Oops, I messed up. I turned on the electric fence and it started beeping all crazy and flashing warnings, including the loss of grounding. I thought holy crap is it too dry to run an electric fence? I unplugged it, got the hose and wet down the area where the grounding rods are. The ground warning light went off but the other warning light was on and it was still beeping like crazy. WTH. Could there be a tree on the fence? That's happened before without failure.
This morning I decided to walk the perimeter and I didn't have to go far to see the problem. Oops. I'd hung the fence grips on a large iron standing pipe. Very bad! I hope I didn't do permanent damage.I need to remember to always hang the fence grips on the fence wire itself.
Now the fence is working again. I had to have several nightmares in a row last night of Baasha escaping, crashing through even our wooden fence.
BTW, I walked the perimeter anyway cuz it's always a good idea to check on how much brush is coming close (blackberry brambles) and how tall the stinging nettles are under the wire. I'd say we have less than one week before the nettles are pushing on the wire. The timothy heads are dropping powder and seeds, and I shook out lots of them as I walked. How tall? They come up to my shoulders. Not all of them, especially the south-facing hillside.
I had to take a photo of our swamp flowers - Eva gave me the purple ones and the yellow ones were there when we moved in. Nice!
I put Baasha back on the upper grazing strip that I had mowed yesterday. He does a pretty good job keeping it very short but of course he does not eat the weeds that pop up everywhere. I'm a little embarrassed what the neighbors think when I mow my horse area with a push mower. Specially when I mow around the horse and he doesn't even move even though I'm mowing within a meter of him (danger Baasha!). It's really hard work (the ground is so uneven) but to remove all the buttercups and other weeds is so rewarding when it looks like a lawn afterwards.I repaired a broken ring isolator that had come loose from a wooden post and the cat played underneath me as I worked. She was so cute rolling around and attacking the ground and grabbing mouthfulls of grass and chewing them. You know I haven't had to clean the litter box in 2 weeks because she's always out there!
Look how comfy Mercer is under where I am working.
She's enjoying a salad.
Mercer quotes Gir looking at a potential buggy snack: I'm gonna eat you! (I love Invader Zim!)
Especially Gir, the adorable robot invader who is enchanted with Earth and doesn't mind not succeeding at invading.
Oh and then there's the bees nest I found today in my greenhouse storage box. I risked serious pain and removed the box and now we'll see if the bees decide to move (probably into our home.) I brought my man to see and kicked the box and bees swarmed out and he backed away. He's not sure if he's allergic cuz he's never been stung. I said "No worries, I've been moving that thing around and kicking it and still haven't been stung." The bees are plotting their revenge as I type.....
Wow. I cannot believe we did not kill this rhodie when we tried to move it for the new stall. After we failed at digging it up, we did our best to apologize and now look, blooms! It is so sad though - it's about 1/4th the size and looks like a tall skinny bonsai! Just makes me love rhodies all the more.
Greenhouse stuff.
I know my limits with vegetables but this one always succeeds for me - snap peas. We're eating them now! My man is disappointed, he expected regular peas.
The basil finally turned the corner and started looking better.
Come on, can I have one good year with zucchini? This is why I removed all the dirt from the greenhouse this winter and lay down manure compost and bought new soil, and used ground activator (calcium rich). I really need a good zucchini crop for once (it was so easy in Seattle!). I have four plants - two I moved outside two days ago, and it's amazing how much bigger the indoor ones are. I guess they like the heat.
I don't get it. With all this sunshine why are my tomatoes so tiny? Everything is coming along so very slowly despite the blazing hot sun.
Does anyone know what these blue flowers are? They're not forget me nots, they are growing wild in random places on our land. I really like them - I'm all for any flower that's blue.
I also don't know what this ground cover is (??) but I love it - they're the typical 5-petaled flower you draw while playing Pictionary.Those are the pics I took today. I see rain in the forecast. Do I believe in rain?
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13 comments:
Whoops on the fence connection , but glad it is not anything majorly evasive- that makes you have to redo eveyting- to make sure what it could be!
Your fields are so lovely! I can't imagine Baasha even thinking of leaving!
Of course he doesn't move.. he knows the routine! mine doesn't for the stall cleaning either..I can scoop right under her belly and she remains.
Your Kitter is beautiful! I am very partial to stripes..my first love cat was a 17 lb striped fury!
Look at your green thumb!! loved seeing how your garden grows..and am shocked that you found a place that Zucchini WON'T grow??!!Too strange.
I may be wrong but are those Star of Bethleham?
Okay, think I found it..it may be called 'Saxifrage"...but we'll call it a pretty, white ground cover flower!
Interesting that the electric fence can be so fickle. Do they really stop working when it is to dry in Germany? Good thing that our electric fences don't have that problem. We've not had any rain here for almost 8 months and the wind is even more drying. No one I know in New Mexico has any issues with their electric fences working properly, though.
It's amazing to me that everything can be so green and blooming, when you say you've not had any moisture. Must be from your snows. We typically have a lot of snow during the winter, and we only had two good snowfalls that gave us more than 8". And they were both very dry and powdery, so I'm not sure they even count.
The fire danger here is really scary. Hot dry winds and no rain. Everyone is worried that we're entering another historic dust bowl. We went camping the past few days and all the forests and state parks forbid burning camp fires or even smoking outside your car. Everyone is walking on glass and worried about fires right now.
Oh how I wish we had green grass, or any grass growth at all. And your flowers are all so beautiful, and the swamp flowers, too. We have a small koi pond, but with our zero humidity we're having to refill it every few days with more water. It's evaporating so quickly!
~Lisa
ps In answer to your comment on my blog about the levade:
Lytha, That post was my own and I didn't get any input from Theresa regarding which airs above the ground Zeema was performing. It was only my guess because he seems to always be in such control and is usually so low in his back. After seeing those videos, I do know that Zeema has done a levade, but he does seem to do the pesade more often...at least out on the trails.
But I'm guessing that my friend already knows what movement her handsome and talented Zeema was performing in those photos. And I'm pretty sure that the reason she didn't correct me is that she's just very nice and polite. :)
Your garden looks amazing.....can't wait to see all the veggies you get from it. Flowers are so pretty to I'm clueless what they are though. We just bought 3 Rhodies to plant here I loved them in Germany. I hope they do well. Glad you figured out your fence! Hope you have a wonderful day!
...I give you a hint...
Google "Ehrenpreis" ;-)
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo jealous of your garden--it's STILL too cold and wet to plant here! I have hopes for the weekend.
Your pasture looks fabulous too--and look at that pretty cat. She's certainly come out to play, bless her little paws.
Your electric unit tells you when something's not right? I think I need one like that. Mine just dies...
We have a rody that is hanging in too although we're not the ones that attacked it. I suspect something is living in it's roots, like maybe a snake den because I've seen a really big garden snake in that vicinity and now suddenly 2/3 of my poor rody is dying.
You know, it was only this week that I finally figured out that when yall say rhododendrons you mean azaleas. I'm so glad I never killed a horse by letting it snack on not-so-harmless azaleas!
I love to see Mercer and Baasha, but your garden just makes me jealous! ;)
amitybee, thank you! that's it! now to just tuck it into my brain so it stays.
aarene, i had to start everything on the windowsill indoors because it was still freezing at night in march. i even bought another window box because i got worried. i cannot believe you can't plant yet.
mikael, it's not sophisticated, it just has symbols and lights. it would be nice if it spoke to me. in english.: )
funder, we have both azaleas and rhodies here. the rhodies are much bigger, standing over 2 meters tall when mature. washington state flower - it grows wild in the woods like aarene has shown (although usually in pink, ugh).
Your peas look awesome! mine are a total fail..I am growing 2 types of cucmbers and my first flower bloomed this morning. I am also growing those eight-ball zucchini balls! super excited about that.
Im so loving this beautiful weather!
Wow I still cant believe how green and pretty everything looks. You are way ahead of us, our grass is now green but nowhere near blooming. And it looks like I may have to mow next week.
I cant believe the zucchinis wont grow there either, I thought they just grew everywhere!
I have a puch mower too and my horses always come over to see what it is, i always thoight they were wondering what kind of monster that was that could eat so much grass so fast ;)
...this is way off topic but I though you might be interested in this (if you don't know about it already).
Have you heard about the "Bundes-Pferdefestival"? It is an event organized with the help of the FN but it actually is completly non-FEI, dircted at leisure riders with all kinds of fun classes. It does have a few endurance classes as well. If you want to check it out, here's a link:
http://www.pferd-aktuell.de/Doc-..21031/d.htm?backNode=527
I'm impressed that you've got so much growing. I can only keep my two plants on the windowsill growing becuse I see them everyday and remember to water them.
Baasha clearly has his priorities - eating above all else.
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