Foiled Again By Rain

It was predicted to be a beautiful weekend with highs around 80 and no rain.  Saturday lived up to that forecast but the ground was a bit wet from 1" of rain earlier in the week. I deferred the tilling in the pumpkin plot until Sunday to give it a chance to dry a bit more.  Lots of other stuff needed attention. When I got up Sunday it was raining and continued to do so for 4 hours.

Saturday I got a little weed-eating done around the plot.

Most plants look pretty healthy at this point.

Including the weeds.

I did a little harvesting and had this damage on one squash. What would do that? A bird?  Turkey or crow?

Getting a reasonable amount of zucchini at this point.

A few watermelon plants seem to have survived and there are even tiny little fruits showing up.

In my soybean plot, I'm seeing some germination and I'm hoping it is the brassica.

My spraying before planting must have been spotty - still have some weed patches.

In the other plots, I got a decent kill on the grass that had taken over. I gave it another shot to get the remaining green.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get to bare ground for planting.

We're planning to extent the driveway into a roundabout with a parking spot for a certain RV that visits on occasion.

Seeing my first monarchs.

There have been lots of swallowtails around - various colors.

Joan made homemade peach ice cream - yum.

Sunday morning.  Continuous rain for 4 hours.  The gauge only showed 0.3" but it seemed like more.

Some new tools added to the inventory - a battery weed-eater and a battery tree pruner (chainsaw).

I did a bunch more spraying this week.  Both "burn down" spraying on plots to be planted for fall and also weed control on existing clover plots.

I'm pretty ignorant on birds - any idea what this is?  I tried Google Lens and it came up with kite.  Seems improbable based on what I read.  (In the comments, Steve identified it as a magpie.)

The geese were back again this week.

Might be a showdown brewing.

I think the turkeys are getting ready to defend their turf.

Doing practice drills before invasion.

Advance party scouting.

I think this was D-Day.

Ran the invaders out.

Saved the land for the next generation.

I flushed a fawn while spraying the one field.

Twins.

Twins again.

Fox.

Coyotes.

Fox again.

And the bucks are progressing nicely.

Finally, Ready to Work in the Pumpkin Patch

During each of my last three stops at the farm, the ground has been too wet for tilling,  The weeds are growing like crazy due to the rain.  So I was looking forward to making some progress against the weeds this week.

We had to stop at Polaris on the way out and they didn't open until 10:00.  We need a fuel pump and brake pads for "the hunting Ranger".  I ended up getting a generic fuel pump at an auto parts store because the Polaris part is on backorder.  

Anyway, it was 1:00 by the time we arrived at the farm.  A quick look at the patch showed me the challenge.

The weeds were everywhere and vines were starting to run in most rows.

Daisy helped me harvest a few zucchini.

And then I looked up in the sky as it got dark and started to flash.

Before I could even get the tiller out, the storm rolled in.

It was pretty hairy for awhile with high winds and lightening.  Here's a video of the storm.  Storm rolling in

Foiled again.  About 1/2" in 30 minutes.

So, with the plot too wet, I went on to other chores.  First I buried Penelope the 3 legged box turtle that lived with us for 15 years.  She'd been in the freezer for awhile since she passed on the 4th of July.

While touring, I was getting strange noises.  I eventually found this stick wedged in the wheel well.  When I turned, the tire knobs would hit it.  It took a bit but I got it extracted.

Then I decided to spray my failed summer annual food plots.  They had been completely overtaken with grasses.  This one was supposed to be sunflowers and the grass was 4' tall.

In the middle, it was kind of like crop circles.

It was hard just to get the atv thru it to spray it.  It surely will take more than one try.

This plot was supposed to be powerplant.  It's a mixture with soybeans, sunflowers, peas, etc.  You can see by the Ranger how tall the grass had gotten.

By Sunday, I was ready to try the plot even though it was really too wet.

I made some progress but it was a mess. And it was steamy hot.

And, of course, the tiller had a complete flat and almost came off the rim.

The interesting thing was that the valve stem was on the inside where I couldn't reach it.  I had to take the wheel off, strap the tire, and eventually got it blown back up.

 

This little flower is about the only evidence of the 50 pounds of sunflower seed that I planted.  I had a strip of sunflowers in the pumpkin patch and it was also lost to grass.

So I got in there and mowed it down with the bush-hog.

The roundup ready soy bean field was showing a lot of bare ground.  The deer are just hammering the soybeans leaving the stalk and a few leaves.  I decided to spray with roundup one more time and over-seed with brassica.  Rain expected this week so I thought it was a good time to get the seed spread.  

Out doing chores and the camera tour.

The fawn parade continues.

Look at the insects on this doe.

That cannot be any fun.

Turkey poults.  I haven't seen a lot of these.  

Lots of black swallowtails around and I saw my first few monarchs.

First time ever - a visit by a flock of geese.

Some young ones included here.

Turkeys in the same spot.

And the geese were back the next day.

Multi-species photos.

And this is really cool - I think it's an owl.

Fox

Coyote.  Haven't seen a bobcat in awhile.

And the turkeys.

A few bucks.

The pond is really muddy.

Don't know how farmers do it.  Too much rain.  Not enough rain.  Bugs.  Disease. Invaders.