Sommer Arbeit

This morning I fueled the lawn mower and got out there at 9. I knew it was a race against the cruel sun. I got the pasture fenceline done. It makes me happy when it looks tidy.



I also got my lawn area done down by the ponds where I like to hang out with my horse.



My man did all the weed whacking where I couldn't get the mower, including around our ponds. What a job. After, he comes in completely green with grass flecks. I think rather than his safety goggles, he needs one of those full-face masks.



Baasha hung out under the oak trees all day long. I'm so glad cuz there is a creek there and he normally hates this spot, but I guess in this weather, he understands the importance of shade. Look at all this grass.



This is on his grazing strip - and it still looks overgrown. Normally I'd put him on the entire pasture, but the grazing strips have so much grass, I want him to try to make them look a little eaten. We really need another horse here.



I harvested johannisbeeren (red currants) for my man, cuz he likes them. I think they're like huckleberries - a nice snack in the woods, but not worth harvesting - they are everywhere here. I made a smoothie out of them, not bad. I am fond of the josta berries - a cross between a red currant and gooseberry. I also enjoy our gooseberries but neither are ready yet. Our Tai berries are ripening - these are my very favorite.



I thought I was being fastidious with my bucket cleaning but apparently sometimes you just need lots of soap and scrubbing. Usually I just soak and rinse every day, but since Baasha eats beet pulp with oil, they needed soap. I love clean buckets.




I don't recall which blogger told me that she calls the new growth after mowing "after grass" but we've got it. It's fluorescent green and so nice. This is after a horrid winter where I doubted I'd ever see green again.




The field behind our house got baled today - into HAY, not haylage. Woo! Good for those farmers, cuz they can get more money. Normally there is so much rain people just make haylage/silage.

The bushes in the foreground with the white flowers are elderberry (Hollunder auf Deutsch) and they grow like weeds here. I have never tried to count how many elderberry bushes/trees (!) we have on our land. Some people like to eat the berries - I hope my parents-in-law come over again to harvest them, cuz I'm not gonna. Supposedly they're poisonous until cooked??




I enjoyed watching the tractor scoop up the big bales and stack them up for transport. I had watched that cut hay lie there all week, wondering what they'd do with it.



And to keep it real (but I hate real), here is the state of our ponds right now. Covered in pollen, full of grass. Having ponds is a lot of work. The trout seem to keep the pollen and grass out, but we don't have any trout in one pond, and only one (Clever Joe) in the middle one. There's always something to do here.



Every once in a while, Mercer gets confident enough that her expression relaxes, and she actually resembles Lander. I couldn't believe I caught it on film. Gosh I love her paws.

"What's that blue thing.....doing here?"







Relax just a bit more....