The Twins Are Back In Town!

My nephew Dave and his family lived near us in Mason until a year or so ago when the moved to Indiana.  Dave is in the process of relocating (again) back to Ohio due to a corporate transfer. His new job is about one hour from the farm. So Dawn, Graham and Grant are in town while they house hunt (& stay in their temporary accommodations during relo). They stopped by at the farm this weekend for a visit.

 We did the camera tour shortly after they arrived.

 We used to wedge those little boys between us so they wouldn't fall out.  Now they buckle in and ride in their own seat.

 We had a very competitive game of giant Jenga.

 Concentration...

 Two hands?

 Still finding mice evidence - luckily not in any of the beds (this week).

 It was a big weeks for moths.

 We saw several varieties.

 All of them pretty large.

 Not sure why we are having so many moths this year.  Lots of millipedes too.

 We toured some of the trails and there were a few chores clearing them.

 Great to have help.

 We saw some really interesting spider's webs in process across the trails.

They were very busy constructing these things.

This is Candy, an addition made to the family while in Indiana.

 Some of the pumpkins are looking really good.

 Also some of the zucchini.

 First harvest of the season.

Something had been in the garden eating pumpkin buds.  Rabbits?  No deer prints.

 An hour to weed one row on hands and knees.

 Sunflowers are looking good.

 This field has more weeds.  Also, I didn't put the deer exclusion tape up on this one so it's being nibbled.

 Not a lot of good bucks on camera this week.  Traffic was generally slow.

 Only one coyote and no fox.

A few smaller bucks.

 Already picking and eating apples - they're not ripe yet dummy!

The protein block disappeared.

I saw this guy live on Saturday.

 Finally got this camera aimed right.

 Only a raccoon in this mineral site this week.

Spraying last week.

 Looking for cards that I dropped.

I got the plots disked.  Maybe I'll plant the fall plots in a week or two.

We've Got Rain!

We needed it but I would prefer it to happen during the week.  I'm writing my blog Sunday morning because it is too wet and foggy to do much right now.  Drinking coffee, writing the blog, waiting for the fog to lift and for things to dry out a little.

 The Iphone cuts thru the fog pretty well - it's worse than it looks here.  We got another 0.1" of rain over night.

 This was yesterday - so an inch total for the week.

 Three years trend on the whiteboard.  We're doing ok.  Unusually cool temps right now for July.

 The mice have visited the pantry.  Joan is a little fussy about this stuff.  I don't mind sharing my granola bars.  No new catches in the traps so is this old evidence?

 Another benefit of living with nature.  Those are millipedes in the barn.  There are thousands of them.  They have been invading for a couple weeks.  This is the first time in over 10 years that I have seen this.

 Since it was nice and wet, I went ahead and burned the accumulation in the firepit.

Some construction debris from replacing the stand shutters plus tree prunings etc.

 We missed the red raspberries but the blackberries are ripe.

 They are usually a bit tart (make that sour) but they taste pretty good this year.

 I picked a few for my bride.  She wants vanilla ice cream to go with them.

 Found another persimmon tree near the pond hi-rise stand.  At least I think it's a persimmon.

 Last week I sprayed roundup on the roundup-ready soybeans.

 The green that's left are the soybeans.  Hopefully they'll take off growing now.  The farmer's field of soybeans outside our gate puts these soybeans to shame.

 The pumpkin patch is doing ok.  The yellow that you see are blooms that will be pumpkins eventually. I planted these first two rows the earliest (but still late in the season due to the Africa trip).  If we continue to get a decent growing season, I think I'll have something to harvest.

 Yellow summer squash.  Maybe some will be ready next week.

 There are large areas where something just didn't come up.  I think it was mostly gourds.

So the field is kind of spotty.

 It will be hard to keep the weeds out of the blank spots.

 The late planted rows are questionable - may run out of growing season.  Also tons of weeds.

 And it's really too muddy this morning for me to go crawling out there to rescue the pumpkins from the weeds.

 The sunflowers are doing pretty well.  Starting to get some seed heads.

 But also some evidence of deer grazing.

 I put out this protein block last week on a stump.  They were unsure about it initially.

 But eventually it attracted a lot of attention.

Starting to look a little rounded off.

 The next thing I know, it's missing from the stump and both this raccoon and doe are looking for it.

Where did it go?

Here I am checking on it.

Somehow it got rolled off the stump and about 10' down the hill.  The camera didn't catch anybody doing it.  It was heavy, don't think that the wind would do it.

 My friend Mark lives in suburban Cleveland.  He has been telling me that he is seeing great bucks right in this back yard.  I said sure.

 Then he sent me these photos.  All that I can say is "Wow!".

 After that impressive display of urban deer, we'll visit with the rural deer in southern OH.

 They're not too shabby.

 Wide but not the mass of points that Mark is seeing.

 There are lots this size and smaller.

 I'm seeing 3 or 4 nice wide 8 pointers right now.  It's early.  Wait till the apples start falling.

 Turkeys

 Coyotes still around.

 This one looks young.

 This mineral lick hasn't been visited by many bucks this year - do you think the site is busted (my scent)?  Traffic was down last year too.  More action elsewhere.

 Mowing last week.

 Starting to clear now.  I think that I'll make breakfast and then head out.