Dog Days
Woke up to a very warm day and a very sluggish farm. I am not taking about the the animals and us, I mean the very ground we walk across. The grass looks tired, starting to brown from a week without the torrential rain it was used to. The trees' leaves look tired, less bright and starting to become brittle in your hands. You can take a green leaf off a maple or apple tree right now and break it between your fingers like a cracker. The light is tired, looking less like the loud sunshine of June and more like that fading glow of the end of summer. And to walk out into this on one of the hottest days forecasted in the year - it's like walking into a yawn.
Which is the normal way of things. I'm not complaining, but observing. This is how a summer ends and while all of this fading light is a bit sad, it is also the push to get ready for fall as I described last post. The mammoth sunflowers are FINALLY starting to blossom into flowers. The young chicks raised by their hatching mama's are now roosting beside the older birds in the coop. Birds are mounting. Horses are needing more and more fly protection. But all in all, the farm is plugging along well.
We have our feeding systems down to a science, thanks to Shannon. Large metal bins hold the chicken, pig, goat, sheep, and rabbit foods. They are spray painted with stencils of the animals feed it contains and safe from mice and rats in their respected places. Shannon has created an entire pdf document for any farm sitters we may have in the future, which is in its own way a kind of emergency preparation as well. If we were broken down on the side of the road we could email that to a neighbor and they could take care of everything with simple and clear instructions and everything in it's proper place. I am hoping this leads to some spur-of-the-moment local backpacking outings!
So far so good, slowly and steadily working towards solvent Autumn, save and tucked in. Sales are really slow, so if you hear about someone needing a logo or a new pork supplier - send them our way if you don't mind. And a hearty thank you to everyone out there keeping their own farms and homes above water and helping support or spread the word about this one!