On the farm, Ryeleigh is trying to hunt rabbits. Here she is on the back porch (her hunting blind) watching rabbits in our backyard. She is not very stealth, and the rabbits are perfectly safe.
Since the turkeys are out of their pen, they are experiencing new things. They seem fascinated by the weeds on the other side of the fence.
Since Summer managed to break through the gate to get in the pasture with the other cows, they are mostly getting along. Sometimes we see some swipes between her and Jameson, but mostly everything is peaceful.
I had moved Summer to a pasture with shade because I was worried about her, but she busted out. I also moved the sheep to a pasture with shade worrying about them in the heat as well. They do seem to enjoy it.
Tom mowed another overgrown field.
The grapes are developing on their vines.
The blueberries are developing more rapidly. Plus they were completely overgrown with grass and weeds.
I managed to weed a lot of them out (despite the fact that I had forgotten my gloves). And put a net over them to keep the birds from eating all of them.
Tom started mowing another field as well. It is the near back field.
The walnuts are also developing like crazy. This is the first time we have seen a significant nut production. Hopefully I will finally get some nuts after about 20 years.
The coyote in back is now being seen in the back near field that Tom just mowed. No evidence of this coyote killing any of our livestock and suspecting it is going after rodents in the mowed field.
The grandkids came for a farm stay on Friday. They immediately wanted to ride their quads and bikes.
We noticed a vulture on on a fencepost. We noticed them all weekend but never found what it was attracted to.
Piper and William wanted to visit Jameson, of course. They just love our calf.
Louella is getting more interested.
The kids started unloading all of the squishies they packed. I think it was about 20, a crazy number for a short visit.
Then the kids were able to ride out back, their favorite.
Piper is really enjoying riding the quad. I am so impressed by her. I was already impressed by William.
Then Piper helped me pick some blueberries. She did a great job, even though she doesn’t like to eat them.
For some odd reason, the young turkeys were hanging out by the gate in front of the barn. Not sure what the interest was, but the beagle was fascinated.
Piper then enjoyed the 3-D photo viewer with photos of our farm taken a while ago. Thanks Grampa Al!!!
After dinner, we went out to bottle feed Jameson. The kids enjoy that.
I was planning on having vanilla ice cream for dessert with a variety of additions from the pantry. The grandkids chose chocolate chips, sour candy eggs and fruit wraps. Interestingly the fruit wraps turned crunchy next to the cold ice cream. So William made ice cream tacos that he really enjoyed. Piper was less enamored and tried crunching them into her ice cream but didn’t really like that either.
Saturday was more quad riding after the animal chores were done.
Tom had used the tractor to clear some blackberries and other bushes to allow riding. But in the process there was debris that Piper’s quad picked up in her back axle.
We kept noticing this bald eagle in this dead tree at the edge of our property. I often notice an eagle there, but this time it appeared to stay there for days. Not sure if there is any issue or not, but today it was gone.
Tom was working on improving a jump in the back field for the kids. He gradually improved it until it was up to William’s specifications.
Piper did need to take breaks occasionally.
I had to work part of Saturday but came home with some better ingredients to mix with the vanilla ice cream. This proved to be popular.
Then we watched Sheep Detectives. The kids had already seen in twice and loved it. I have wonderful grandkids!
We bottle fed Jameson and Louella came closer yet with a nearly full moon in the background.
Early the next morning, the coyote was in the pasture again.
I made Perfect Buttermilk Pancakes for breakfast. I added blueberries that I picked that morning to some and mashed banana to others. The kids weren’t interested in breakfast so we had them for brunch. They were a hit. (As an aside, recently I have also made Sheet-Pan Chicken With Rhubarb and Red Onion and Cabbage Caesar Salad also using farm ingredients.)
After the chores and brunch, it was time to ride. As usual I brought the beagle on the leash while the kids rode. Ryeleigh noticed a coyote poop and pooped right next to it. Hopefully this will be a discouragement.
The jump that Tom fixed was a popular site.
Underneath one of our eagle nests, I found this feather. We are thinking it may be an eagle feather. It certainly doesn’t look like one of our chicken feathers.
The kids did a pretend nap on their quads. They claimed it was comfortable. I am not so sure.
Sunday was a rainy day so I decided to make popsicles that afternoon. I was inspired by a recipe in Genuine Skagit Cooking called Edible Flowers Lollipops. But I ended up mostly using this Homemade Lollipops recipe. Here are some of the lollipops with the edible flowers.
Here are all of them in flavors of lemon, orange and lime. Some have sprinkles rather than the flowers. They were really popular with the kids.
We went to Lava Louie’s Pizza in Sedro Woolley for dinner. They purchased Bigfoot’s Den, the grandkid’s favorite place. So with trepidation we went back. But they still have the Bigfoot, the games and the great food. Service was a little slow, but everything else was great. And the grandkids were thrilled. This is the bathroom sign.
There were more pinball games and other games.
We were able to play pool. We did not initially notice the sign that said the pool tables were for adults only.
All and all a great time.
Today was more farm chores, initially. Piper found this feather. She was carrying it around in the barn. Then she pointed it at the goats and said, “I have a feather, it is wet, and I am not afraid to use it”. I thought it was hilarious.
Most of the squishies moved to the charging table. There are also rubber ducks that they won at the pizza place.
Before everyone got up, I harvested the potatoes. They were mostly Ozette potatoes that I had planted in the old manure spreader and had succumbed to blight (I had hoped that they would be blight resistant). Anyway we got a decent harvest anyway with some volunteer potatoes from previously plantings.
With chores, I noticed the swallows were flying like crazy over the field that Tom had recently mowed. Must be bugs attracting them.
There was some more riding after the chores. Even Tom participated.
Wally assumed her favorite spot in a box on the back porch.
And William was riding his Honda 50. Piper asked if she could ride it. So she did and ended up in the nettles and crying. The first time William rode it when he was 4 ended up in the blackberries and crying. We decided this is not a good first motorcycle. Piper recovered, but we decided we need a different first motorcycle for her.
The kids were fascinated by the snakes that were hanging out by our front porch.
Their mother kindly came to pick them up in the afternoon. I hope they had a great time. We did.
Then our attentions tuned to our truck that we sold being picked up. It was The Truck of my Dreams that we had sold. We purchased it 16 years ago from the original owner’s wife expecting to fix it up. That never happened so we decided to sell it to someone who would fix it up. We found that person in Sullivan, Indiana. He arranged for transportation. And after many stats and stops that happened today. Here are my last photos of my truck.
And it leaving.
So that is our eventful week. It was great having the grandkids and nice to see the truck going to a better home. Maybe we will visit it someday.
