Some wildflowers in the native plant garden we visited a few days ago.
Such cheery flowers!
The Re-Farmer
picture of the day
Hidden in stone
Some other photos from when we were playing tourist.
One of the perks of living on the bottom of an ancient lake bed is that the local sedimentary rock is sometimes filled with fossils.
The fossil above is one of many scattered about some limestone columns we passed by.
There is also a fair amount of granite in the area, and sometimes you can really see the mica bits in sections of layers.
This picture is from a big, decorative rock sitting in a park.
I’ve always loved rocks. They often have the most interesting things hidden in them.
The Re-Farmer
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Pollinators
A couple of photos from when we were exploring the native plants garden.
This bee photo was pure serendipity. It was the first of several I took, in quick succession, and the only good one of the bee!
This was in a structure near the native plants garden that I think is actually there to disguise and protect some infrastructure equipment. There were several wasps nests in varying stages of construction, all on the shadow side of these support beams.
I didn’t see the spiders until I uploaded the photos, though.
I’ve seen many wasp nests in varying stages of construction before, but never have I seen the cells exposed like this, at this size. The little ones on the left of the photo is usually about as big as they get, before they get covered over. I think the high level of protection they have in these locations may have something to do with it.
The Re-Farmer
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A long, but good, day
Today we made a trip into the city to play tourist, run a few errands, then pick up some stuff for my husband’s birthday.
It made for a very long, but enjoyable, day.
We started off with an early lunch, taking advantage of being in the city. It turns out that Le Burger Week started today (I’d never heard of it before), so I tried the burger offering at an Asian fusion type place.
I can’t even remember what it was called, but it was SO good! Even better after I realized it had jalapeño in it, and took it out. I love the flavour, but don’t do spicy well at all, due to damage to my tongue. :-( That spiral cut potato in the background was delicious, too!
It was really hard to choose from the menu, though. I had originally intended to have a bento box, and as good as the burger was, I’m still not sure I made the right choice.
My daughters both ended up choosing a sushi and sashimi bento, while our guest chose the shrimp one I had been eye-balling. The only sushi we have available out here is grocery store sushi. I’ve tried it. It’s pretty… dry.
Choices like this is one of the things we do miss about city living!!!
While playing tourist, one of the places we visited as a prairie garden filled with native plants.
It looks a lot like our outer yard, except with all the varieties in a much smaller space. :-D Mind you, there were a few things I’ve never seen before, but most of it was quite familiar. I’ll post some of the better pictures I got, later on.
As we ran errands before heading out, my darling daughters found, then got, something for me.
Meet my new friend.
I think I will call him Yorick.
Alas, he is too big for my dash. As I write this, he sits on my printer, looking at me.
He is soft and squishy and marvelous.
The Re-Farmer
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Low Water and meeting people
Yesterday evening, my younger daughter and I were able to take her friend into town for dinner. When we were told it would be about 20-30 minutes before a table would be open (buffet night is popular, it turns out… :-D ), we put our name on the list, then headed for the beach, which was basically across the street from the restaurant.
We had been getting thunderstorm warnings for a few hours by then. While there were no signs of a storm, yet, the winds were incredibly high. High enough that one of the small trees on the boulevard near where we parked came down while we were in the area!
This late in the day, the tide was very low, and people were taking advantage of it.
I’m not sure if you can tell, but the kids on the left are lying in the shallow water, waiting for the waves to crash over them. :-D
It didn’t show well in any of the photos I took, but the high winds would, at times, pick up and blow away sand hard enough that walking into the wind meant our faces getting sandblasted as we returned to the restaurant.
The dinner was excellent, and we got a couple of pizzas to take home for my husband and older daughter, too. I never imagined a chicken and broccoli pizza with Alfredo sauce would be that incredibly delicious!
Since we were in town, we took advantage of being there to play some Pokemon Go. We ended up joining a group for a legendary raid, at a park near a cove. While waiting for the rest of the group to show up, I got these photos.
I usually come by here in the mornings, and this area is, if not completely under water, very close to it. It looks absolutely dry in the photo, though that would be very misleading.
Such a pretty little cove.
This evening was an example of one of the reasons I enjoy playing Pokemon Go. For those who don’t know the game, it uses GPS and real-world maps to get you to different areas to catch Pokemon. There are “stops” in the game that are at real-world locations (churches, public art, historical buildings, etc.) that can be spun to get things needed in the game. Some of these stops are also gyms, where you can train your Pokemon by battling the Pokemon from people on other teams that control the gym, and take control of the gym for your own team. A fairly new feature added to the game has giant, different coloured eggs suddenly appear at gyms, with a countdown to when they will hatch. Most of the time, it’s a larger version of regular Pokemon, of varying strengths. Some, a player can battle by themselves. Others can be defeated within the time frame only when players battle in groups. The colour of the egg gives players an idea of how powerful the hatchling will be, and how many people will be needed to “raid” the gym and defeat the Pokemon. This is a way people from normally opposing teams can work together for mutual benefit in the game.
Then there are the Legendary Pokemon. These hatch out of a particular type of egg, and typically require quite a large group battling together to defeat. That is what we ended up joining last night, and there ended up 9 players battling together. I’m part of a chat group that people use to organize this, and it’s rare that we are in town and able to take part, so we took advantage of it.
We got to the location early and just hung out at the park and statue in the area, until others started to arrive.
The first group arrives and I watch as they come out of the vehicle, realizing that I know one of them. A woman from my home town that I’ve known for pretty much all my life, in fact, and haven’t seen in more than a decade! It turned out she has been playing the game for less than a week, and she was there with family members who where showing her how to play.
Then, just before we started, a little family group arrives, including a young child. I recognize the mom and daughter. They are the daughter and granddaughter of a friend of mine from high school! It was the dad and daughter that were playing the game. :-D
I also got to attach faces to user names that I have as “friends” in the game.
Since I’ve started playing the game, I’ve found Pokemon Go players to be the friendliest of people, and now the game is bringing me on contact with people I wouldn’t be crossing paths with, otherwise.
It’s really quite awesome!
The Re-Farmer
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Reading the signs
Though it’s only the end of August, everywhere we look, we see the signs of autumn.
This is one of the crab apple trees in the West yard. The apples are smaller than usual. Though the apples are not ripe yet, the tree, like so many others, is turning colour and dropping leaves already.
One of the plum trees has completely changed colour already, and the plums…
Most have already dropped, and what few remain on the tree are looking like these.
Today was our day for heading into the city for our monthly shop. Along the way, we saw flocks of Canada Geese in the fields, taking a break from heading south. We’ve been seeing them in fields on the way to town, too.
On the drive home (when it was warmer), the snakes were out. I was able to avoid a couple, but the highway had many squished snakes on it that others did not miss. They have been making their way to their hibernation dens to the north of us for at least a couple of weeks, now.
I had seen a news article about how it’s expected to be a mild winter this year, but earlier, I’d see that The Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a long and bitterly cold winter, with possibly a late spring as well.
From what I’m seeing, I think The Farmer’s Almanac is likely to be the more accurate prediction. :-(
Either way, we’re going to have to start our fall preparations for winter over the next few weeks.
The Re-Farmer
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The power of cat treats
Beep Beep and her Tuxedo were around the house yesterday evening, so I decided to get a bit more aggressive about this whole luring of kittens thing.
I brought out the cat nip and the cat treats.
They ignored the cat nip.
They went nuts over the cat treats! Beep Beep was after them to the point that she would eat what I gave her, then find the one I gave to her kitten and eat that one, before he even figured out where it was. She’d even push him away!
We have a house guest for the next while, and she and my daughter came out to help, and to play with the cats. By the time they came back in, Rolando Moon, Teeny Tabby, Butterscotch and one of the calicos made a showing, too.
We did actually get to pet the tuxedo. He’d jump a bit and look, but would quickly return to hunting treats. He’d even try and take them out of my hand, sometimes, but he was slower about it and his mother would usually push her way in and take it first, no matter how we tried to distract her with others, so on the ground they went.
While in the area, I paused to take a look at my mother’s white roses. They have the darkest rose hips! So deep a read, they are almost black.
The Re-Farmer
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Let’s face it. Cows are dumb
Today, I give you a story, in pictures and video.
I like cows. Cows are wonderful creatures.
They are also not exactly intelligent creatures, though I know some breeds are smarter than others.
I was sitting in my office when I started to hear the sound of cows, mooing nearby. I realize the renter has cycled his cows back to our quarter section, and they are nearby. Happily, I go outside to see them.
The cows are spread out around the barn, including some in the old hay yard.
The hay yard is now cluttered with a number of abandoned vehicles and equipment. Including several old snowmobiles, I’m told are being kept for their parts.
Hearing an odd sound, I look in between various items.
Can you see the cow’s nose in there?
It took me a few moments to see that the noise I was hearing was of that cow, trying to eat the snowmobile.
To be more specific, the remains of the seat on the snowmobile.
I ended up going through the barn to the hay yard, to get them away from the snowmobiles. Which turned out to be a good thing, since I found the door to the lean to was open. There is a tree growing near it that blocks us from seeing it from the house, so who knows how long it was open!
This is what the cow was chewing on and licking. In the second video, you could see the cow going for something on the far side of the seat, too. That would likely be the foam from the seat that it was trying to get at.
Afterwards, I went out the back door of the barn. Some cows were around where an old shed had collapsed, and I could hear them getting into the metal roofing material that’s in there, so I wanted to check on things.
This is what greeted me out the back door.
Most of the cows and their calves avoided me, but these two were curious enough to stick around.
I then made my way over to the junk pile, starting to pick up and move over sheets of metal that had been blown over by the winds we’ve been having in the last while. As I get around the back side of the collapsed shed, I see…
Yeah. That black cow with its butt facing me is right on the junk. There is no grass or weeds there, so I have no idea what she’s after.
I really look forward to when we can get rid of this pile of junk!!
I continue around, which convinces the one cow to get off the junk. Some move away from me, while others come closer to check me out. I pick up and re-stack some of the sheets of metal siding, finding things to put on top of the pile to hopefully keep it from blowing over again, and make my way around between the pile and the shed.
One of the cows is braver than the others, and starts coming closer to me, watching what I’m doing.
I quickly realized that she was not chewing on grass, nor her cud.
She was chewing on a foreign object.
You might need to turn your volume up to hear this…
Now, this is concerning, because as far as I can tell, based on what’s lying around, she might be chewing on either wood or metal.
I tried to come closer to her, little by little, hoping to be able to see what she’s chewing on.
That’s one heck of a side-eye she’s giving me!
I kept trying to move around and get closer, without chasing her away, still trying to look into her mouth and see what she’s chewing on.
After a while, I start getting really concerned, because she’s got foam around her mouth from the chewing, and every now and then looked to be in some discomfort.
Then the object fell out of her mouth.
That, my dear friends, is a bone.
A beef bone.
I can’t say I was all that surprised. This is not the first time I’ve seen a cow chewing on a beef bone. When I was a kid, I remember walking past one of our cows and seeing her chewing with her head extended weirdly. She was familiar enough with me that I could walk up to her and reach into her mouth, where I pulled out one of the dogs’ beef bones. It was not as thoroughly chewed up as this one, though!
I have no idea where she found it, but I wouldn’t let her pick it up again.
She was displeased with that.
Ooh, this girl had attitude!
I proceed to kick the piece of bone away until I got it to the junk pile.
Once I was away, she started looking for it.
She wanted that bone back! She just kept snuffling and snuffling the area.
At this point, I decided it was time to head out and went back around the junk pile to go to the barn. Where I found…
This was not here, the last time I tried to clean up around the pile. In fact, I don’t remember seeing it just a few minutes before, when I went past here to go around the pile and found the cow standing right on the junk.
It is, I believe, from one of the snowmobiles.
I took it into the barn when I went in and closed up the doors again.
As I come out the front doors of the barn, I look back and see…
Can you believe it? That cow, with company, actually found where I’d kicked the piece of bone!
I’m hoping she wasn’t able to get it out, but she seems quite determined!
I know it’s a running joke that goats will eat anything.
So will cows.
Including the remains of other cows.
Herbivore fail!
The Re-Farmer
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Just Chillin’, just watching
DahBoy likes it on top of the piano.
I love how he dangles his chin over things. And how his cheeks just sort of … puddle.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 