between the rains

For weeks, it seems plants have been waiting for the sun.

The jewelweed, usually knee-high or maybe waist-high, is over my head in places - 

but has barely bloomed at all.

Even the stalwart anise hyssop has not been creating its usual sea

of bee-dizzying purple flowers.

And so many blueberries are still green or a bit red,

hanging on, waiting to ripen.

But now...

we've had a bit of sun, and the purple of anise hyssop

and the orange of jewelweed are beginning to appear.

The first few Chelone buds are opening:

Today is the third day in a row that we've had little or no rain, just a light rainfall during the night, or a passing shower in the afternoon.

It's been glorious, and I have been spending the entire day outside, including hours each day spent lounging around in the little screentent that is temporarily set up on the deck of the barn. Listening to audiobooks, markmaking, spending quality time with Moxie and Della, enjoying visits from the goats and the hens, and watching the clouds pass slowly over the treetops in a rare blue sky.

Of course there have been the usual chores throughout the day, plus the "extras" of shifting goats around in various groups so everyone can have peaceful access to the Pocket Paddock - inaccessible during wet weather - where a bittersweet and forsythia browsing opportunity awaits. But I've certainly not been knocking myself out with labor the past few days.

And - full disclosure - I'm alright with that.

~~~~~

june

June 2024: a month of very high heat and frequent rain.

Most days, the first thing I do when I come in from chores is peel off and throw all my wet clothes into the dryer for a few minutes, so I can put them on again for the next round without gritting my teeth. Because knowing that I'll be soaked to the skin again two minutes after stepping out the door doesn't make it easier to put on wet jeans. 

Or maybe I'm just getting soft.

The morning after the evening when I didn't turn the empty feed pan upside down.

But we've also had some June days of bright blue skies and sunshine and - that icing on the cake of a sunny day - a refreshing breeze. I've tried to take a leaf from Betula's book and not waste a moment of those days:

It's raining this afternoon, but it was quite nice this morning. 

The daylilies are blooming:

And the bee balm is just on the brink:

I'm thinking about making a big bowl of cold tahini ramen, and I'm also thinking about making a big kettle of lentil soup. It's that kind of day.

~~~~~

a metaphor for august

This is a bale of hay:

This is me, going through this bale:

 Going through it bit by bit.

By bit by bit by bit.

And this is why:

Did you see it? 

Here, I'll zoom in:

Thoroughly tangled amongst the grass blades is a leaf fragment of Solanum carolinense, known as Carolina horse nettle. I cannot think of a nastier plant, and I know a fair few plants. Every bit of it is spiny and toxic and just plain awful.

This bale being deconstructed in minute detail is the last of the 2022 second cut, from my June delivery. When I saw the horse nettle I called my hay man and put this bale aside for an exchange upon delivery of the next 50-bale load.

But there has been no "next load," because there has been no typical second cutting of hay in my area. Some farmers never even got a first cutting because of the rains. Some couldn't get into their fields because of the mud. You've got to have a series of dry days to make hay. We have not had that series of dry days.

Every time the phone rings, I hope aloud that there's hay. Somewhere.

Meanwhile this bale with it's horrible horse nettle component is the last bale in my shed, and I'm trying to make it safe for the goats to have a mouthful, along with a daily serving of a bagged moist alfalfa product from Texas, and a daily serving of a pre-soaked pelleted blend of alfalfa and timothy. Every morning and evening I separate reluctant goats into groups, collar and tie every (still reluctant) goat, and carry a pan of feed to each. Then give them their little handfuls of actual hay. Then turn them loose and wash the pans for next time. And spend a little more time picking through that bale. 

 

It takes a couple of hours to pick through enough hay for a day's worth of handfuls. I first examine a small amount very carefully, then take that "clean" hay and look through it just as closely a second time. I always, always, find something I missed. The nerve-wracking thing: even after that second close perusal, I sometimes find a tiny piece of horse nettle in the hay just as I'm about to hand it to a goat.

I think that's the metaphor part.

Despite making every effort, every day, there are potentially serious problems that are beyond my control.

And the rain, which is at the root of most of the problems,

just

keeps

coming.

To be honest, the past few weeks have been challenging in Goat World. In addition to the extra measures to try to keep hooves healthy in wet conditions, there have been two injuries; happily, Mallow seems fully recovered and Tansy nearly so. There are three goats coughing, possibly because even the best hay money could buy this Spring was sometimes dusty. Acer has been "not right" since the start of August and is requiring close attention and extra care every day. I think he is beginning to feel a bit more himself, at least on days when there is sun and he can get out and bask in the same spot that was a favorite with his mama, LeShodu.

It rained last night. It will rain today.

But it's not raining right now!

And on we go.

~~~~~

a day and a half

That's how much time we had without rainfall.

You can imagine how much I tried to get done outdoors.

As soon as the sun came up yesterday, I started shifting goats in an elaborate series of dance moves - a pas de quinze? - that went on throughout the day: getting this goat through this gate while keeping that other goat back in the other paddock, until every goat had had the option of spending several hours with their little group of special (currently) pals, stretching their legs on solid ground, with dry footing and the sun on their backs.

Now.

They were less excited about it that you might think. Most of my adult goats aren't comfortable with change, but I thought this would be such a pleasant change that there might be high spirits and leaping about. Nope.

Also: Now.

But today, on the second not-raining morning, they were ready. As soon as I went into the paddocks they started leading me back down to the Upper West Side, which is a small slope (of course) that's got it all: sunny, shady, rocky, sandy, grassy, and dry. Since I knew rain was forecast for late morning, I got almost all of them down there in two groups, early enough to enjoy themselves. Which they did.

The rain held off til after 1, which was nice because I had time to shift goats back to their usual locations without racing around. And after two hours of working in the mucky paddocks with my Occasional Helper - who hasn't been here for a while and may have been quite sorry he came back today - I even had time for a shower and lunch before the thunder started rolling.

And then I cancelled everything planned for the rest of the day.

Could be any time, really.

~~~~~

rain

Nothing like a forecast of rain to make me think of cutting a few flowers for the house before they get plastered to the ground.

And nothing like a forecast of seven straight days of rain to make me think I might as well bring in most of the flowers.

It's a little too gloomy to get a sharp photograph, but this is pretty accurate for how muted they appear to me, across the room.

In contrast, the day before the rainy days:

I hope your day is just as sharp or as muted as you want it to be.

~~~~~

ruts

A morning sky, November.

In November we had a lot of rain. The little yard in front of the big barn and all the direct paths between the paddocks became muddy. Every footstep, human or caprine, became a pocket to catch more water.

Then the freeze began. Hundreds of little muddy pockets became high-edged frozen craters; uncomfortable walking for anyone, booted or hooved. At least once each day, glancing out the window at the herd, I thought a goat was lame. Then I remembered the craters. The goats weren't lame, but they were walking the way a human might walk through a room full of lego.

Fortunately we also had some lovely days in November, cold and clear. Here is Campion, Azalea's brother, enjoying the Winter sun on his spine. And beard.

Campion's mama, Lily of the Valley, ditto:

Now we are back to warm weather, buckets of rain, and deep mud, and I've been dropping boards here and there to make little walkways. Most of my extensive collection of salvaged lumber has already been re-used in dozens of projects, so new(!) lumber has been sacrificed to provide footing in a couple of very wet spots. Moving a couple of gates to reroute "traffic" could help, but there isn't a lot of leeway in my fencing arrangement. A vet once described my tiny paddocks as "like a jigsaw" which is both humorous and accurate.

Anyway, dealing with the mud takes some time every day, and hooves need to be checked and trimmed more often than usual. Absolutely no one enjoys this, and it's hard on my back, but it's one of those things that Must Be Done, and is never finished. With 56 hooves on the place, I'm pretty pleased if I can just keep up with the constant rotation. A spreadsheet that automatically calculates the time since the last hoof trim for each goat has proven very helpful indeed.

How are things with you? Is it early Winter or early Summer? Is it mucky or parched? What are you doing to take any rough edges off life these days?

~~~~~

stormy monday

accurate colors of this morning

We are in the middle of another long bout of freezing rain, which began yesterday evening, went on all night, and got heavier just before dawn today. I am hoping very hard that the wind doesn't pick up and cause a lot of tree damage. There is still snow on the ground, which suggests to me that the air temperature must be hovering near freezing point. A sander truck went by earlier.

birds through a rain-spotted window

Yesterday the ice cleats came out for the first time this year. In a typical Winter, cleats are only needed on certain days, so I like to keep one pair of old boots cleated. That way I don't have to struggle with pulling cleats on and off my everyday boots every time I'm taking Piper for a walk along the road or driving somewhere or even coming in or out of the house while doing chores - cleats on flooring are both destructive and dangerously slippery. But this winter I don't have an old pair of boots to keep the cleats on, so yesterday I bought a pair of $30 boots just for this purpose. It was a reluctant purchase; the boots were made in China and I feel so miserable about not trying harder to find an alternative from Not China, that I may just return them unworn. At the moment they are still in their box in their shopping bag. For today at least, the cleats will stay on my everyday boots. Piper and I are going nowhere, and I'll try to pile everything needed for chores near the door so I won't have to come back inside until everything is done.

~~~

In other news, a return to a fiber-rich daily diet is about to commence.

Details will be forthcoming in January.

Expect many, many details.

~~~

I hope you are having a slightly-less-grey day wherever you are today!

Here's to the week ahead.

~~~~~

what a week

snow on red oak, Quercus rubra

I try not to let this blog become a weather report, but weather is such a major factor in my daily life that it's impossible not to mention it. Often. Maybe too often? I don't know.

This week we've had snow, single digit temps, strong winds, and to quote Eric Clapton, "rain, rain, rain." Although Clapton was talking about "love" and I am taking about "actual water coming down from the sky." Rain has been falling since yesterday, and is still coming down in a serious way.

Due to the rain, a lot of snow has melted, and - this is the good part - the air has been so warm that the resulting mud and muck hasn't turned to ice. It's been so warm, in fact, that when I went out briefly to take rubbish and recycling to the dump, a thick fog suddenly descended. Visibility was so poor I wanted to get off the road for a while. I stopped at a church fair and bought a pound of homebaked cookies and some balsam sachets made with needles from the maker's own trees. I don't have enough balsam firs to take a single precious needle from them, so this was a great way to bring one of my favorite aromas indoors.

 

"I'd like a few of the lacy ones, please...
and a few of those toffee ones...and the Italian cookies..."

I'm trying to think of some highlights of the week to share.

Let's see.

One day I captured Fern - she is a wild one - and trimmed her hooves.

Everyone lived.

On two separate evenings I persuaded a mouse to walk quietly into a container and be airlifted from the porch back outside, instead of continuing to provide late-night gymnastics challenges for the cats.

I wonder if it was the same mouse both times.

I've begun knitting a thing. It's a surprise thing.

First I swatched, which means knitting a test square to see what size needle will produce the correct gauge of x stitches = x inches for a specific pattern.

I swatched the same yarn on 5 different sizes of needles.

Which is 4 to 5 times more swatching than I generally do.

I really want the results to be nice.

This is what it looks like when the needles' diameters are 0.25 mm different:

After all that careful swatching, the pattern is driving me a bit crazy.

I'm considering just rewinding the yarn and starting over with another pattern.

Life is short and there are many lovely patterns.

It was my birthday on the 12th, and I had treated myself with a small art supply order from Blick's. My fondness for Payne's Grey has now been indulged with a watercolor pencil of a different brand than the one I've been using, and a tube of watercolor paint from a third manufacturer.

This portrait of my smashed mug was done with the new pencil:

And this clay spindle whorl was painted with both grey pencils plus one green.

I haven't tried the tube of paint yet, 

but that will be happening before long.

I do enjoy Payne's Grey.

Here's another portrait; very faint, but I think you'll recognize the subject:

The rain is predicted to stop tomorrow, so it may be a good day to work in the big roundtop, shifting things around to make room for more hay. I'm trying to arrange a delivery before the next snow, while it is possible to get up the driveway. The tricky part - apart from the cost of the hay - is that the turn-around area at the top of the driveway can become a sloping mudpit. Many a truck has been stuck in it over the years, despite backhoe work done to level the ground. So whether a truck loaded with hay can come here after all the rain is an "exciting" question at this point. We'll see!

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

~~~~~

yesterday

Yesterday the weather forecast was 5 days of rain beginning at 7 AM. This was not great news, but it did get me up and out early to do as much as possible. I carried extra hay to all the covered feeders, filled water buckets, gave the hens a tomato and half an apple, and coaxed LeShodu to eat some apple slices - she was a bit quiet and didn't want to eat anything, even oats which I had to sneak past the other goats. Then I closed some of the barn doors to keep a bit of the rain out. The barnyard is already so muddy I've put 2x6 "bridges" out for the goats, and I have to wear rubber boots to get to the barn.

At 7 the sky was grey and rain seemed imminent, so instead of taking Piper for a walk - we got caught in heavy rain a half-mile from home a few days ago - she joined me to work in the vegetable garden. It was still too wet from Monday's rain to harvest the catnip, but I did gather a few zinnias, picking ones whose long stems seemed most likely to get pelted to the ground.

I also picked an armful of bean leaves, still green but already beginning to fall from the vines. I brought them to the barn for the goats to munch - LeShodu said "no, thank you" - and at that point, the sky looked light blue! I opened up the barn doors that I had closed earlier.

Then I drove down the driveway to the garden, so I could bring up all the vegetables in one trip. By the time I started carrying the vegetables into the house, the sky was  grey again. And in just a few minutes, the rain began and went on for the rest of the day.

So by trying to beat the rain, I got a few hours of focused outdoor task time yesterday, which was fantastic. I couldn't tackle any of the big jobs I had planned for this week - for example, rebuilding paddock gates and working on the new raised bed - but at least I got late vegetables harvested before rain could rot them!

And when the rain came...I baked.

Big News: both the young hens have begun laying! Let the baking commence.

This recipe for "Impossible Pumpkin Pie" is similar to the very popular coconut version. Instead of canned pumpkin, I used the last package of frozen Candy Roaster Squash puree from last year's garden. Since I used a 10-inch pie dish instead of the 9-inch called for in the recipe, I also used 6 little pullet eggs to add volume. My estimate was a little off, though, because it made a bit more filling than would fit in my pie dish. No worries! The extra went into a little Pyrex dish and baked separately. Oh, the house smelled SO good as soon as the baking began!

I would call this more of a baked pudding than a pie, but it does set up solidly enough to cut into wedges and has a well-balanced, not-too-sweet "pumpkin pie" flavor. If I make this again I will make more of the single-serving size - very handy for snacking or sharing.

Happy to say it is not raining this morning, though the forecast still calls for rain today through Saturday. Time to get cracking and see if I can manage another productive day. I hope your Thursday will be wonderful!

~~~~~

thankful thursday

The rain we've been having.

Whew.

So.Much.Rain.

Some of the vegetables in the garden are struggling with all the moisture. Of course the not-vegetable-plants are having a grand time, as demonstrated by this between-rows photograph:

Despite the weather, and the jungle growing up around them, the pole beans are producing abundantly. And the beans themselves are beautiful - almost all completely flawless, rarely a nibble or a spot, which is not always the case with organic gardening. I am amazed and very grateful.

More bean salad, coming up!

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

~~~~~