Finished Planting the Pumpkins

 When we arrived this week, I found this on the barn floor.

 It was a hummingbird that had expired in there at some point.  Over the last 5 years, I bet I've had 5 hummingbirds show up dead in the barn like this.  Not sure why.

We did get about 1/2" of rain this week.

 Here's another weird discovery.  There were about a dozen of these pellets on the porch.  They almost look like owl pellets. About 1" long and 1/2" diameter

But when I broke them apart, it was almost like mulch.  No bones or anything in there.  Any ideas?

 The sunflowers are doing well in the pumpkin patch.  I finished planting the patch this weekend and roto-tilled all the rows.  It's about 1/3 in three leaf stage plants, 1/3 newly emerged, and 1/3 not yet up.  This is probably the best the patch will look for the rest of the season.

 Once the vines start to run, I can't till anymore and then I lose the battle with the weeds.

 This first row are the seeds that I started indoors, then the cucumber beetles destroyed them, a few of them survived and regrew leaves.

 I sprayed some of the clover plots and mowed some of the others.

 I'm not sure what this bird is that I flushed here.

Orchard clover getting 2,4-DB for broadleaf weeds.

 This is one of the roundup ready soybean plots.  I sprayed 2 plots with generic roundup that had been in the barn all winter.

 When I emptied the jug, these crystals all fell out of it.  I hope that it wasn't all of the active ingredients.  I guess that we'll know in a couple weeks.  It seems that freezing temperatures aren't the best for some of these chemicals.

 This is the barn field clover.  I didn't mow it or spray it.  It looks pretty good.

 Sunflowers out in the main field.  They seem ok - not as good as in the pumpkin patch.

 I pruned a few "face-slapper" branches on a number of trails.  It could be a full-time job just keeping trails clear.

 Keeping the minerals going - the bucks are really adding antler right now,

 It got a little chilly this weekend.  Joan didn't make it too far on the camera tour before bailing out.  There were a few rain sprinkles too.

 The prairie patch is just getting going.

 It appears that the dozer tracks on the neighbor property was for some logging.

 Friday sunset.

 Sunday sunrise.

 The salamander pond is slowly disappearing.

 Too early still for the wineberries.  It was about the 4th of July last year.

 The fawns are up and about - no twins seen yet.  They are a good indication of a healthy herd.

Nursing.

 Alone?

The population control squad.

 On Friday evening, Joan and I watched 5 bucks along the driveway and main field - all outside the ears on June 12.

 Some of them are developing nicely.

I heard a Tom gobbling up a storm on Sunday morning. 

I put on my daypack full of 300WM ammo for ballast, wore my bino harness and carried my 44 mag.  I went for a 4 mile walk in the rain up and down the hills.  Trying to do a little conditioning for the elk hunt in September.