Lazy Sunday

It was a lazy Sunday for the residents of Crosswinds Farm.

Jordan did a little sunbathing.

White Chicken and her friends took a nice dust bath.

Rooster Cogburn and Mr. Swagger rested in the shade.

"Yaaaaawn."

"Yaaaawn."

"ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzZZzzzzzzzzz".

Bailie rested as the fluffy clouds floated by.

" Ahhh, yes, I get a much better view of the clouds this way."

The ram lambs took an afternoon siesta as well.

Yup, a lazy summer Sunday............ for THEM maybe!

I woke Sunday morning to find a littering of pears all over the ground, shaken loose from the tree by some strong overnight winds. So, after I did my regular rounds of feeding animals, cleaning water tanks, and counting heads, I started my morning by filling bucket, after bucket, after bucket, with pears. I was still a little sleepy so it took me a moment, but as I was filling the buckets it occurred to me that pears don't easily get knocked off of the tree, which could only mean one thing....oh, no, the pears are ready to harvest already! I don't have time for this now! I checked the fruit that was still left on the tree, and, sure enough, they snapped off very easily.

Pears are kind of odd in the fact that they ripen from the inside out, so if you wait until they look ripe on the outside, they are actually over-ripe, and at that point, the fruit pulls right off the stem, like this...

Luckily, I only found a few that were to that point...I guess I will be making pear jam this week....A LOT of pear jam.  I am really glad that my other variety of pears ripens much, much later- usually not until late October, but then again, the Bartletts have never been ready this early before, so I may be in for early harvests all the way around, UGH.

Yeah, and it looks like I may have a few apples too...just a few..

After I dealt with the piles of pears, it was time to move on to other things.

I had another rack of hay that needed to be emptied, stacked, and the rack needed to be returned to my neighbor/hay guy.

Another 129, sixty-pound bales of hay unloaded, stacked and stored for winter. Yes, of course they are stacked a certain way....why do you even ask? You know that I am insane.

Hay was done, now eggs needed to be gathered.

Next it was time to cut grass....

..and cut grass...

 ....and cut grass.

Next, I checked the garden and found that something was eating my tomato plants.

Upon further inspection, I found these big fatties- Tomato Horn Worms.

They are both cool, and disgusting all at the same time. The chickens, however, did not find them to be disgusting at all, in fact, they found them to be quite tasty. 

With the garden de-bugged ( yes, Alanza, your Tomato-babies are safe now), I moved on to watering, watering, watering everything since, once again, we have had very little rain and the gardens are looking a little stressed....with the exception of my Amish Cockscomb, which seems to be doing very well in spite of the hot, dry weather.

After all of the outside morning chores were done, I still had the usual inside household tasks of cleaning, doing laundry, and washing dishes ( No we don't have a dishwasher, unless you count me), and before I knew it, it was time to start all over again with the evening farm chores.

Where was Gary while I was doing all of this, you might ask? Well, he wasn't exactly slacking either. He took a week of  'vacation' time from his regular job, to work 14-16 hour days at his part-time job all week. 

Yup, just another lazy Sunday.

" Blah, blah, blah, Sheep Lady. Work, laundry - whatever, can you keep it down? I am trying to rest over here!"

"Ahhh, yes, there is nothing like taking a leisurely dust-bath on a quiet Sunday afternoon."

  

"Wait, what?"

"What did you say Sheep Lady? What's a stew-pot? Was that supposed to be funny? I don't get it. You're joking, right?"

Don't worry chicken, I was Joking, of course ; ).