Saturday, July 28, 2012

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Hot and sticky until late afternoon when we got some rain.

Abby and I spent most of the day going to lawn sales and to the Trash and Treasure at Weld Heritage Days. The latter was a great trove. One was urged to carry away as much as possible and leave a donation. Abby scored several lamps and a bedstead, many blankets and sheets and an all-wool afghan of granny squares.

I got some baskets, trays, plates for under flowerpots so I can have my dinner plates back, and an antique serving platter.  Abby admired the platter and I gave it to her.

We proceeded on to Farmington but were too late for the farmer’s market. We went to the gourmet shop and created lunch with a couple of ounces ofSt. Andre cheese, a bag of shortbread and some cherry tomatoes.

Late this afternoon following our expedition I found a single newly hatched chick in the main aisle of the barn, peeping hard. No doubt somewhere there is a hen with a mass of its siblings. I hope we find her in the morning. In the meantime the peep is in a bucket with a dish of clabber, a rack over the top in case a cat should forget the rules.

Shireen just ran downstairs to announce the presence in her room of the biggest spider she ever saw. Abby, the spider expert, was summoned. She trapped it in a jar and declared it to be a standard model summer sized Coburn Farm barn spider. 

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Another steamy, muggy day which started out with a couple of hours of drizzle. I feel like I am living in a greenhouse.  It rained last evening and the sheep came in wet. This morning their wool was still wet. They did not dry out.

Martin was here this morning to do some tractor work and I made everybody a pancake breakfast. I put rasrpberries and blueberries into the pancakes.

Later, Ruth Snell brought freshly picked blackberries, beautiful ones, for $5 a quart.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Abby and I are both so tired today that we hope to retire early. She went out and did some power shopping while I did heavy weeding. We made world class hamburgers for supper. Before supper we dug potatoes. They are small and sad to say, they will not be growing any bigger. My lovely row of potatoes has been hit by leaf blight. The tubers themselves are clean, but oh deary me, what a disappointment. So, it’s few potatoes and, thanks to the crows, little if any corn this yea.r. So far the squash crop is promising. How terrible it would be if we had no other options for our food. To keep things in perspective, bear in mind that as these vegetable crops fail, the animals, dependent on grass, are thriving. Throughout all of history, animals have been the default food crop.Beginning with nomadic people and always where there is drought or other hardship, animals continue to convert the remaining resources and to store food on the hoof. They are the final bastions against starvation. Tyrannical central governments, to gain full control over the people, always take away, or take ownership of, or otherwise control the animals. I believe there are no exceptions to this rather sweeping statement.

DS Max and DIL Mitra’s brother David, who is visiting from CA, stopped in. David spent some time at the lake while Max dismantled the calf pen that is inside the beefer pen in order to muck out that corner. It was a long hot job but is all done now.

There were many other visitors too. I tried to squeeze in some editing in the “cracks”.

Abby found another vast egg nest today with 19 eggs. So many have been laying in it that most eggs are very fresh. So annoying. Of course it is in a highly inaccessible spot

We rescued a lost chick yesterday. Abby located the hen this morning with just one other chick. She was unwelcoming toward the little rescue. Abby has been feeding the lost chick all day with clabber and wheat germ. For a while it seemed to be dying but now has perked right up.

DD Sally wrote the following from Haines AKwhere she lives among the grizzly bears on theChilcoot River. A group of family members has been visiting her for the salmon run:

This morning we had an exciting time!!! We went to the sand flats- me and Tom and Becky and the two kids and Ahku (their Buhound)  I was a bit ahead with Becky and said, "look at Ahku bouncing through the grass!"  You could just see the tops of her ears at the top of each bound, it was very high grass.  Becky said, "That's not Ahku, thats a bear!".  So I peered harder and dang, she was right.  Bounding right towards us.  Oops.  Well we all crowded together, proper muskox defense formation with Ahku in full defense mode- she's a VERY protective dog.  But the bear was one which is very habituated and not impressed, we were in the way of where she wanted to go and she was going that way.  So we moved aside and eventually she went by, way too close.  Had to yell at her... She's one Bret met, called "Speedy's cub", three years old.  Of course I had left my bear spray in the garden; I'd been up there when they decided to go for a walk.  Sigh.  Not that I want to spray her and anyway I might have hit Ahku.  Probably would have.  Hard not to. 

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

The hot weather continues. DS Max and his brother –in-law David and Shireen (it’s her day off) stopped in mid morning on their way to climb Tumbledown. Roshan stayed home sick.

Abby and I went shopping for a few birthday gifts. Max’s birthday is on Saturday. We will be getting together Friday evening for shish kabobs at Luick’s .

Along about 5pm it started to rain. Abby and Nancy H went to the dump and came home soaked. 

I am finding the nests better now. Today I got 17 eggs. But Fern’s milk is dropping off a bit.She has fallen below 2 ½ gallons. Perhaps it is due to the heat.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Continued hot, in the 90’s with high humidity.

All the same, Abby got lots more cleaning done. I accomplished little apart from a brief stint of spading up crabgrass, always deeply satisfying, and a little reading.

In the late afternoon Abby took me to my doctor for a routine visit, first in five years.She said I was in good shape, in fact I’d say she was rather impressed with my condition. I got a pneumonia shot. She said many younger persons are in much worse shape. I recommended that they milk a cow.

Friday, August 3  DS Max’s birthday

The weather continues sweltering. Fern was in heat.

I spend much of the day making a chocolate cake for Max’s birthday. I put the tins in the oven without having folded in the beaten egg whites. I noticed the omission after 5 minutes.  Abby grabbed the tins out, dumped the batter back in the bowl, and I folded in the egg whites. This worked out just fine. It was Devil’s Food Cake Cockaigne from the Joy of Cooking. Next I screwed up the frosting by putting in double the amount of cream (thought ounces instead of tablespoons). So then I had to add more melted chocolate and more powdered sugar and it was still runny.  I put the cake in a deep dish and just poured the frosting over it to form a lake. I have to say, it made a hit.

Abby and I and Shireen went to Max’s birthday party in the evening. They had a sumptuous dinner featuring four kinds of meat barbecued by Max. Mitra made her perfect Iranian rice. We all had a good time despite the heat. Shireen drove home. Abby and I both have trouble with night driving.