Cherries, Leaks, Tractor Trouble, Turkeys and Rain

Joan and I headed out Friday night this week.  The plan was for me to get two good morinings of turkey hunting and for us to get back early Sunday for Mother's Day.  We were really surprised to find that the cherries were ripe.

The trees haven't been producing well and it is always a race to pick them before the birds steal all the fruit.  This year, the cherries are ripe 3 weeks early - normally we pick them right around our anniversary.

The cherries seemed small this year and there definitely wasn't an overabundance.

And, of course, all the ripe ones were at the top of the trees.  Luckily, Joan got me this fancy ladder.

This is the result of a couple hours work.  Some of them weren't quite ripe but if we left them one more day, the birds would have them.

Picking them is actually the easiest part.  I spent most of the evening pitting them - one cherry at a time.  In the end, I ended up with 7 cups of frozen berries.

Joan has been on her Spring flower mission so we must check out every possible garden center.  This one is in Peebles, OH.  She bought a couple of things for home in Mason.

I thought that I was pretty current on mowing but there are acres that are over a foot long.  When working on that, a clevis and adjusting box channel fell off, went thru the bushhog, and have never been seen since (believe me I tried to find it).  I'll be tracking down replacement parts tomorrow.

I did also disk up the plots that I'll be planting.  This is the pumpkin patch.

Last week I mentioned a water leak.  This is where the water was running.  I had a guy out with a backhoe and he could not see any leak on the detector at the meter.  It's a mystery - the leak seems to have stopped but last month's water bill had 5 times normal consumption. We're speculating it might have to do with the hydrant in the barn.

Saturday night I cooked elk backstrap steaks.  I only ate one of them and froze the rest.  Pretty good stuff.

Another blow down that I found while out turkey hunting.  I had gobbles for the first couple hours but nobody came in.  Joan and the dogs saw a gobbler strutting in the barn field.  Figures.  On Sunday, it rained continuously for hours so I didn't even go out.

Joan made the camera tour with me.

This one was last week.

This camera is on its last legs.

A fox - near noon...

Turkeys.

Turkey in the field and a buck on the mineral lick.

Groundhog.

Some bucks have already started to fork.  This one is showing alot of potential.

Rainy day - Sydney just hung out on the bench at the window.