Well that was silly. I’m never going to France, so why would I spend any time learning French? I’m not that bored. So, no. Forget I said it.

Our herd of cows has multiplied again. Enjoying our morning coffee yesterday, our attention was drawn to the now-larger cow/calf herd barreling down the upper pasture northward to the barn. Huh? So Ryan or Jake must have been driving them, but when did all those new cows arrive and how did we miss them? Forty in all, my neighbor, who counts them, tells me. Larry took the ATV down to the barn to investigate, fearing that there had been a mass breakout from the barn pasture. But no, the gate separating the fields was closed, so there must have been human intervention in the move. Apparently it isn’t important to keep us informed, so we shrugged and came back to have breakfast.

Late that afternoon we got a call from Allen, who was picking up his bees in Eugene and would be here to install them by 6:30 Here’s what that looked like:

Okay I hate Word Press! It allowed me to edit the first photo but not the next. Does anyone out there know how to navigate Word Press? No wait. I can’t have a temper tantrum about my blog right now. Sorry.

So here’s the hive Allen made. Gorgeous, huh? There will be some thousands of bees and one queen, whom you can pick out in the photo directly above. I know, it would be easier if it weren’t sideways on the page. Grrr. Allen will be tending them, bringing sugar water to feed the “brood” who are maturing inside the cells you also see above. Interesting stuff! He doesn’t plan to sell the honey, but says we can have all we can ever use. Nice.

This morning we looked up from our morning coffee again and saw two wild turkeys in the yard. The male was puffed up, tail feathers spread open like a peacock (I didn’t know they did that) while the object, apparently, of his affection simply ignored the show. The display not enough, he began to sing his gobbling song, also to no avail. She kept her head down and meandered out of the yard into the pasture. Last seen, the poor fellow had crawled under the fence to join her, whereupon he adjusted his marvelous tail feathers and kept dancing and singing. Our neighbors tell us wild turkeys are a scourge and I believe them, but this grey morning we were glad of their company.

That’s all the livestock news for the day. I will tell you that I Googled the first plant from Integrated Resource Mgmt. list as per my set of intentions. Piper Willow and Sitka Willow. Both native, stream-bed shrubs which like to grow where their feet are wet. So that’s a start. Au revoir!