Monday, September 20, 2010

The monsoon may be gone but the heat is not!  We are having unseasonably warm temperatures even for us.  It has been a little over 100* most of the last 2 weeks.  No rain and not much humidity and the nights are more comfortable at about 69-70*.  I am still closing all the windows when the AC kicks on and opening them at night.  

We moved the turkeys to a larger enclosure.  Steve made a kind of roof with clothes line so that they will not fly out at night to roost in the trees.  Of course, the only hen got out right away.  I shooed her back in and then we moved the tarp from their old pen over the sheds in the new pen.  She has not gotten out since.   I have been trying to decide who will be our Thanksgiving dinner this year.  I think it will have to be the Royal Palm with the deformed foot.  Since all the Royal Palms are males, I think they will be the first to go.  The hen is a Bourbon Red and there is only one Bourbon Red male so I will probably keep the two of them and see if we can hatch a few eggs of our own.  

My Delaware rooster is getting to be a good size and is trying to crow.  He sounds like he's dying not crowing so far.  I know that he will improve and the neighbors will soon be awakened at 5 am again.  Oh well, that is a small price to pay to live out in the country.  I have decided to call my rooster "Washington" as in Washington crossing the Delawares! Ha!  

The wild sunflowers are blooming all along the roadsides again.  The swallows seem to have gone for the winter.  The hummingbirds are taking their place.  I cannot keep the feeders full they devour the sweet nectar so fast.  I wonder if they are having some help or competition from the fruit bats at night.

The alpacas are all fine.  The goats are getting incredibly shaggy and suffering from the heat.  The shearer is supposed to come next month but I was hoping to sell the goats before that.  I have only had one call about them and the person did not even show up.  He called to get directions and I asked him why he wanted the goat.  He said he wanted a pet and I told him that he should buy two goats if he wanted a pet because goats need other goats.  He also wanted a young goat but did not want to pay more than $50.  I only have one young goat, Casper, but he is a pure angora and I will not sell him for $50.  I figured the guy wanted a meal, not a pet.  There are lots of goats for sale on Craig's List right now.  One farm is selling angoras for between $100 to $250.  They are not registered, which is fine, neither are all of mine.  But, they didn't look like pure angoras in the pictures either.  Pure angoras have fleece all the way down their legs to their hooves and fleece on their faces.  These goats were bare legged and bare faced which means they are mixes.  I have nothing against mixes either but they should not be sold as angoras.  Sorry!  I will get off of my soapbox now.

The flies continue to plague everything that moves.  I continue to spray Buddy and salve his nose.  I think it will not get better til we get a real cold spell and the flies are gone til next summer.  Next year I may have to invest in some of those "fly predators" or something to keep the numbers down.  We've had a few mosquitoes too but not the numbers I had expected after all the rain we had this monsoon.  I still hear a few frogs croaking at night but I think they will be hibernating again soon too.  

I have to re-post items on my Etsy store site because they did not sell quickly enough and were taken off.  I will put on a few new items too.  Maybe I will make some Christmas stuff.  There are so many vendors on the internet now, I wonder how anyone sells anything.  I found another site which also helps people sell their homemade things so I may start a site there too.  I'll keep you posted!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Here we are remembering 9/11.  I pray for the people who lost loved ones and for our nation.  I hope that sanity will prevail and that no mosque will be built near Ground Zero.  

Our weather has improved dramatically.  It was only 52* when I got up this morning.  It will only be in the 80's today.  It feels so good.  I wasn't feeling too well all week.  I was chalking it up top old age but I think now that I must've had a touch of the flu or something.  Today I feel really fine and normal again.  I slept well most of the night, only getting up once.  I went for a walk this morning and it felt good.  I felt so bad all week that I was motivated to start walking again and taking my vitamins.  I really don't think one day of walking and vitamins can make this dramatic a difference, though, so I must've had a bug or something.  Thank Goodness for good health!

Last night Buddy started barking a little wildly.  Not REAL wildly but a little.  So I went out in the dark, (it's getting dark earlier now) with my little flashlight.  Buddy was sort of looking at the ground and searching around his water bucket.  Well, whatever it is can't be too big, I thought.  So I searched carefully!  Ha!  It was a big desert frog!  A BIG Whopper of a frog!  He eluded Buddy by jumping into his water bucket! Ha!  Cracked me up!  Of course, I then had to remove the bucket from the yard, dump the water and the frog away from the house and refill Buddy's bucket with clean water.  

We also had an interesting visitor to our pool.  I'm glad it was already drowned when we removed it.  They are the most hideous things.  This one was about a foot long but I have seen them much bigger.  It was a huge centipede.  Our second grandson, Daniel, wanted it for show and tell at school so I put it in a jar for him to take.  I know Dan wanted to touch the thing.  It was all we could do to keep him from doing so.  He was finally content to carry the jar holding the monster around with him until he went home with his family.  Creeped me out.  Yikes!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

We had a busy weekend.  I had to go to Tucson on Friday to see my soon to be daughter-in-law try on her wedding gown for the final fitting.  She looked beautiful and the dress is gorgeous.  I cannot post pictures of that yet as I do not want my son to see her in the dress til the wedding day.  It is a little over a month to go!  

Saturday, Steve and I went to town again to buy some fixer-upper stuff at Lowes.  Steve is hoping to get the 2nd bathroom fixed up before his mom and niece arrive for the wedding next month.  He bought some floor tiles and paint.  I also bought some new curtains for the living room and have ordered a new bedspread for the guest room and some Halloween pillows and a throw.  There is a great deal to do but we will do it as we are able.

On Sunday, the girls and I took a trip over to Tombstone.  I thought it was much further away than it is, but it is actually closer than Tucson.  It only took about 20 minutes without the awful traffic that often fills the road to Tucson.  Tombstone is the Arizona town that is "too tough to die" and the sight of the OK Corral shootout.  There are lots of old fashioned shops and authentic buildings.  Many people are dressed in costumes of the era and mules or horses pull wagons or stage coaches giving visitors tours of the little town.  We also looked at some homes that were on the market.  My daughter thinks she would like to move her little brood there and open a bakery.  There is no bakery there that we saw so maybe that is a possibility.

On Labor Day we labored! Ha!  Steve spent a lot of time weed whacking or digging up the weeds from all the rain.   I did laundry and ironing which are my usual chores for Mondays.  I also took care of all the animals as usual.  I did a little doctoring.  Buddy has a big bloody spot on his otherwise black nose from the flies bothering him.  I put some antiseptic on that and sprayed him with fly spray.  He went and rolled in the mud.  


Everything is totally green and the weeds are taking over.  The mesquite trees are full of long green blooms and the bees are just as busy as, well, bees!  Our Texas Sage bushes lining the drive way are also in full bloom.  I love it when they bloom.  The tiny purple flowers smell great and are so pretty.  I took a picture of a family of quails running down the driveway through the purple sage.


The big desert frogs are out most nights along with tarantulas and bats.  I love being out here in the country with all the sounds of Nature and stars filling the Heavens overhead.  I did notice that it was much more quiet at some of the houses we looked at in Tombstone though.  There is no I-10 or a railroad track over there.  We have a convenient location for going to Tucson or Sierra Vista easily though so I guess a little more noise is a small price to pay.  Buddy is barking his head off!  I'd better go check it out!