Grandma and Grandpa Go Country

We were lucky this week for a number of reasons.  First, we had a visit to the farm by Grandma and Grandpa.  Second, Amy was able to make it this weekend too.  And third, the weather was amazing - cool nights and highs around 80.

We did the usual touring and checking of the cameras.

In spite of all our work to clear the trails, I still managed to slap Dad in the face with a branch at one point. He was still smiling though.

Of course we put some minerals out for the deer.

We hadn't been out in two weeks and the beans got a little tough.

So I put them out in the field for the deer to eat.

It was the usual routine of changing the cards in the cameras.

And checking to see how many pictures had been taken.

Both the crops and the weeds seemed quite healthy due to the recent rain and cooler weather.  This is a prizewinner pumpkin that is already larger than a basketball.

The watermelon is looking pretty good at this stage too.

For some reason, I seem to have planted alot of these ornamental gourds.  And I mean alot.

The regular pumpkins seem to be doing pretty well considering the weather that we've had.

More ornamental gourds.

This was a complete failure.  It is a healthy crop of weeds where the sunflowers are supposed to be.  We had six weeks of drought after planting.

This might be the only sunflower in the whole field.

So I gave up and plowed it under.  I planted some fall deer food instead.

A view of the pumpkin patch.  The weeds are a battle but the pumkins seem to do pretty well.

We had 2" total of rain this week.  1/2" on Friday alone.

This is a forage soybean field planted for deer food.  It also didn't receive any rain after planting but it is doing ok (for a very late start).

The plants that are there are pretty healthy - just not very dense.

While waiting for Amy to arrive on Saturday evening, I spotted a buck out in the main field.  I watched him thru the spotting scope - he was a typical (symetrical) 10 point.

This is the same shot as above but blown up.  It was taken with the Iphone thru the spotting scope.  Anyway, he's a nice 10 point with G3's greater than a foot long. 

I got my birthday gift from Aunt Karen assembled - it's a smoker.  Maybe I can try it out next week.

One of the new MacIntosh apple trees is producing some fruit this year.  The old apple trees seem to have lost most of their fruit (drought?).

I did a little mowing - especially the main clover field to suppress the weeds.

The does are with fawns right now.  Here's one with twins.

I'm not sure who startled these two.

We don't get many visitors at the farm travelling by limo.  It worked out well for Mom and Dad.

I'm sure most of the blog followers have been missing the poop of the week.  This coyote scat was left in the middle of the driveway.

There are many good buck pictures this week - here's a few and I will try to get another post later with more of  them.

He's back!  It's the "backward buck".  It doesn't look like he has any backward tines this year though.