vituperation

What?! No picture of the injured calf??

and

I was hoping for pictures of those awesome calves too!

and

Add me to the list of readers who was hoping for a picture of the injury

and

Come on, Fred - show some leg!

Really, it was a few scabs and two bruises, ya vultures. There wasn’t that much to see.

McLovin has been his old self ever since the incident, running around the chicken yard lookin’ for love and crowing his fool head off. Both mother hens have started getting their babies in the coop at night, so there’s no more chasing them around with the cat carrier, thank God. The first mother is currently teaching her babies how to roost at night, which is mighty cute.

The toddler chickens are learning to go into the coop at night, too, meaning there’s no more trying to catch them and get them in. Now, it’s more a matter of herding the last few toward the ramp so they’ll march up it and inside.

There have been no more raccoon spottings at Crooked Acres, but several bunny spottings. Most mole activity has stopped, too. There might be one over on the church side of the property, but it hasn’t been active for a week. My hopes are that my single whack solved all our problems.

After almost two months of anticipation, I was finally able to harvest something from the garden yesterday — two yellow squash, three Ichiban eggplants, three jalapenos, and one green cayenne pepper that was bowing the poor little plant over. Robyn chopped the squash and eggplant up with an onion and some dried SunGold cherry tomatoes from last year, and it made a mighty fine side dish to go with the smoked roast and corn on the cob (also from last year, frozen in the husk and cooked in the microwave).

There are about 30 yellow squash plants in the garden, and most of them have multiple squash(es?) growing on them. Now that the heat is really kicking in — over 90 all last week, and more of the same this week — the entire garden gets more visibly lush every day. I’ve been using soaker hoses to water, figuring it uses less while at the same time directing all the water right where it needs to be.

With 19 rows, however, it makes for a lot of dragging and worries about breaking plants.

We only have one little pattypan squash so far, and no zucchini yet

Some of our corn is as tall as I am. The smoke in the background is from
the burn pile, which got lit yesterday.

Habaneros, preparing for this year’s jam and sauce season

We have tons of green tomatoes, but no ripe ones. These are Roma.

The soybeans I planted for Robyn’s edamame are growing nicely

The rattlesnake green beans should be pickable in a couple of days

Green navy beans. I’m looking forward to these.

Out behind the garden shed, there’s more stuff growing.

The Jonagold (or Fuji) is the only tree with apples. They’re about the
size of a marshmallow, and half-red.

This plum tree is so loaded it’s bowed over. I need to drive a t-post
and tie it up for support before it breaks.

Little bitty peaches.

This tree was sold as a peach tree, but its fruits sure look like nectarines.

On two plants, we have one little baby bunch of muscadines.

I don’t actually expect to eat any of the fruit this year because I doubt it will be good, but it sure is fun to go out and look at it.

Finally, all the pecan trees are covered, but I ain’t counting pecans
until we actually get some. I’ve heard they really do well every third year,
so maybe this is the one.

I had most of a bag of Cheetos “Puffcorn” — which is NOT popcorn, by the way (and the reason there was most of a bag) — to get rid of, so I took it out to the chickens and pigs last night. I also took the camera.

The video below ought to give you an idea of what it’s like to have 49 chickens around. If you watch closely, after I pan by the rock star chickie, you can see George and Charlie, our two Delawares. Charlie has a birth defect, and her toes all curl to the side instead of the bottom. It means that she hobbles around, has to flap her wings for balance when she runs, and can’t roost like the others (she and the puffy-heads all sleep together in a nest box). We feel sorry for Charlie, but she seems happy enough and not in pain.

Once I was done with the chickens, I took the rest of the bag out to the pigs. Please note the high-pitched pig calling voice. Also note that the little one got just a little too excited at :54 and brushed against the electric fence. As you can see in the video, the pigs have been quite enjoying the mud wallow I dug for them (they can’t sweat, and roll in mud to keep cool).