Today we had the brick crew out to put together the next part of our foundation. Here’s what they did today (once again, click on a picture to see it full-sized):
First Day of Work
It took a while to get here, but our contractor finally got started on our Deltec yesterday. We got the footer dug and poured. The foundation work will continue next week. Click on a picture for a full-size version.
New Barn
We built a new barn! Okay, so maybe we didn’t build it ourselves, but we had a new barn built. It is alternately called the new barn, the horse barn, or the blue barn (to distinguish from the pre-existing barn, which is red). Here are some pictures of its creation:
You can’t really tell from these shots, but there is, in fact, a dividing wall between the run-in half and the interior half. There is also a second people-door in the dividing wall. Once we get the paddock expanded, aside from getting TO the barn in the first place, we won’t have to go outside to feed, which is an improvement to our current setup.
Sunflowers are like cats
I really like sunflowers. I think they are quite pretty and very cheerful. So it made sense to buy several varieties of seeds and plant a pretty row of many different heights/types of sunflowers. Guess how many sprouted, much less bloomed, this year. Yep, zero. None. Not so much as a glimmer.
Now, I also like birds, so in addition to the bird feeders in the back yard, we have 2 suet cages hanging from hooks off the deck. Know what kinds of seeds tend to be included in suet? Yep. Sunflowers. Any guesses as to how many of those “volunteer” sunflowers we’ve had this year? A rough count would be about 8. Never planted, just fell to the ground from the suet. I’m only complaining a little. At least I got some flowers somewhere.
Raccoons
We caught another raccoon this morning. That makes two this year. We didn’t mind so much when we had a fairly large one hanging out in the area and eating the dropped pecans, as he soon learned our schedule and avoided us. That was our first summer here. Last year I don’t recall any problems with them. Then, this past winter, we had one sharing the barn cat’s food, which we really didn’t mind. It didn’t wreck anything and it didn’t eat ALL the food ALL the time. Which brings us to this summer.
We have had up to 5 raccoons around this summer, including a mom and 3 babies. Once we started seeing her, the other two adults stopped coming around, which was nice except the little family absolutely trashed our garage/shed and would eat 4 cups of cat food every night. When we started putting the food away at night (in my car) and put all the bags of horse and cat food in my car as well, they just trashed the shed some more even going so far as to go into cabinets and puncture bottles of vinegar and floor cleaner. They also started coming up on the deck and eating the suet from the bird feeders which was a problem since Scott gets home at 1 am, and it is not pleasant to find raccoons on the deck in the dark. He tried shooting them with our bee-bee gun, which sort of worked in that they did leave but they came back the next night.
To help us get rid of them, we called some wildlife eviction specialists, Advanced Wildlife Control. They only live trap and they relocate instead of euthanizing. They have also been incredibly friendly to us. They put out four traps around the yard/barn/house area for 4-5 nights, and we only caught one raccoon, one of the babies. Well, we also caught several cats, Sister at least twice, Tex once, and Pearl at least once. They didn’t seem to mind too much (except Tex who is a bit skittish to begin with), and we would just let them out when we found them.
After having no further success with the traps, we decided to just wait and see if they came back and try to trap them in the shed and then call the guy to use a catch pole. That was nearly 3 weeks ago. We finally caught one early this morning, and the guy from Advanced came out and caught him. He said it was a young male, quite possibly one of the babies from earlier, who probably just got kicked out by mom. He also said that this was probably his territory now, so with any luck (though we’ve had a shortage of that) we shouldn’t have anymore raccoon troubles until at least next year. Here’s hoping!
Deer
I went out to do the AM feed earlier this week and saw a young buck deer at our salt block. He was very cute, had little antlers. I told him I was going to the barn and not towards him, and he watched me for a few steps, but when I turned back again, he decided that was a bit too cagey for him, so he bolted. It’s nice seeing them in the yard, though I suspect I won’t think it quite so nice when we’ve got a vegetable garden going!
Just yesterday I saw a bachelor herd in the field across the street. There were only about 4-5. They were hanging out, watching me. Pearl and Bubba were with me, too, out for a walk to the mailbox, and the cats were quite interested in the deer even though they were a good ways away.
Enjoy the peaceful sounds of nature…
We had a nice 4th of July. We had some bad hay that needed burned in our front yard, so we decided it would be a nice thing to do, as it was a cool, calm evening. Unfortunately, the owner of the fields across the street agreed with us and decided to harvest his wheat that day, too. And by day, I mean all day and into the evening and up until 10:30 pm. I do understand that it was just beautiful weather and the wheat was ready to go and all, but did they have to be running their harvesters, hopper trucks, etc in the field immediately across the street from us on that night? It wasn’t exactly a quiet summer night in the country. But at least we got the non-horsie-edible hay burnt.
Flower ID 2 – Common Ragweed
Like many people apparently, I always thought that ragweed was another name for goldenrod. Turns out that goldenrod is not, in fact, the bad guy of allergy season. Apparently, common ragweed grows around goldenrod and is the actual culprit but gets overshadowed by the big, showy yellow flowers. This is actually common ragweed. I keep thinking they look like carrot plants.
They are apparently very hardy, care little about what kind of soil they are in, and while not “invasive” as some plants are, they do spread fairly rapidly. These pics are of the early season plants. Later in the summer they grow flower-like bits. I’ll get some pics then, if I remember.
New Car!
Since Scott’s been driving an increasingly decrepit car for a while, we decided to get him a new one before his old one up and quit on us. We went with a fuel-efficient economy car, the Chevy Spark. So far, Scott’s happy with it. Naturally, it is a manual transmission, and it’s got a terribly cute back passenger door.
Flower Identification
Since we live out here in the relative middle of nowhere, we tend to see several different kinds of beasts and also have several different types of plants around us. I will sometimes get it into my head to find out exactly what something is called. In this instance, there was this plant out by the mailbox that I thought was pretty. It looked kind of aster-like, and when it went to seed, it had a puffball like a dandelion only very big! So, I consulted my trusty Wildflower Identification website and decided that it is something called Yellow Goatsbeard. Here is a very nice picture of it:
This is definitely a wildflower. I’ve decided that term means any flower that “normal” people don’t care for much and don’t choose to plant in their flower gardens. I like it and think it’s pretty, although it would be nice if it had a scent too. I’m never satisfied, I guess.