Testing

Playing around with photo sizes....bear with me.

One Year

Missing

This summer officially blows. Ween is missing.....its been a week today. I don't have a good feeling about this one. We have had other cats missing around 5 days and then come home, but this is unlike Weenie.
We posted a bunch of signs yesterday and put flyers in mailboxes but haven't heard anything. I am trying to keep my mind off of it but am having a hard time doing so.

LOST CAT

MISSING SINCE 7/30/09

Pink

The gardens seem to be in a pink phase right now.

Old Friends

I went back to my hometown in CT a couple of weekends ago to attend a friends wedding. It felt more like a reunion than a wedding though, as I got to see a bunch of friends I haven't seen in years. We all grew up together and were a tight knit group for years, but as we got older, lost touch with each other. Part of the reason communications dwindled could have been that we all dispersed across the country. We started in Connecticut and between us have lived in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, Washington, California, New Mexico, and Florida. It was great to see everyone though, most of us married now. Hopefully we will do a better job this time round at keeping contact with each other.

Soon......

I am an awful blogger, i know. I shall try harder now that things are a bit calmer around here. For now here's some of what in bloom.

Replacement Crop

Mr. Fox has been especially cruel to us this year. In 2 hauls he took us from 13 chickens down to 4. We close everyone in at night, but the fox must have been coming just before we got home from work.


Last year we had a couple hens disappear. We didn't really know what happened to them until one day we saw a fox creeping around the back yard. We thought it was a one time loss. Then one morning we had a big pile of feathers in the yard. The fox got our best rooster ever, Buffy. That one was the worst because we found his body in the woods. If your going to kill my chickens, at least eat them.....Then Pigee.




As much as we like letting everyone free range, enough was enough. We built a ramshakle run off of our ramshakle coup. I have no problem letting them out in the yard if we are around, but otherwise they stay closed in. We were lucky enough to find someone who was thinning out their crop of hens and we able to pick up 2 barred rocks, 1 buff orpington, and one light brahma. Our survivors are one arucana, 1 guinea hen, and our light brahma rooster. So we are back up to 7 birds, and that should so us just fine.

Beet Salad

I don't think that I had veer really tried beets. They are currently one of the few things doing well in our garden....guess they don't mind the non stop rain. In fact, they are huge. I harvested a couple last week, wrapped them in foil, and baked them in the oven for an hour. Sliced them up, served them with some lettuce (from the garden), blue cheese, and a citrus vinegrette dressing. Next time I will just use a blue cheese dressing (the vinegrette stunk)..........good stuff.

Rainy, Dreary June

June has been a tough month here on the homestead. Nearly nonstop rain and lots of loss..........Looking forward to a new month with new starts and hopefully some sunshine.

BLOOM

=

Wish I had more time to post. Things are crazy around here. End of the year at school has the kids nuts....thank god we only have 2 weeks left. I will be teaching summer school this year so I have been busy designing my lesson plans. Also been writing lots of applications in hopes of getting a science teacher position for the fall. I hate the application process and some of the questions you are asked to write about.
Haven't had enough time at home to get all of the veggies planted yet. Tony did rototil the back garden, so it is ready. Flowers are starting to bloom..... the iris are almost ready. Need to do a lot of weeding and fill in the bare spots.
The Subaru is broken down once again, so I need to figure out what is next for it. The fox killed 7 of our chickens and one of my angoras died unexplainably last week. Bummers.
I need to get ready to head to work at the hospital.....wish I could play outside instead.

Weekend in Vermont

We spent last weekend in Vermont to attend and celebrate Tony's cousin Caitlyn's graduation from University of Vermont. His family rented a log home in Shelburne which about 9 of us stayed in. The drive out was great as we spent a lot of time going through the white mountains. Unfortunatly, I didn't get any great photos. We spent a day walking around in Burlington, which is a cool city. We also toured Magic Hat brewing company, which was having a party when we went. There were live bands, entertainers, free food, and of course beer. Tony happily went home with a couple of growlers of beer.

Yard work

Busy weekend between working in the yard and working on final papers for my class that ends tomorrow. I finally started tearing apart the front flower garden, which I have never been too fond of. It was too big and too flat. I decided to build a little stone wall so that I could make one section higher than the other. I also shrunk it to half of its size. Still need to plant grass seed around it, and work on smoothing out the lower part of the garden. Then it is time to fill it in with more plants.

Before:

Halfway:
After:

I am happy with it, it is certainly better than what was there before. I am sure it will look much better once it is filled with flowers too.