Some things got done, some didn't.

After a rather tumultuous start to the weekend - a humongous thunderstorm complete with ear-deafening thunder and lightning and torrential downpours on Friday evening - Saturday was only a half-washout with another inch-plus of rain.   I decided that, weather or not (snort), things must get done.


Tableful of goodness

Next on the agenda

Brick bat?  Baseball bat?  Primitive
vegetable club?

As I heard the rumbling of the oncoming thunderstorm, I dashed out, did evening chores and madly clipped nettles.  I managed a few handfuls (gloved handfuls, need I say) in between shuttling hay to the sheep shed, setting rat traps (they're baaaaack!), collecting eggs and feeding dogs, before the skies opened up and chased me inside.  I love a good storm, but am very respectful of lightning.  I had also managed to haul my garlic from the barn, where it had been aging for two weeks.  I now have a big, packed jar of dried nettles and my garlic is cleaned and stored for use over the year.  That leaves the brick bat.  Or the baseball bat.  Or the giant's vegetable club.  Due to other obligations, Marianne and I did not do our farm work this weekend.  She did leave me a basket of produce with her apology for the zucchini.  I will say, it is the largest one I've had to deal with.  It's a good thing I love the stuff, because I have, over the weekend, made two gluten free zucchini breakfast cakes, a double batch of zucchini feta fritters, vegetable fried rice, featuring - you guessed it - zucchini, three zucchini pizza crusts, many quart bags of shredded zucchini...you get the idea.  It's a nice problem to have, too much zucchini.  I am not complaining.


My arugula and planting of salad greens is coming in and I will be planting one last round of salad greens this week.  I ventured out in Saturday's downpour to visit my friend that raises Randall cattle (and took in Bertie) to get 15 pounds of marrow bones for the pups - we had a nice, albeit damp, visit and Bert looks fat and happy.  Sunday was setting up the electric net on the bank for the sheep - it's getting tricky making changes to their grazing, as Apria the llama is now almost totally blind.  There is a lot of voice leading, "Come on, Pri-Pri, that's a girl - this way, this way..."  She eventually works out the right direction but I have to be sure not to have impediments in her way and to have gates open wide enough that she won't get spooked by banging into one. 


I'm spending an inordinate amount of  time watching hummingbird drama.  It's like Star Wars on a very tiny scale - much zooming and squeaking in high dudgeon.  I was relieved to finally see two hummers on the same feeder, but my hopes for détente were dashed when they took off after each other, each one accusing the other of trespass.  I am also enchanted by the evening ballet performed by the dragonflies.  There must be at least 20 of them, whirling and zooping and looping around each other.  I'm not sure why they do it, but it sure is fun to watch.


This week is all about ironing and weeding.  Oh, joy.  And finding someway to keep the crows from destroying my yard.  While I'm happy that they seem to be making it their life's work to rid me of grubs, my yard looks like some maniac went at it with a drill.  Make that 10 maniacs.   I pulled the netting off the currants and had to face the fact that there will not be a harvest this year.  And it's all my fault.  While the red ones were gone, the black ones were riddled by earwigs.  Luckily, I found last year's harvest still in the back of the freezer!  Saved.  Although I am nowhere near winning the battle with the weeds, I am not giving up.  I have my wheelbarrow parked in the back and will spend some time every morning yoinking them out by the handful until I make some headway.  I will spend time in the evening working on the front, which is marginally less bad than the back.  Still pressing on the to-do list is skirting two more bags of Norman's fleece.  That will give me a large enough quantity to make it worthwhile to schlep it to the processor.  There's still plenty to go, but I may be processing some of that myself - much sorting is on the horizon...