What a wonderful couple of days it’s been, with the temps in the 60s and low humidity. These are the days when I can get something done outside and not feel absolutely drained. Our barnyard fencing project and deck moving have been progressing nicely. Last month our bull cut his foot on something, and the vet wouldn’t come out unless we had a headgate to restrain him in. Well, a headgate isn’t exactly something you can run to the store and buy, besides being a sizeable chunk of change, so my son Christian and I had to make some decisions on whether to keep raising our own calves or go back to going to a sales barn and buying calves. We decided to invest the money to keep growing our herd, so I ordered the headgate and started working on the corral and walkway for it.

Thank goodness we have that Bobcat, it has just made the world of difference in being able to do things around here, from pulling up iron and wood fenceposts to moving a deck. Here’s the corral we’re working on,

and the start of the walkway where the headgate will be placed.

Last week my nephew and his son came to stay for a few days and help with yard work and other chores. Here’s the boys being silly,


and Scott feeding my orioles,

I’ve been trying to get Lukas outside to get more sun (he has cerebral palsy and is really susceptible to rashes, so I’m hoping the sunshine will help clear some of the rashes up. The prescription salves sure haven’t helped.) So after some brainstorming with friends Peggy & Tony, we decided to move a couple of sections of our front deck and get it at the same level as our walkway. That way Lukas can have plenty of room to sit at the table and eat his brunch, and get his vitamin D at the same time.

Moving the decks was a little complicated, since the larger deck would have to be moved, then the smaller deck, then dirt dumped to raise the ground level a good 1-2’, then the larger deck moved back and put on pads on the new level. Have I mentioned, I LOVE MY BOBCAT!!

Tony moving the larger deck,




over the electrical box,

and down it goes,

and then, after a few more days of work, back up it went,

“Harboring resentment is like slapping yourself and then expecting the other person to feel the pain.”

How true.

My nephew and his son are up for a visit for a few days, and I had to grab the camera to snap some photos. Scott was directing Scottie on how to back up the lawn tractor with a wagon,

It was quite funny, but he finally got it,

It was fun to watch.

Now that’s a temperature drop I can go for! From 90° to 77° in a half hour.

Meanderings today…

One of the roosters enjoying the new front sidewalk,

Some impressive clouds from a couple of nights ago,

Our front sidewalk/deck is coming along nicely. Tony had to laugh at me when he first saw my two lions, ‘Only a woman would decorate before the project is even done.’

And this is what is looks like when the cows figure out an electric fence isn’t working.

Here’s something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, a sun dog in the summer, with the temp in the sun at 95°,

And a funny Internet pic,

Not too much new here, other than the summer heat has moved in, and we’ve had the rainiest June on record. Although ‘on record’ seems to have a different meaning for news reporters these days. I was listening to a report on the local news the other night about how high the Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis is flowing, and the reporter was enthusiastically stating that it was the highest measured since they installed the latest measuring device… in 2006. Wow! Really impressive! But seriously, this is the 2nd rainiest June since the 1870s, and we’ve got the mosquitoes to prove it.

Most of our birds seem to have moved on. We still have the blue jays, red winged blackbirds, chickadees and cowbirds, but very few orioles and hummingbirds. Even the goldfinches are few and far between. But I did get a couple of nice photos that I haven’t posted yet, an Indigo Bunting and an oriole,

I bought a kid’s wading pool for the dogs. I thought they would enjoy it in the heat, but Pyr had to be persuaded (actually, lifted) to go in, and Suka had more fun just playing with Christian,


I finished with my mule team drawing, and am moving on to a Baltimore Oriole drawing,

Fibromyalgia is a disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues. Researchers believe that fibromyalgia amplifies painful sensations by affecting the way your brain processes pain signals.

Getting old is just so much fun (NOT!!!!!).

On the bright side of life, God has blessed me with two wonderful sons, a nice home set next to a wildlife refuge, and a studio with large windows where I can sit and look at all the gorgeous birds coming to my bird feeders, bald eagles snatching up old hay from my pasture for their nest, and a multitude of sandhill cranes with their primeval calls, and even an occasional loon down at the river.

No beads today, I’ve just been too busy getting the pasture fences fixed up for summer and trying to get a garden in. But I do have pretty pictures,

a scarlet tanager,


And I found out that the birds I thought were some sort of dark Baltimore Oriole are actually Orchard Orioles,

and a house finch.

What is this with teachers offering ‘alternatives’ to taking final exams? A couple of weeks ago I was watching the news about kids being able to skip final exams if they got xx,xxx amount of tweets or Facebook likes, and this morning it was if the kids gave up their phones for a week, they didn’t have to take their math final exam. I guess I shouldn’t be horribly surprised, when my kids were in school, it seemed like every week they got to bring a video in for the class to watch.

Springtime in Minnesota, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Even though we’re having another cold gloomy spring (another frost warning last night), at least it’s not snowing, and the grass is growing and the tulips are coming up. I’ve got a dozen flats in my deck greenhouse with plants waiting for it to warm up enough to get them into the ground, and my houseplants are hanging on by a thread, begging to get out and get a nice shower. My grapefruit tree has one ENORMOUS grapefruit on it, for the second year. I’ve been so encouraged at keeping it alive, I ordered some more fruit trees to grow in containers, an orange tree, finger lime, citron and guava. Exciting!!

Needless to say, I’ve been busy outside. My Bobcat is such a joy to have. It certainly makes cleaning out the barn a whole lot easier, and I’ve been finding all sorts of things to use it for, from moving cement blocks to flattening bags of cans for recycling.

I have bird feeders, hummingbird and oriole feeders out, and I’ve got lots of redwing blackbirds and cowbirds this year, besides an abundance of orioles. One of the biggest thrills I get is seeing a new bird, and I’ve seen two new ones this spring. A yellow rumped warbler,

and a gorgeous Blackburnian warbler,

We’ve been busy working on getting our pasture fencing redone, getting corner posts replaced and braced and partitioning our pastures so we can do rotational grazing. I really hate working with barbed wire, no matter how much leather I wear, I still end up bleeding. But for keeping cows in, it can’t be beat.

We had the vet come down to look at Daisy May. She’s been losing the hair on her face and now it’s spreading to rest of her body. It could be mange or ringworm (unlikely since she’s the only one who has it) or lice or a fungal thing, which would point to an immune system thing. He did a skin scraping, so we’re waiting to hear the result of that. And while he was here, we had him castrate Jerky (had to cringe watching that, and I’m not even a guy). The chickens loved the testicles, though. You would have thought it was a nice juicy grasshopper the way they grabbed and ran with them.

My mule team drawing if progressing nicely, it’s almost done.

Some funny pics,

Another cold, windy, rainy day, a typical Minnesota March day, except we’re almost in May. I miss my wood stove (we ran out of firewood). So very ready for some warm sunshine…

Want to know how wet it’s been here? The mailman wouldn’t come up our driveway yesterday to deliver an oversized package, because it was ‘too wet.’

I’m still working on my mule team drawing. It’s progressing nicely,

One of our cats, Pickle, likes Lukas the best. She will sometimes sleep with him at night, and has now decided she likes his computer desk. Here she is on Lukas’ Mac Mini, enjoying the warmth,

And here’s a boy and his dog (my oldest son, Christian, and Pyr),

No wonder I have a problem with hair in my bead pictures. This is my light tent,