August 1st, 2011... WOW....Is This Summer Flashing By Or What... ZING!!!!!

Here we are, into August already! We have been enjoying more of this summer than in the past five years though. At least we take time to go and do things now, since we have caught up a little with the farm building agenda. We will work on the farm store in the near future, once the drainage project is completed by our contractor friend. Until then, we are concentrating on the Hospice Gift Shop opening, which we will open sometime in September we hope, if everything goes well. We have finally received enough artwork to fill the building, but there is a little arranging and pricing to be done yet...plus a little work on the computer program for hospice receipts and printing them, but we’ll be more than ready in September.

Each morning, I arise to bring the dogs down for their first trip outside to do their business since going to bed the evening before. They are usually ready to go with the exuberance of a bunch of kids hitting the playground at recess, so I turn them loose and make my coffee. By the time I get my first cup, take my pills and put Vick’s pills in her little glass container and get back to the door, they are finished and ready to come inside again.
This morning, I just had to step outside and look around, because such a sweet fragrance was drifting on the morning breeze, The sun was just beginning to shine dimly through the white pines and trees over the wet land beyond the yard and was displayed on the tree line along the back yard as you looked across the swimming pool. Crows were cawing in the distant woods beyond the field and a hawk was circling, high above the field. It is amazing that I can hardly see such a big hawk, as it soars high in the sky, yet that hawk can spot and pinpoint, with positive accuracy....a tiny mouse in the grassy field from that lofty altitude. More impressively....it can dive like a missile, at breakneck speed, to within a few feet of the ground, before gently landing and grasping the mouse in its long talons without crashing and killing itself. It is truly amazing to observe.
Looking to the left, across Vick’s garden, the sunlight was dancing on the white pine boughs, as the wind gently caused them sway and dance, like an all girl's chorus, on a stage, under the lights of a Ziegfeld Follies performance from 1931.....
The air was cool and the fragrance of that yet unknown flower was especially pleasing when adding to it, nature’s early morning light show...for once this performance was completed, one must await tomorrow morning's performance....truly a once a day presentation!
Now it is gone and rain threatens.... That is like a baker threatening a starving crowd with loaves of bread! We need some rain....any rain....so badly, that we will give up a beautiful summer day for it instead. Make it rain, blow, soak and run in the ditches, swelling the creeks, even if for only a few hours. We need it. We want it.....We pray for it!
I’ve added a few pictures of the things we did yesterday. Vick did most of the painting work in the kitchen and hallway entry. She still needs to touch-up the lines in the wainscoting, but it looks great. Don’t you think so?
We’ve left the animals out for the day, fed and watered them and given the alpacas and sheep their Ivermectin shots for the month.... Now we’ll go for some layer pellets, some bunny pellets and some chick starter and meat bird feed....AFTER I order a honey sign and a maple syrup sign, that is......



041129 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC