Last day, right? Getting ready to wake up and brush your teeth tomorrow in total darkness? Resetting the furnace controls, putting that last screen on the garage window, taking care of the chickens’ new watering system? Well, I know you aren’t doing that, but we are.

I have to report that Gracie chicken is no longer with us. She simply disappeared sometime yesterday, and we have no idea what happened to her. She had been moulting heavily for days, was especially snappish and bossy, feathers everywhere (except where they belonged, on her). You know the expression “plucked chicken” and you expect that it’s in reference to one already deceased? It’s not pretty, and we did wonder how she would keep warm these last cold days. Anyway, hawk? Coyotes couldn’t have gotten into the orchard, but a cougar could have. It will remain a mystery. Now we wonder who, of the remaining four, will ascend to the throne.

I’m not sad. She was too mean to the others for me to feel any warmth for her, but I do regret that we failed to keep her safe. Keeping chickens is relentless. No more than the responsibility for any other animal, I suppose, 🧐. Hmm. I have to interrupt. My computer suddenly flashed a smiley face on the bar. Did it think this was a funny moment? It has never before, to my knowledge, contributed to the blog. I tapped on the little face and suddenly there was an array of emojis from which to choose. As you see, I picked the puzzled face. Next I suppose it will presume to edit me in the way Word does on its site. Don’t know what I think about this development. For all you know, maybe the computer IA is writing this whole thing and I’m simply sitting in front of the fireplace working my Spyder.

Okay, back to the chickens: We needed a new watering system because they had been in the practice of climbing onto the lid of the existing tank and, from there, pooping down into the tray of fresh water. Ugh. What we have just installed is a device with little nipples along its side which provide drops of clean water on being pecked. The nice woman at WilCo insists that the birds are so attracted to the bright shiny nipples that they can’t resist pecking. And they can’t get up on top of it. Hope this works!

Other farm news: not much. The tractor is in the barn for the season, the garden cleaned of spent tomato plants and etc. The tree leaves aren’t all down yet, so there’s that to do in a week or so, but now we can just look forward to the season’s concert tickets, fall football, our new TV which is set to arrive sometime before Christmas. In the living room! Yes! We may soon be able to watch a movie AND have a fire on the hearth.

Allison has taken the reins on our Thanksgiving plans (everyone should have an Allison, for many reasons) and has secured a VRBO in Corvallis where all the extended family can gather for the holiday. I have been assigned pie duty, will be expected to provide the cranberry sauce and order the turkey in a timely fashion. Larry and I will not be spending nights at the VRBO, so everyone can have time and space alone if desired. We did just learn that Mrytle’s old-fashioned electric turkey roaster is out in the shed. Mrytle was Larry’s mom, if you don’t know. And don’t worry, we’ll make sure there’s Jimmy Dean sausage in the stuffing.

But before that, we’ll be heading to Altadena for Peter’s birthday celebration on the 23rd. Yes, we’re going to fly. It’s only 2 hours. I know, but he is my first-born, dearly beloved, and of course we will be there. Man up, Jane. I am.

Thought I’d end with a couple of photos. Fall at the farm. Don’t forget to set your clocks back tonight! 👍🏻😊.

Didn’t mean to startle you, but don’t worry. He’s about as big as a robin, hunts at night. This image is from Animal Spot, courtesy of Google, and he’s the one we’re hoping will move into the box we hung in one of the oak trees just behind the backyard fence. Here’s how that happened:

That’s Mitch, saving Larry the necessity of working 10 feet above ground with a ladder. Whew!

But now a little quiz: What word describes the relationship between this owl and the oak tree?

Mutualism, Parasitism, Commensalism, or Predation?

The answer is Commensalism (we all knew it wasn’t predation, right?) Commensalism applied here means that the owl derives benefit from the tree, and the tree neither gains from nor is harmed by the owl. Learned a new word!

I found this on a site called Brainly, which is pretty cool when you don’t feel like asking Google every last thing.

A little time off, and we spent a morning at the dentist, got our teeth cleaned, and kept going on to Portland. As this was a Tuesday, we had the good fortune to enjoy Tuesday Tunes at Mirabella’s Bistro, guests of Vik and Gordon that evening. And on to hear a talk by Molly Gloss. I had known Molly years ago and loved the chance to catch up. If you haven’t read her books yet, get going. Start with The Jump Off-Creek and go from there. For some reason I hadn’t read her Dazzle of Day, but when, in her talk, I learned that it was a novel featuring Quakers in space, I sent for the book the morning I got home. From time to time, I talk to my sister Mary, herself a Friend, on the subject of Quaker philosophy and practice. So far she hasn’t kept me up to speed on their activity in space. I will let you know.

You all knew we are going to raise some chicks for our flock. We stopped in at WilCo the next morning to find and purchase a Starter Kit, which would provide some housing, water and feed dispensers, and a stand for a heat lamp. Fortunately we decided to go home and set up before selecting our new little residents.

Fortunately, because the starter kit was pretty lame. We realized that we could use a stock tank for the base instead of the kit, but the only place we could site this great awkward thing was in the garage. So my little car gets bumped outside for the duration.

Larry cobbled together the post, took the heat lamp from the greenhouse, and put the Starter Kit back into the car for its return to WilCo when we picked up the chicks the next day. Here what that looks like:

We’re advised to hold them every day, to establish our ability to hold them when we need to when they are adults. (Just try to catch Gracie. Guess she didn’t get cuddled as a baby.)

These are about a week old, and include two black, one speckled, and one red breed. Sidebar: it was fascinating to watch them as they were put together from differing tanks at WilCo. One immediately began to peck at and chase the others. Guess she’ll be the boss lady. The little Rhode Island Red has apparently been assigned the bottom rung of the ladder, and often goes off and takes naps away from the others. Hmm. A week old and they know to do this! Does it remind you of people, for example?

Last time I mentioned the Corvallis Community Thrift Shop. Yesterday I took some items over and met Bonnie there. She took my stuff, and when I apologized that Great Aunt Clara’s tea pot had not been polished, she laughed and informed me that unpolished silver is now a “thing.” Awesome. Who ever thought of that one? An influencer somewhere on Instagram or X or? Seriously. That’s brilliant. Women everywhere thank you. “Don’t polish that, you’ll ruin it!”

She went on to talk about the carved figure of an Indian that had washed up in the shop. A volunteer at the shop is a member of one of the local Tribes, and she had said that the figure must not be sold. It was highly disrespectful, and it should be burned. Bonnie volunteered to take the thing to her home, from where she’d find someone with a burn pile who could take it on. That’s where we come in. Of late, we have many, many burn piles.

Not up to me to judge what may or not be respectful in this case, but if burning is the appropriate disposition of this guy, we can only oblige. Someone has spent hours carving that head-dress, that sad face, and I wouldn’t suppose it was in order to laugh. Or so I hope. Anyway:

R.I.P.

See you next time! 😊 Ha! Wanted to see if my blog would accept emojis. Guess so.

First, Peter came for the weekend. He’s discovered a start-up commuter airline which flies between Burbank and Eugene. Score, right? He came alone this time, bearing a surprise gift:

Three pounds of kumquats. And what does one do with three pounds of kumquats?

Make jelly, of course. The kumquat is a citrus fruit, and you may eat the whole thing raw, skin, seeds, and all. But the jelly is a process. You have to slice them and extract the seeds. This takes three grown adults about 2 hours total for this many pints. You chop the fruit in the processor, add sugar (lots of sugar) and pectin and boil the mix. The 7 1/2 pints you see here used about one fourth of the fruit.

Yum! I made another batch and will be passing this jelly on to friends, but I have another pound to go. Okay, I’m a good, inventive cook. First I used some in my morning smoothie. I’m thinking kumquat crisp? Why not. Salads? Sure. But it’s golden and I’ll freeze what I can’t use for the long winter ahead. Thanks, Peter!

Of course we put the boy to work:

Drive the tractor! So there was this mulch pile, right in view, out next to the shed. Grass clippings at first, but then garden debris, the shavings from the chicken coop, and, most recently, the broken daily broken egg that Maddie, Chicken Number Two, has been laying of late. Whoa. Getting pretty ripe in addition to just plain ugly.

I’m surprised we waited for Peter’s visit. Seriously. Sigh. Farming is a lot of work!

I take advantage, whenever I can, to ask one of my kids or grandkids for help in the brave new world of, for example, Instagram. Although I’m statutorily too old to participate, yes, I do know that, I asked Peter to set me up with an account. Wanted to follow Amy in New York, Charlie wherever in the world, and Alli off in Europe. And the rest of them wherever. Fine. I’m in. Now I’ve just read a book which was constructed entirely from Instagram posts, and it was actually pretty entertaining. Okay, no one uses blogs to communicate any more but what even is a hashtag, anyway? Just looks like a pound sign. Right? I’m afraid I’m stuck with the blog. Sorry.

To continue, when our little house in the country was being built, we knew we wanted to have a gate at the end of the driveway. Which is about a third of a mile away, and out of sight of, the house. And of course, the meant gate posts. Not sure what we’d imagined, but what we got was this:

Nothing particularly wrong with this, but the whole thing just looked completely out of scale. The cross-post had to be sufficiently high to allow the fire trucks to pass (surprising how much control the fire district has over one’s driveway). And so there it stood, relating to nothing.

Allen and Mitch, our go-to guys, were on it.

They repurposed all the wood, and here we have the result. This feels like a nice and quiet “here you are at the Viehls” instead of” THE VIEHLS!” or at least I think so. (And I’m the one who counts, in case you haven’t noticed 😘):

This morning, Marjorie-from-across-the-field took me with her to a nearby equestrian competition, and I’m going to try an experiment. If it works, here’s a video she took:

Um, nope, won’t travel across. But here’s a still photo, so you can get the idea:

We were sitting just off the edge of the grass, watching these gorgeous animals compete. I mean, the riders were competing — I don’t know if these horses sense any competition. Marjorie says the sport is a lifetime commitment, and she should know. She’s ridden for much of her life in events like these, and still would/could if she wanted to. Amazing.

I grew up horse-crazy, but for me it was riding Babe, a lumbering old swayback nag, behind my sister, dreaming of Zane Grey and the purple sage. I had no idea. You can only laugh.

Larry is just back from a few days with the Nature Conservancy at the Zumwalt Prairie in North-eastern Oregon. This was to have been a long-planned trip with friends Vik and Gordon, but. You know. First the White-Davises couldn’t make it, then I had my toe surgery and can’t wear boots, so Larry had a solo outing.

Next up, a trip to California on board Avelo Airlines for the 4th of July. We’re meeting Jan Scheffler, our exchange student from long-ago. He’s brought his family to show his kids the US. Apparently they wanted to see Malibu, Hollywood, Disneyland, instead of Corvallis. Huh. Going to be such fun to see them, and in the meantime, I’m going to try a re-learn how to send photos via text to recover the quality demonstrated in the jumping horse just above.

It’s ten o’clock, and my Apple watch has jumped around on my arm to get my attention. Wants me to pause and reflect a moment. Isn’t that so sweet? I’m kidding. Who asked it to be my meditation counsellor? The other annoying habit is to interrupt my walks down the road to observe that it looks like I’m exercising. Would I like to record my activity? I have pointed out that “I can just take you off, you know,” but it does’t listen. Do any of you have Apple watches? Can you control them? If so, let me know how.

Meanwhile, I am going to jump into bed. Try to win the Spider game for today, and then to keep reading an excruciating painful/brilliant book a friend loaned: Stoner, by John Williams. On second thought, maybe I’ll just listen to a Lisa Jewell book on Audible. Stoner breaks my heart. My Apple watch approves my choice.

G’night!

It’s my fault. Of course it is. Because my newly-straightened toe wouldn’t fit into any boot (except the orthopedic one), I haven’t been out to see my chickens in several weeks. Don’t worry, Larry has been cleaning the coop, gathering the eggs, but he doesn’t actually interact with the birds. So a day ago I set out to have a little chat, tell them they might want to get back to the business of laying eggs, now that the molt is over, and found poor Gracie, practically plucked clean:

When she flaps her wings, you can see that the rest of her body looks just as naked as the back of her neck.

A quick trip to Google told me that chickens may be plucking their own feathers in response to mites, boredom, whatever, or another chicken may be bullying her. Well, I don’t believe any chicken could be plucking the back of her own neck, see above, so have to assume one of the other girls is doing the damage. Don’t know who started the fight, but it’s clear we need to separate them.

Larry and I got to work yesterday in a lull in the rain. We have these built-in planters in the orchard, and one of them would be the correct size for a little quarantine time. An over-sized pot turned sideways, some bedding material, the outdoor watering can, and she would be good for some days.

Yeah. Try catching her. I explained that we were helping her, but she chose not believe me and escaped into the orchard. Modestly said, I do believe this would have been a good little video for YouTube. Over the fence, into the weeds, a box of treats in my one hand, a larger box for capture in the other, and around we went. She eventually made a break for the coop, the door standing open, and I was able to trap her heading up the ladder to the nest.

But she couldn’t live outside in the rain. A tarp would be good:

You can see the enthusiasm on Larry’s face.

Out of the rain, probably not warm enough without a full complement of feathers, but secure, we thought. Looks ugly as hell, but, oh well. Temporary, right?

We made a quick trip to Wilco for some further accessories, like a suspendible feeder, some bungee cords to hold the tarp in place; a trip to the barn provided hands-full of straw for the floor of the new “coop.”

Today I went out to check on her, and found her perfectly immobile.
“I think she’s dead,” I told Larry. Yes, her eyes were open, maybe it’s just a coma. Happy to say, I just came back in from another look, provided with some dried worm candy, and she came to life, pecked at the treats. Hope she makes it.

Meanwhile. What else is going on? Today is planting day. Integrative Resource Mgmt. is planting 500 new trees in the fenced stream beds across the property. One hundred willow, and assorted aspen, choke cherry, oak and ash. Probably just twigs, but it’s fun to imagine their future.

And, backing up, we spent a couple of days at Black Butte, one night in the company of the California Viehl boys, up north for some skiing:

For those of you who haven’t seen them in a while, that’s Andrew on the left, Charlie on the right. Among the trivia we’ve learned is the sad fact that pizza restaurants are closed on Mondays. Not just in Sisters, apparently world wide. Who doesn’t know that? We made do.

Peter brought me some Meyer lemons from their tree back home. Gorgeous, and I am, just at this minute, engaged in making some marmalade. Waiting for the dishwasher to finish sterilizing the jars. Meyer lemon marmalade is essentially just sugar dolled up to look like jelly, so, therefore, I expect it to be delicious.

In closing I’d like to point out that, for the first time since writing the blog, I’ve utilized a semi-colon. So proud. Hope I used it correctly!😙 H

Let’s start here: last Saturday night at 8 p.m. we packed up and headed north for Portland to check on the condo’s air-conditioner, reportedly non-functioning in the bedroom end. It was. Non-functioning, that is, but we were not able to correct the situation, and slept on the miserable convertible couch in the “den”, rolled together like two mismatched sausages in the cooler side of the apartment. We were later to learn that the cause of the failure was a practice of the manufacturer to send equipment to the Pacific N.W. that could not cool when the temperatures reached 100 degrees plus. Because, you know, it’s always cold and rainy in the Pacific N.W. and why offer capacity that will never be needed?

But we can give all the plants outside a huge drink of water, against the coming 114-degrees-in-Portland. In the morning, we left at daylight to get home so soon as possible and found that the field of fescue turning golden in the Llewellyn pasture had been transformed to:

Wow. Overnight? Guess the harvester likes to work at dawn, these hot days, anyway. Good. We made breakfast and prepared to spend the hot spell comfortable inside our conditioned farm house.

Which is exactly when we discovered that we have no internet connection. Well, so what? We have books, we can watch Netflix, we can . . . or no, we can’t. Watch Netflix. I can’t work my Spyder solitaire. I can’t download something on Audible. I can’t Google a recipe for all that escarole from the garden. While I can get my mail, thanks to a personal hot spot on my phone, Larry can’t get his. We become somewhat crabby, and send a text to our tech guy Tyson, even though it is Sunday. We’re stuck inside. It’s too hot. Poor us.

Tyson can’t get back to us until today, which is Thursday, July 1. We learn just how dependent we are on our “devices.” Pretty dependent, and we’re not even on Tik Tok or similar, the names of which I don’t even know, don’t know what I’m missing. Facebook, say, though I am there. For all the good it has done me this week.

The days crept by, we stay married, only barely, maybe. We catch up on our reading. Larry catches up, as best he can, on his investment stuff, which is his post-retirement profession.

Then we had a call from Kate, the gardener who has created and maintained the “rooftop garden” at the condo. She has time to meet us there on Wednesday, and we can attack both the wild overgrowth of everything and repair heat damage to same. By then, the temperature is back to normal and we spend a pleasant, albeit challenging, 5 hours or so, trying to ready the property for another attempt at a sale. We decide to remove 8 of the pots, finding a home for them somewhere at the farm.

For this project we’ve driven the truck, and all goes well until we try to lift one of those overgrown pots up into the truck bed. Not a chance, even with the added help of Kate’s assistant, Nev.

But Larry has begun the job of power-washing, and Kate has a plan to move the pots when her partner, Mike, can assist. She’ll put them into her truck and deliver them to Corvallis on Friday. We’re good.

Those of you who know Larry are aware that he has been suffering an onslaught of coughing, lasting at least 6 weeks. I can tell you how many friends and passers-by who suggest that he should see a doctor. Seventeen, at least. He has already seen the Urgent Care folks, who have ex-rayed, poked, measured, and found nothing to offer but some cough-suppressant capsules. His primary-care doc cannot see him until July 28, even though Larry NEEDS to see him.

But. When we get back to Corvallis he has finally had enough. We buy an McDonalds ice cream cone each and head for the Emergency room at the hospital.

You know how that goes. Sign in and wait. They take two chest ex-rays and he returns to the waiting room. An hour goes by, and they finally have a room for him. At least they let me stay with him now that things are looser Covid-wise. He gets into the charming gown and they hook him up. All normal. It will be awhile before a doctor can see him. Like another hour. Fortunately we have our devices and they have internet, so we occupy ourselves catching up.

“They’re not going to find anything and I hate this.” Larry says. This is not a suspense novel, so I can tell you that they did not find anything. But they sure tried. Maybe he has a pulmonary embolism? To find out, they perform ultrasound on his swollen leg. Nothing. His leg is swollen from an injury. They suggest GERD and hook him up to a breath treatment. They take a blood sample. It will take at least an hour to get the results.

They show me how to find a cafe where I can find coffee for Larry and a sandwich for me. Plus some necessary chocolate. Luckily, I have a story on my phone, so I pull a chair over and we listen to “Norwegian by Night.”

At midnight the doctor comes with the results. No embolism. Nothing from the blood test (they spared us the knowledge of that for which they were searching.)

We got home by 1 a.m., fell into bed, and this morning, Tyson, Computer Guy arrived to restore us to the digital world. I sit at my typewriter, tired but certainly happy and relieved. Larry has a prescription for Prednisone and an inhaler. (!) And, while we were away, this is what happened to the field, see above.

They have collected the grass seed, and will bale this when time and weather permit. Probably some pre-dawn morning when I won’t be able to watch, but will certainly photograph the stacked bales when and if.

Thank you for listening! See ya next time. 😎Jane

Let’s say it began when my glasses disappeared. I didn’t lose them, they simply slithered off my lap and into the dark regions of Vik’s car. This, while Vik and I were killing time during the construction project down at the barn. Here are the men hard at work:

This is Gordon, viewed front on. Being silly:

And the result:

Sweet! But where were my glasses? After a thorough search of my purse, all jacket pockets, front seat and floor of Vik’s car, I determined that they’d slipped away at the Camas Country Store where we’d been buying a loaf of bread. Fine. Called them. Nope, closed at four. Open next on Tuesday morning.

I limp along with an old pair, circa last century, passing time while the clock slowly rolls along. The ATV broke. My tooth hurts. It rains.

Finally, Tuesday arrives and I phone the store. Something wrong with their phone? Only busy tone, for several hours. In frustration, I persuade Larry that it’s a nice day for a ride. We head for Camas. And now we’re back at the top of this blog.

My glasses are not at the store. Nothing to do but to go home and have lunch, maybe somewhere fun? I’ll have to start over, get a new pair. Yes, they’re prescription. At the intersection of Vogt and Highway 36, we stop to wait for a truck pulling a huge piece of farm machinery. His blinkers indicate a turn onto Vogt, so Larry obligingly moves forward a little and to the right to give him room for his turn.

Ooops. He wasn’t turning. He had all both blinkers on as a caution on the narrow road. Of course he couldn’t stop, and simply sliced off the front of our car.

No one hurt, an incredibly nice young man driving the rig, who helped us peel off the bumper and grate, picked up the glass, kept apologizing as if it were his fault, which of course it wasn’t. Just Larry being thoughtful, and, of course, biting himself in the butt for days after. How many days we don’t know yet, we’ll have to wait and see.

Okay, we can still drive it, have spoken to the insurance company, are waiting to hear from the repair shop. Just have to drive my car for awhile.

Which we did last evening. Because I had an appointment for a root canal this morning in Portland. I know. Ouch! Also the appointment for Covid shot #2 at noon, in Albany. I’d spoken to my pc doc, who said absolutely not. You can’t do both on the same day. So I thought I’d get the tooth fixed, then show up at the Expo for my shot and tell them I needed another appointment for the the second.

Vik called. GORDON FOUND MY GLASSES! They were hiding out in Vik’s car after all. Ha! I can see! I can read!

But the endodontist this morning said no. He thought the shot was more important than the tooth, that there’s a time constraint for shot#2, and it would be difficult to get another appointment, while I can come back and see him next week.

Seriously? Well, okay. Back to Albany. And he was certainly right, as this time the Expo was crowded, unruly, filled with old people who can’t quite move along in a line very well or get the documents all filled out in advance. Tries the patience, these old people.

So we both have our shots, hooray. We decide to just have lunch at home, and are turning into our driveway when:

The cows are back! And we get home to see them unload! Seventeen new yearlings, teen-agers of the bovine world. They’re so funny. Awkward, curious, pretty darn ugly, starting with dirty. Like they care.

They stumble out of the trailer and settle in. Some of them, Scott tells us, might have been here last year. Maybe so. At the moment they’re all having a nap down by the latest fallen tree.

Speaking of fallen trees, three more in the east forty. Here are a couple of candidates for the next to go, plus a rare selfie of your correspondent:

Now Larry has made Cincinnati chile for dinner, smells delicious. We’re tired, took our Tylenol, waiting. Waiting. We’re tough. We think. Will let you know next time. Wondering if I can get an emoji onto the blog. 🧐 Yes!

No sooner had I hit “Publish” to send my last blog when an incoming mail note from neighbor Terri informed me that we had missed the fire on Wednesday. And had Philomath Fire District contacted us? Whoa. Seems this fire was in the “park,” which is what the folks along Bellfountain call the county easement that separates their properties from ours. Terri had taken her dogs out for a walk on our property that evening, had noticed an apparently burned piece of wood in our grasses, just across from the fire, and would inform the fire department that it was there in case they hadn’t noticed it previously. No one knew how it started, maybe a spark from an engine? People had heard an ATV along the edge of our property last week, had our fence people been there?

Hmm. Feels like we’re being set up to be the culprits here, doesn’t it? Larry immediately jumped on the ATV to have a look at this “burned” piece of wood. There was a piece of fossilized wood from ages past which may have looked recently burned, but not on close inspection. And yes, Ryan, Cow Guy, had been here putting up a run of hot wire around our barn, so, yeah, the neighbors probably heard him.

Wait! Back up. This fire was in the park! Not on our property. Was put out by the fire department. Though Terri told them she’d take them onto our property through the recently created gate between us, they declined the offer. So what’s going on?
Got it. 😠 WITCH HUNT! Ha!

No, I know this was scary for everyone, and it’s perfectly natural to want to know the cause, so this is me, taking a deep breath.

We had to be in Portland for a couple of days, are back now, working to put things back together after our absence. But first, you remember those cukes I dumped? We bought another batch, took care of them properly, and making pickles moved to the top of our list. Making pickles is something I do with my bestie, Vik, but we couldn’t get our schedules coordinated, and cucumbers wait for no man, so Larry had to fill in. Did an excellent job, too. Nine jars of dills and bread & butters, looking good. And where are we going to store them? Hmm. This is bad. Means we have to get those two new stand-alone pantry cupboards for the garage. Is there room in the garage? Only if we move the current shelves which hold extra garbage bags, shoes and boots, etc. So where does that stuff go? Remains to be seen. In this way, one job begets another. Almost Biblical?

Next up, yellow-jackets. According to the nice bee-keeper Larry ran into at Shonnards, it’s a bountiful year for the unpleasant insects. Not enough freezing weather to keep their numbers down, then the long hot spell, all the rotten fruit on the ground, whatever. We wouldn’t care, but they won’t leave us alone, making it impossible to be outside when they’re active. So. Yellow-jacket traps. We have 4 hung around the area we like to inhabit, like our garden, our porch. Not the orchard, where there are millions of them, as we’re cautioned not to hang the traps around food. The activity is mesmerizing. Hundreds of the beasties swarm around each trap, desperate to get at the attractant, whatever that is. If they determine how to get in, they can’t get out, and soon die. Cruel? I guess.

But come evening, they cease and desist, and the land belongs to us again. We spent the evening watering the fruit trees, which we weren’t able to get near during the day. The crickets have begun to sing at dusk, a sign that fall is upon us. (Yes,I know they don’t actually sing.)

Excuse me, but what about your chickens? Weren’t you so eager to get home from the Baltic so you could get your little family of chickens?

Yes. Do you remember that old rhyme about the house that Jack built? This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt, etc.? It’s like that. We can’t get the chickens until we can move the coop. We can’t move the coop until Grant can bring his skid steer to lift it. He won’t bring the skid steer (to build the last fence as well as move the coop) until Jarod has dug the pond, and Jarod can’t dig the pond until Ryan discs and harrows the field, and today’s news? Ryan’s tractor has been hit by a car on the road and won’t be repaired until next Thursday. Any further questions?

But now, the Golden Gophers are on TV, playing New Mexico State, and all farm activity is hereby suspended. Go, Gophers!