Signs of Fall

Saturday's photos......

It's kind of depressing thinking about Fall already, but we sure are noticing the signs.  Spiders..... their webs are everywhere.  Thankfully spiders don't really freak me out.  I'd rather walk into a spider web than those leopard slugs doing their mating dance.  When we walk down the bush trail in the morning, the person in the lead is constantly breaking through the spider webs.  I don't really like to, but I'm not about to get down on my knees and crawl under them all.  I feel sorry for the spiders, all that effort they've put out, and their web is instantly destroyed.  It fascinates me how they build them across a wide space like that, I'd love to see a time lapse video, of which there is probably one out there somewhere.  This morning I picked up a thin stick and waved it in front of me as I walked along, kind of like I was conducting an invisible orchestra.  Luna wasn't impressed, in fact it really freaks her out.  Last year Larry did it with a bigger stick and her tail was between her legs and her ears were down.   Dredging up unpleasant memories from her past?.....who knows.

Some mornings the dew is incredibly heavy, and then you get the sun shining through it, and it's glistening like diamonds.  The dogs end up soaked, and the humans wear rubber boots.  

Rubber boots and shorts.  We are just so darn stylish!

We take our blackberry picking very seriously.  That's a 12 ft ladder.

The zucchini are in full production now.  I love the brilliant colour of the blossoms.  The bees are working hard to make sure we are swamped with zucchini.

We have both yellow and green ones.

And most of the dahlias survived the slugs and some are now blooming.

That thing that is undercover....well that's a couple of blueberry bushes.  I had bought some gauzy drapery fabric, really really cheap, no more than $1 or $1.50 a metre, and was using it as blueberry netting. (The stuff is 10' wide).  Worked great, and I've been leaving it on in case any deer wander by and decide to snack on the new shoots.

Buckets of blackberries picked - well only part of one, and then we put them in little containers and sold them at Sunday's market, so that doesn't really count.

Seeing Red

Buckets of blackberries picked - 3
Total - 14

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Have you any wool? 

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

The sheep shearer came today. Here he is shearing April.  I'm stood in the kitchen, stirring apricot jam with one hand, and trying to take brilliant photographs with the other.  

Not going to happen I'm afraid.

Eventually Pride wandered down.  He must have thought he was missing something.

This is sheep number 3, known as 'the young ewe'.  

You can see 'the fat ewe' over Pride's back.  Actually, 'the young ewe' could now be known as the 'the fat ewe', or maybe she should be called 'the young fat ewe'.  But who really cares:)

One of the 'three bags full'

April and 'the old ewe', and Luna of course.

Poor April.  At 15 1/2 years old she's like an old lady with dementia.  She still toddles around and eats, but isn't carrying any weight.  It was tough to shear her, so she looks a little rough.  The shearer moves and bends the sheep in various ways to round out the part he is shearing, to create a nice smooth surface to run the shears over.  It was hard to create any smooth surfaces on April, there is no fat, she is all points and angles.

I don't think she'll be around much longer, but so far she isn't suffering.  She's the closest thing to a pet sheep we have.

Buckets of blackberries picked - 4 

Total - 11

Blackberries

Seven buckets picked, about forty more to go.

Pride's Tree

If we open the gate to the bush field at this time of the year, Pride has one thing on his mind.

He knows the way, although Luna is quite willing to help him get there.

Here he is, turning into the 'door'. 

See that tree that takes up most of the top left hand quadrant of the photo?

It has these on it.

And some of them end up on the ground

Pride searches around until he finds one.

And then he does it again and again, until he can't find any more.

Jake thinks it should be his tree.

To Jake, those apples are multipurpose objects.

You can toss them like balls.

Once again I demonstrate my inability to throw a toy and photograph the action

I was doing okay this time, until that black and white beast jumped up to steal it.

Finally, success, for both me and Jake

And after you're done playing with it, you can eat it.

We'll be back at it again tomorrow.

Rain Drops on Cabbages, but not Cabbage Roses

It poured rain today, and we were glad to see it.  22 days since the last rain, and since I'm not very good at watering things, I'm glad Mother Nature took charge.  Kind of nice when you scrape the soil and it's wet through.

Of course the slugs love the rain too.  This one went on a fast trip by Westjet  Wyndsonjet into the next field.

'It's About Time', they said.

If they could speak, I'm sure Calli, Jake and Luna would have echoed those sentiments tonight.  It's been four weeks since we have been down to the dyke.  Not sure why really.  Probably a combination of something seeming more important that needed to be done, or just too tired or lazy to bother.

This is what the swimming hole looked like on July 23.

 Here's what it looked like tonight.  I'm stood approximately in the same spot as the waters edge in the photo above.  Look how much more of the old pilings are showing. You can see the colour change about two feet from the top of them, showing the high water mark.

The sun was just going down, and it was a lovely evening

A bicycle built for two was going overhead.  Must have been fun looking down on us and our crazy dogs

Off to the northeast, the sky and mountains looked just lovely.

The car was full of wet and tired, but very happy dogs.

But Officer, I Only Had One Drink!

Here's the flowers mostly picked for tomorrow's market.  I did pick two more buckets after I took these photos, for a total of 12 buckets.  

See those spiky red dahlias in the bucket on the bottom right.  Those ones and the dark pink one on the right of them are two of the dahlias that Meredith bought for me when she was in the flower market in Amsterdam.

Today was the hottest day so far this year.  We got to 29 or 30 degrees.  

I've just had a nice cold bottle of raspberry cider.  If the bouquets look a little tipsy when I get them done, you'll know why!

Update: 12:30 am, and 16 bouquets done.  They all look like they could walk a straight line.
I'm so looking forward to that alarm going off in 5 1/2 hours at 6 am. NOT!

Get Your Ducks, I Mean Eggs, All Lined Up in a Row

When Larry's cleaning the eggs, he is very methodical and lines them all up in rows, and then starts more rows on top.  Not me, mine are more haphazard and in no order.

Probably a good thing he was doing it tonight.  I might have felt like smashing a few.

Very frustrated after visiting my mother this afternoon.  

Sometimes she doesn't have a whole lot of respect for the work I do, and sees it as taking away from the time I could spend with her.  

I think I'll just leave it at that for now, 'cause if I get started....well who knows what I might say and then regret later.

Pride

He's quite happy to help keep the chicken field mowed down.

The hens are quite happy to scratch his piles of manure around, and pick out the bits of grain.  The manure fertilizes the field, the chickens and Pride eat the grass, and it's one big happy cycle.

And the fly mask I made last year, still almost looks like new.

Ladies of Leisure

Or Lap(top) of Luxury, or something about bunk beds.  Top Bunk Bottom Bunk.  I was having fun trying to thing of titles for this last minute post.  Nothing like leaving your picture taking until you are almost heading to bed.  

So this is a spot that both ladies like to lounge in.  Luna squishes in between the coffee table/footrest/book collector thing, and sometimes is flat out on the floor, and sometimes rests her head on the books.

Meredith hogs the whole couch.  Sometimes Smudge joins her.

Wordless Wednesday Evening