My Hair is Full of Chicken Feed

Seriously. 

My hair is full of chicken feed. 

This is why: 

Camp Grow, from The National Agricultural Center, entered ten chickens in 

the Wyandotte County Fair this weekend.  I went over to feed them 

yesterday and today.... and the cages are located UNDER the tables. 

Everything is dropping on our chickens, see the poop on this pullet's wing? 

UGH. 

My hair became full of chicken feed, thrown down by the birds above, as I fed and watered. 

I just reached up to scratch my head and discovered I was full of chicken feed! 

So, here is what the kids earned: 

A Reserve Grand Champion in Open for the black brahma pullet entered, 

and seven second place winners in other open classes.  Oddly, this fair has 

blue ribbons for second, or so I was told this morning.  I'll confirm that tomorrow. 

It was still a wonderful first showing. 

They asked me to remove the ribbons, as the chickens were dirtying them. 

I was asked to remove the two roosters taken to the fair, because they were tearing up their pullets (they are really cockerels at this point) but this Columbian Delaware (he is a BIG boy) is becoming ... um... mature.  So, I brought them back to the coop at the Ag Hall, and he celebrated immediately, if you know what I mean. 

He won a ribbon, too. 

The Ag Hall doesn't open until 1 on Sundays, so I had time to walk around and take some pictures in the quiet morning. 

The duck is still here.  I thought for sure it was a drake last week, though it is not colored like one.  I thought I saw a curly tail.  Now I am convinced it's a female, and it seems content to pal around with the geese. 

The cupola on the schoolhouse looked so nice against the blue sky. 

And yes, the lilies are still blooming. 

This common buckeye rested for a while in the garden. 

It almost hurts to look at the liatris in the sunlight! 

This is zinnia "Zahara Red"... I'm growing this next year, it is low to the ground and gorgeous. 

And I would love to have a grass border like this! 

Here are some of my own containers.  The big round one is the mums, one of the plants is trying to bloom, and I am still pinching back. 

The straw bales.  I am going to have to have at least eight next year.  I thinned the 

tomatoes out last night (the branches not bearing) and I don't know if you can tell, 

but there is a cucumber plant climbing up the tomatoes, and there is a watermelon on the right reaching for the sun.  There are baby cukes and decent-sized tomatoes everywhere... Keith and I each had one ripe cherry tomato yesterday, but there are table "maters" coming on and should be ripe soon, now that the sun can get to them. 

I took this while I was pruning. 

I have to be very careful of the trough, it does not drain well, so I water sparingly. 

I need to make some holes in it. 

I'll be up early in the morning to go feed at the fair grounds again... they are only about 3 miles from our house.  Then off to a doctor's appointment in Leavenworth, and back here to get some work done in my own yard! 

Everyone have a peaceful evening. 

Straw Bales and Dogs

Well, I wrote (yesterday) that my straw bales were not impressing me, 

so when I went out to water and fertilize... I was stunned. 

The sun was so bright it may be hard to see, but right in the middle of the picture... 

blossoms! 

Every one of the four tomato plants was blooming! 

The big watermelon vine grew fourfold overnight! 

The little one grew another leaf! 

The cukes need trellising... so Keith is getting me some tee poles tomorrow

so I can build the trellis this weekend.  (you know, in my spare time). 

I am truly impressed.  

They all got water and Miracle Gro tonight. 

Traffic on the porch has slowed.  I have gone back to a bowl and I change 

the jelly out every morning, just to be safe.  I have not seen an oriole in a week, 

but I am seeing the finches and the mockingbird. 

Here's our beautiful red girl at the park a couple of hours ago.  We walked late tonight, and we only walked a quarter of a mile.  Our days of a mile are gone. 

We take our time, these days.   It's as much about enrichment as walking.  

There is a squirrel in that picture... and it had all of her attention. 

I know our golden afternoons are not going to last forever. 

Haying has finally started here... I saw two fields cut.  They should have several days to dry out well.  No pictures... yet. 

This beautiful girl watched us go by on the way home... I stopped on a normally busy road where no cars were coming from either direction to get her picture. 

How blessed we are to live in such a beautiful world! 

Driving Around the County

I showed you this picture of flooded fields from Stranger Creek the other day. 

Here it is today: 

Hmmmm kind of a hazy picture.... 

but... you get the picture.  The water has receded. 

I actually drove out there after Jax's game tonight... and went all the way to the bridge. 

There is still a LOT of water in the creek, but we are not expecting rain for a week or so now. 

I know a lot of farmers who are happy about that. 

I took this the other day. 

Actually, there were three. 

I am trying to remember to check my settings before snapping that first picture! 

This absolutely GORGEOUS bird is a green heron, my first ever! 

I ran over to the Ag Hall on Monday to check on the chickens, and 

saw him.  I could not believe my eyes. 

The straw bales are doing... okay.  I am going to work on them tomorrow. 

I think I am not watering enough, and was depending on the rain. 

Tomorrow they get water and fertilizer. 

(The grass growing is okay) 

I have only lost two plants, a cucumber and a watermelon.  

Actually...

Even though it was bitten off.... it is regenerating.  See that hole????  Hmmmm. 

My faithful Jester is on mouse patrol.  Since I took this picture on Monday, 

I have removed more of these things from the patio.  We are trying to follow the 

mouse man's guidelines, and I am cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.  

I am VERY close to stopping feeding for a few days while I am 

gone to the Blogville Awesome Retreat in Indiana from the 8th thru 

the 12th. 

I had to run to the store on Monday afternoon, and I took the camera. 

I stopped at Angel Falls Trail and walked down to see how the creek 

was flowing since the rains. 

I could hear it before I saw it. 

(Holy cow, I have NEVER Had a video load on Blogger as fast as that one! 

Turn it up if you can, so you can hear it. 

So... we have hired a company to get the mouse situation under control here. 

I can't bear killing ANYTHING, let alone a mouse.  I told the young man we could not do sticky traps, I can't torture.  He is snap trapping and coming daily to empty them. 

We are not winning at the moment.  We ARE down about 20 mice in the last week. 

I took it outside.  I'm sure it's back in here somewhere tonight. 

Thank heavens I am plugging the drain and the garbage disposal at night, and 

now you see why. 

Catching Up

Friends, I did not know it had been a week since I last posted. 

Sometimes life just rushes past us. 

Yesterday was the second anniversary of our loss 

of Brandon, Keith's youngest boy. 

It seems as if time  has rushed these last two years, with this 

loss and our move, and Keith's illness. 

Anyway, I will try to get caught up. 

Here is a big-eared little friend enjoying some bird seed 

on the patio. 

Oh, if only his friends weren't invading the house, and 

making me realize that the feeding must stop for a while, and 

traps be set again. 

If I just didn't like to watch the birds so much! 

The babies are doing well, at least three are moving around and vibrant, 

and unlike this past year, I am seeing mother there daily feeding them. 

Yesterday was the Tractor Cruise at the Ag Hall. 

There were all kinds of old tractors, restored and not restored, all running. 

The participants (some were ladies) had driven them to Tonganoxie, and back... and were loading 

so they could go down to the barn and have a good dinner. 

While all this was going on... a troop of boy scouts was setting up shop to camp out 

last night.

They had other, smaller tents set up near the tree line. 

What a wonderful place to camp. 

And interesting companions. 

The scoutmasters (four dads) were 

overseeing the boys cooking on the grill. 

I hope they had a good night, because it has been storming here since

mid-morning this morning. 

I have been trying for many weeks to get a picture of a cardinal. 

This is a MUCH cropped picture, I was trying to get a picture of the mockingbird, 

and when I saw it in the camera I realized I had got him picking a bug out of the air. 

Serendipity. 

That's the National Farmer's Memorial mound behind him, throwing so 

much white in the picture. 

Look what I was working on yesterday! 

In the morning, I went to Leavenworth, where I bought tomatoes from a young 

woman who raises them in her basement, as I did last year. 

I bought four different kinds.  She also was selling geraniums she had started from slips... I bought ten, at a dollar apiece!  

I will be pulling the grass from the bales, but it also signifies that there are no herbicides in the bales (and that's a good thing).  

Then I stopped at Home Depot and got four pickling cukes and two watermelon slips. 

As you see, I filled the well in the middle of the bales and put the watermelons there, 

I will train them out the sides. 

See the tomato supports?  They are simply protecting the tomatoes for a few days, 

because they will not hold in the bales.  I am going to have to bite the bullet 

and build a trellis system, with some tee poles and some twine. 

I wish you could have seen the black gold that was happening in the 

bales, it was incredible.  I will try to get a picture this week. 

There were also lots of mushrooms that had come up and died off in the bales, 

also a good sign that they are working inside. 

While I was working, we had a flyover.  The Nascar races were this weekend at Kansas Speedway, about ten miles from our house. 

They actually flew over and back around at least six times.  

I wish you could have heard them! 

My feathered friends were chattering non-stop trying to hurry me along. 

The dogs had been out there, but it was very humid, and I soon took them 

back in the house. 

I will be working on the patio this week and will take pictures. 

Okay, this was odd.  

I turned a corner this morning on the way to church, and there were two hens walking down the road. 

The only people I know on this road that keep chickens are the people that sell eggs at the road, and these hens were about a half mile from that house.  

Strange. 

They were nice birds. 

I am not so sure that isn't a rooster above, now that I look at it.

I passed the little pasture pond I have shown you so many times: 

There are three birds in that picture. 

I turned the corner... 

Uh huh.  It's that time again. 

The sun was short-lived... and we expect storms off and on all week. 

It's storming again now, so I am going to end this long, long entry. 

I hope everyone had a grand Mother's Day!