Tuesday, August 6, 2013

And The Winner Is!

I had the drawing this morning and the winner of Deborah Niemann's 
Homegrown and Handmade is....

Heather Duncan of 

Heather is a fairly new blogger and stay at home mom... and wanted to add this book to the library she is trying to build for their new venture. 

Thanks to all of you who entered... and guess what?   I have some more books to give away in the next few months, so keep stopping by. 

Heather, please contact me at Ksredhead1950@gmail.com, and I'll be glad to get this book in the mail to you! 

That was fun! 

I am back to using my Canon camera yesterday, after using a Sony for a few weeks.  The Canon lens failed and was sent away to be repaired.  Instead, they mailed a refurbished one to me.  So far, so good. 
I am so rough with cameras, pulling them in and out of my pocket constantly.  I tried Nikons last summer and they failed within 3 weeks.  I did have Best Buy ship one off to the manufacturer, but it failed again almost as soon as returning to me.  

I like the Sony... but I really liked the Canon, so I'm glad to have the backup. 


I cut the center of the pasture yesterday as it was beginning to come up considerably... over to the right of this picture.  What you see is not grass, but a weed that grew up and choked everything out after the pasture was disturbed three years ago when we tried to put the pond in.  The pond man simply pushed everything back willy-nilly, and it is all ridges and hummocks down there.  VERY uncomfortable to cut. 
This weed also has a rather nasty odor as it is cut... so it was not very pleasant.  I had already done the entire yard.... and then the middle and part of the south side of the pasture when the mower began emitting a horrible noise.  Consequently, it's going to the John Deere dealer tomorrow to have a full service job on it. 
Keith got under it, and there is a big buildup of grass, etc... and he wants to be sure I don't burn a bearing out. 
We did not get it serviced last winter as we did not even put ten hours on it last summer with the drought. 

I'm sure glad I got the yard and road side cut! 


The front fence has become swamped with wild grape vine, and the ditch lillies are almost done for the year. 


The ducks and chickens came out as soon as I had cut to find all the bugs, etc. that had been disturbed.  This is where the old henhouse flock has it over the new henspa flock, who does not get to graze on fresh grass at all, but is restricted to their yard. 


Here's the sturdy "water bench" that Keith made for the little boys. 
How nice it is for them to have clean water in their bucket, and for me, for not having to go out every few hours and throw the duck water out. 
There is a short fortex in their actual yard, but the ducks like to hang out around it, so it gets dirty. This one stays clean now. 


And here's Kaycee modeling for the new hanging feeder that Keith also installed last night. 
This is to ensure their hay stays up and clean.  Goats like to feed reaching up, instead of grazing on the ground. 


And this little guy, peering out at us.... let me reach over and gently scritch along his spine for a minute yesterday.  His head was down, and he was ready to run if he had to... but he held very still and let me scritch and tell him "Good Boy!" for about a minute.  
I suspect he's sleeping on the old llama feeder now, regularly, as he hops right up into it. 


I leave you with a view of the herbs in the horse trough on the deck, and the balsam I thought I had drowned to death at the beginning of summer.  I hope it reseeds itself in the big green pot. 

We are having sun today after a storm last night, and four days of clouds.  

Congratulations again, Heather, and thanks to everyone who entered the drawing! 

13 comments:

  1. Mary Ann,

    You have been busy! Your chickens and ducks and the barn red shed in the background could easily be a painting of a pretty pastoral scene! I'd buy it!

    Poppy

    ReplyDelete
  2. awwww..i bet you will be petting him soon. he sure is cute!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congrats Heather.

    He'll be tame as the other 2 in no time. I'm glad the hubby likes to cut grass, otherwise if I had to do it, I would round up the whole thing :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. My mom said the summer she didn't work was busier than when she did work, and she always thinks of that when she reads your blog! You are so busy!!! We do love all your pictures. Your hubby built a cool bench to hold that water bucket. Our dad is not handy with any type of tool or this fence issue would get figured out! We can't have a chain link fence because we live in a historical district and the town council says boo-hiss to fences like that. That is why we put up the makeshift one that doesn't even look very good or historical. But because it can be taken down quickly we get by with it. Someday we wish we could find a place in the country so we could have a yard to run all around in with no fence worries.
    Congrat's to the winner of the book!!!
    Stella Rose

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ooo thanks so much. The book will get much use for sure. I can't wait to curl up with it.

    Love your goats. I so wish we could have some, but can't. I can always enjoy yours from a distance though. hehe

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your place is sure greener than ours is! It is refreshing to look at your photos; I don't like our dusty brown look.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yay.......Congratulations to Heather!!!!

    I did all my cutting of the grass yesterday, talk about a lot of work. I figured it was time to get it done before it started raining again. Weatherman expecting rain the next couple of days. I'm hoping the growth would slow down a bit so I don't have to cut it so often.

    Great looking water dishes for the goats. I like them up on the wall, it does keep the duck out of it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Your farm look so green. We are waiting desperately for rain here and our new spring growth. A lovely post.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Everything looks wonderfully green and the goats happy!! Life is good!

    ReplyDelete
  10. You certainly earned your retirement, even though you are far busier now! Those little goats should be so comfortable now with all you both have done for those darlings.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Your basil looks marvelous!! ours was eaten by brown beetles, ugh!


    And your posts make me long to have a goat or two again... Maybe!~

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congratulations to the winner!

    I see what looks like basil on your deck. Do you find it helps keep the flies away? I keep a pot sitting nearby when we are on the patio and it seems to help somewhat.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Everything looks so happy and green and lush! Wonderful! And those goats! Oh, they're just so cute and sweet looking (though I know there's another side to them, just waiting to jump out and all around)! Such wonderful bounty happening in your little piece of the world :-)

    ReplyDelete

I love comments!