the flies that sit out on the back door and porch waiting for us to go in or out so that they can come in and drive us nuts. Husband and I walk around with swatter in hand killing them by the dozens. After husband has been through doing his fly massacre duty I also have to mop after I sweep; he has his special trick of swatting once then swatting again to make sure the fly is dead. When he does his second swat he does this swat-and-drag technique that leaves a cute little red trail on the floor. Ick. In winter I generally am sweeping hay off the floor; the hay that comes out of husband's pants cuffs. He cuffs his pants before he puts on his boots. After he is through putting out hay he comes in, takes off his boots on the back porch but uncuffs his pants in the kitc...