Oh, my

I figured I'd better log in and post before I forget my password!

Summer is so, so busy for me. By the time I get home from work, do my outside chores, play with my horses and my kids and do the inside routine, it's almost 10 p.m. and all I want to do is hit the hay! Rain rain rain and more rain has kept the pastures, field and lawns deliciously green...but also growing at an uncontrollable rate. I never thought I'd get sick of mowing...but I'm getting sick of mowing. My 8-acre field is gorgeous with a variety of colorful wildflowers and grasses, butterflies and an assorted variety of birds (including a few quail I spotted a few days ago and some rarely seen meadowlarks), but it's now over four feet high and almost at the impossible to mow point. I keep teetering back and forth between "do I mow it now or leave it to seed and mow it in the fall when it's dry and easier to get through?" If I mow the whole darn thing now, it will be ugly for a few weeks while the grasses grow back. If I DON'T mow now, the weeds will go to seed and I'll have even MORE unwanted weeds next spring. I'm also afraid I'll take away the habitat of whatever may be living in there now: Quail, snakes, rabbits, butterflies, ground-nesting birds, etc. What a conundrum!

I actually had to get up before the sun Thursday just so I could ride. Because I knew the grass needed some mowing attention and my flower beds needed weeding and my veggies needed tending.

During the spring I hated our swimming pool because we couldn't keep the damn thing clean. These days, I'm loving it! What better way to end a hot, sweaty day working than a quick dip in those clear, cool, blue waters. Ahhh....refreshing!

Two of my guinea hens have been "setting" for just over three weeks. They are incubating...are you ready for this? Around 60 eggs! Holy guinea eggs! If they all hatch (which I seriously doubt) and live (even bigger doubt on that), what the heck am I going to do with 60 more guineas? Egads! I'm becoming the old chicken lady! We have 25 fancy, rare and ornamental week-old pullets (hens) and two Phoenix rooster chicks in the brooder in the basement. Outside we have three turkey chicks, the guineas, two ducks (yes, the others are now in the freezer, that was a non-pleasant experience), and eight grown chickens. We're almost a chicken farm!

I have a whole file of pictures I need to post. Flood pictures, chick pics, kid pics, horse pics, etc. etc. Where, or where, is my time?