I REALLY needed that!

NOTE-Blogger likes to underline and color my text. I gave up repeatedly fixing it so it's kinda random.


What a glorious day! Warm. Sunny. Exactly what I needed. I spent the entire afternoon in the garden pulling weeds and generally tidying up. The kids ran around and played and got dirty just like kids lucky enough to live in the country ought to. My favorite was either when they were climbing on the hay ring like it was jungle gym crowing like roosters at the top of their lungs, or when Emily was walking around carrying and talking to the big snail I found.

All in all it was just a lovely day. Even the "weeds" were somehow inspirational:)Elijah looks like he has burst out in song!

Farm kitty basks


One final thing- here are some "after" pictures of the pond. I'll try to remember to take one from the same spot as the "before" and "during" pics.

What Was That?!

Tuesday morning after removing and patching the tractor tire, Hubby was going to start her up and was quite startled by the frantic flutter of a bird as he lifted the hood. Mama bird took off so fast we couldn't tell what kind she was.








These are the clues she left behind.











Our research indicates Nuthatch or Chickadee. Maybe.

I don't know if these pictures are "clickable", but if they are you can see details like the two different colors of horse hair in the back of the nest.






Sadly,of course, we had to move the nest. We put it in the cavity of a concrete block and set it about the same height off the ground and in the same area. This really is much sturdier than it looks.

I'm afraid that it didn't work though, we haven't seen any bird activity in the area since then.





That is my garden in the background. (and my horse) Garden posts to come. Stay tuned.

Hope Springs Eternal

.

Eternally hoping for Spring......Hoping for eternal Spring.....Oh, sorry. Rambling.

It's just that I'm so giddy. He did it! My dear, kind, thoughtful husband finally got the tractor to wake from her long Winter's nap and tilled my garden spot. What a rush! All the sins of last season wiped away! Hmmm....I must try to make the very best of my fresh start.

What service! He fumigated it too! Poor tractor needs attention. Is the garden still organic?

By the way, THAT friends and neighbors, is a tiller.

Can ya dig?

My super cool neighbor chick posted about needing a tractor and since I can relate to that, I thought I'd share some of our tractor history. We talked about needing a tractor for about 2 years before we actually got one. This is my husband on our first tractor, a 194?(or was it 195?) Ford Workmaster.

This served us well until we(read he) broke the axle. We found a neat old guy who fixes and sells old tractors and he gave us a good trade value for a very slightly less antique International Harvester B-275. I can't seem to find a pic of that one. We are still using it 2 years later, although there is a laundry list of things it needs(tires, brakes, you know, nothing very essential). I really wish I could find the pic of our daughter driving the Ford. She was about 14 and Dad taught her to drive it. And let her drive it! Freaked me out a little but it really was cool.

Last summer we decided that this spot needed to have a pond.

So we did what any"normal" person would do, we rented a backhoe. Now mind you, it had not rained at all for about 2-3 months. Perfect time to dig, says we.

Quiz: How do you break a record drought? Why just rent heavy equipment for the weekend, of course! It started drizzling immediately upon delivery and did not stop all weekend. By the way, this was at the end of the week that the Governor of Alabama had declared a "week of prayer" for rain. It was awsome timing in that regard, but I was still a little irked.

That's me in the blue raincoat being irked and supervisory all at the same time.

I'll put up recent pictures soon (I'll have to take some).

Oooh, know what you get when you get a pond?

TADPOLES! Lots of tadpoles.