Rain and Early Mornings

I don't usually do early mornings. I have worked too many years of the 7p-7a shift and there are some nights that I just can't sleep. Last night was one of those nights. I dislike these nights immensely. It is great when I can come home on my last morning, sleep for a few hours and get up. I may still be tired, but it allows me to reset my internal clock. There isn't a whole lot of farm work that you can do at night so this is a necessity. Thank goodness we have cats. When I cant sleep they are up with me. I finally gave up trying to sleep about 3:30am and got up. I am still amazed that we have such early daylight. At this time of year it gets dark around 9pm and daybreak about 3-3:30. Abbey was up looking out the window. It has rained steady for about a week now. We along with much of the population have puddles, water logged streams and weeds in the garden. We are enjoying not having to water the garden. I feel for the farmers that are under water. My heart goes out to them.

Abbey saw Timba in the pasture. He loves to hunt. Abbey will go out and hunt occasionally, however, she is the most "indoor" cat we have.

This will one day be where we will have our pigs. Right now it is being populated with daises.

The sheep are up early grazing. They love the buttercups and other weeds in their pasture. The goats are still asleep in the barn. We are waiting for a few dry sunny days so we can start haying the pasture.

One of Alex's favorite pastimes is looking on Uncle Henry's for deals. We have used the barter method and I love it. There are times when we have to pay but we feel like we always get a deal. Theses two gates will grace our pastures to gain access for the tractor and the delivery on Monday, June 29 of Fuzzy the llama. We got these two gates for what we would have paid for just one new. What a deal.

The broiler chicks are growing by leaps and bounds. I can see a difference in their growth overnight.

The poults are growing too. The still have the heat lamp on them to prevent a chill but we raise it to keep them from being too warm.

We had a few warm sunny days but seem to be back in a rainy trend. Temps in the 60's. How I miss those warm sunny day!

(We have had such cloudy days that I haven't been able to get online to post. We have Wild Blue Satellite and it stinks in the best of times, clouds really muss things up)

Much love and prayers from Mainely Ewes Farm

Kelly

Whatever Weather

Tuesday evening. It has been hot and sticky all day. Yesterday I drove to NH and back (Yee hah!) and it was really hot and muggy there too. But it evidently stayed overcast with sporadic hard rain through out the day up here in Maine. Kelly and Ted attempted to get our big pile of brush to burn but it just wouldn't stay lit to finish the job. And it was still too wet to burn today. The ride home last evening had steamy roads and fog on the streams. There was the glint of standing water between corn rows and potato hills as I got further north. Still haven't seen much hay cut. I guess no one is willing to take the chance of rain when its been raining at least every other day for weeks now. And they tell us more is on the way. We may get a break the evening of the 4th and the 5th. We'll see. We would like to get started on refinishing the main room floors but we haven't sorted out how to keep the cats, dog and us off them to dry, and how to have access to the bathroom, and how to get to the upstairs to sleep, without crapping up the urethane or doing each floor in pieces. We really don't want overlap marks or paw prints or to have to sleep in the cars. And we won't even discuss how to exist without a bathroom for the number of days it will take to stain and put down 3 coats of urethane. Some of our cats are NOT barn cats and will be most put out at even being confined to the kitchen.i.e. Abby the Diva prefers not to leave Kelly's bed except to eat and hiss at all the other cats. They are after all her underlings. Max and Sara are Maine Coon Cats but both like long naps curled up inside. Beau and Sugar are both ones who prefer to be outside during summer and will not be a problem. Oreo is a big tuxedo cat who like Timba the orange kitten use us simply for cat exchange at the kitchen door. in-out-in-out. all day long. And Lastly Little Mo, our petite grey baby. She Is the mightiest hunter of them all but after having gotten lost in the woods for 4 weeks when we moved here, is not comfortable too far from the house. And then there is Ivy, our silly Pug dog, 8 yrs old deaf and sweet as they come. she sleeps with me or on the sofa 20 out of 24 hrs. What will we do with the critters? What will we do with us? We did pick up the paint for the guest room and I will try to get all the new overhead lighting fixtures installed over the next weekend or so. And we have to finish work on the next section of the barn because the new chicks arrive on the 14th . Their stall/coop still has several year old petrified cow poop on the floor and holes in the outside wall. No rest for the wicked.