Father's Day

Today being Father’s Day, I made pecan caramel rolls for breakfast.

Dad with pecan caramel rolls

I got the rolls ready yesterday morning and let them rise slowly in the refrigerator overnight. That gave me the opportunity to pull weeds out of the onions while they were baking. Because the onions were one of the first things we planted, they had the most well-developed weeds. It was a mess. This picture shows a row comparing the unweeded on the left with the weeded on the right.

Weeded (left) vs. unweeded (right) onions

In past years, we have laid down newspaper around the peppers and tomatoes for weed control. This process is a literal pain in the butt. This year, Terry took the initiative to order some cocoa fiber pads that are easy to put down around the stem. He has used them on his trees for years. Why didn’t we think of this before? With the cages in place, the tomatoes will need little care until harvest.

Tomato with cocoa fiber mat and cage

I’ve been logging hours on the mower every week. At first, I was afraid to mow inside the orchard fence for fear of traumatizing the hens. Well. When I finally decided to give it a try, I found that the girls thought that mowing was the best thing ever. Far from being frightened, they ran behind the mower, picking through the piles of cut grass. There must be something good in there!

Out on the lawn I was sure the 13-striped ground squirrels high-fived each other behind my back. Yes! Here comes that lady who cuts the hay for us! Soon they are busily collecting it in their mouths to take back to their dens. They work fast, too. I took 40 pictures before I got this one with its head up.

Ground squirrel making hay while the sun shines

I’ve been trying to get a better picture of the orchard oriole male showing his rusty red body. This one is pretty good.

Orchard oriole, left; female Baltimore oriole, right

This is the female orchard oriole.  She is a striking yellow, not like her Baltimore counterpart at all.

The female orchard oriole has a bright yellow body and dark wings.

We’ve had a red-bellied woodpecker at the feeder. The squirrels have gotten so out of control that I had to stop putting out sunflowers. We have now seen the red-belly, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and red-wing blackbirds all eating grape jelly! Who knew?

Red-bellied woodpecker on the sunflower seed feeder

We have a brown thrasher this year! I had not seen one on our property before.

Brown thrasher

In the cycle of blooming, penstemmon is now taking its turn.

Penstemmon

The potatoes are growing quickly.

Potatoes

The sweet potatoes are also getting big. Hilda is now worried about their vines taking over the garden.

Sweet potato

We continue to struggle to keep the chicks cool enough in the 90°F heat. It is so much easier to keep them warm! We’ve put a larger waterer in the coop. I froze a gallon of water in an old milk jug and put it in the waterer. We also have screens on both doors and a fan blowing. Still, the chicks lounge listlessly by the water.

Meat chickens, considerably larger than the Dominique, hanging by the water cooler

The meat chicken in this picture is doing a “gular flutter” which is like panting. He’s got his beak open and is moving the front of his throat in and out. It is not clear to me why the Whiting True Blue is sitting so close.

Doing the gular flutter

The Dominique chicks are getting black and white wings.

Dominique chicks

A cold front is supposed to move in by Tuesday. We are certainly hoping.