Sunday in Summer

It was a hot and busy day! I helped Art fix a hay baler- it belongs to the dairy farmer that sold us Ferdi and apparently he and Art did some horse-trading- Art fixes his baler, we get a cow. I think we are both benefiting from this deal. As I walked back to the house from Art's shop I noticed that the raspberries were ripening- this is the first year that I have gotten more than two raspberries. So far it's not much but I can see there will be many more that will ripen in the next few days. I'm hoping to make some raspberry jam (preferably jam that gels and doesn't mold on top) but I'll be happy just to eat them. Art isn't a big fan of raspberries which is just fine because he eats all the strawberries before I can get any.

I had to put tomato cages in between each of my tomato plants. Considering we haven't had rain in a week and a half it's amazing how well they are doing! I don't want the branches laying on the ground, so the cages between the plants will keep them off the ground and (hopefully) away from the blight. I'm so happy with the garden this year. Because of the hay I put down I have had to do very little weeding and it has definately saved my sanity. I haven't mowed over anything in a fit of rage and I intend to put down hay every year from now on. The garlic is almost ready, the beans and green peppers are blooming, the sweet corn looks wonderful and I should have tomatoes coming in the next two weeks or so.

Ferdi spent most of the day tied to a tree in the yard, enjoying the shade, breeze and chewing his cud. We have to keep him seperate from Ray and Peggy until he's been weaned off the bottle (another two months or so) otherwise he will start suckling on Peggy which could cause her to prolapse (push her uterus out) or try to deliver her calf early. We're fairly sure she's pregnant and though we haven't had her officially checked, she's getting pretty round. Plus it's nice for Ferdi- he doesn't have to be cooped up in the barn all day while the other two are out in the pasture. I'm sure people drove by wondering why we have a calf tied to a tree, but that's ok. Art and I do things they way we want no matter how strange or different they may be. We burned his horns off this afternoon, which wasn't pleasant for any of us (least of all Ferdi) but like I said earlier, it's a necessary evil. If we left his horns intact they would grow quite large and he could do some serious damage to the other cows or, worse, one of us. Since he is now a pet cow and we plan to keep him purely for our own enjoyment, the horns had to go. He wasn't very happy with us after, but Art assures me he'll come around in a day or two.