In which an inventory is made and an escape documented

It's been a long time since I wandered around the farm with the camera.  

Luna helps to inspect the iris plants

So that's how I spent this evening: wandering around to look at all the prettiness here.

There's no such thing as too many purple flowers.

The DPOs (Dreaded Previous Owners) favored dainty, hard - to - grow plants, like roses and a particularly buggy kind of lilac. I'm more of a lavender and mint person. It's difficult to kill lavender or mint.

I cuss at this rose bush frequently to discourage it,
but it continues to thrive out of sheer cussedness

Elsewhere on the farm are plants that are more my speed.

The rhubarb has bolted, and is now taller than me.

I finally got the Late Garden planted the other day.

Cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, carrots and Inevitable Zucchini

It looks empty now, but this soil (built from stall cleanings, kitchen scraps, and chicken manure) is deep and soft and rich--vastly different than the garden we started with in 2009.

Carefully labelled rows. The labels rarely survive the first rain squall,
but at least I start out organized!

The early garden is producing well.  

This is the garden Lisa built last fall, so the soil isn't nearly as awesome yet. I needed help getting the early seeds into the ground this Spring, because I was still so wobbly following surgery in March. The garden doesn't seem to mind.

Peas, beans, and potatoes

Elsewhere, it's a gung-ho year for the perennials.

 Blueberries, just starting to turn blue

Very young grapes

Thimbleberries, technically a wild plant.  grows
next to the garden, just out of the chickens' reach.
These should be ripe in a few days!

Out in the pasture, grass is getting lush. So are the weeds. With only a single horse and two goats, there is no chance they will eat it down--we will need to mow it later in the summer.

Ain't nobody losing weight in this pasture

The dogs helped me with my wanderings. Luna always has commentary. Roo always has a tennis ball.

Luna stands in place barking, while Roo fetches the ball

We have three turkey poults still. The smallest failed to thrive, and died a few days ago. The others get bigger and less cute every day.

Turkey poults: not cute. Not smart. Ah, well.

Finally, we come to the chickens. We have nine hens now: three Old Ladies (the speckled Barred Rocks we got in 2009), four Little Red Hens (the cheap cheep Rhode Island Reds we bought for a buck apiece in 2013), and the two Purple Chickens (Lavender Orpington hens, a birthday gift from Duana).

That's a lot of cluck.

All of the chickens moved this week from the Old Garden to the new Poultry Pasture up in the orchard. We are hoping they will bring down the bug population that is bothering the trees...or at least, eat down a bunch of the tall grass that's growing up there.

The problem with a new chicken enclosure is that chickens delight in escaping. It always takes me a few days to find and plug all the chicken-sized holes in a new fence before we can actually relax and enjoy watching the hens explore.

Chickens within...except for the AWOL hens:
Dora, Rita, and (of course) Twelve.

Jim arrived home just before I decided to shoot the escape artists out of pure frustration, and together we got everybody back inside the fence. 

Sigh.

See, you dumb birds? Outside the fence, we chase you.
Inside the fence we give you yummy stale bread and moldy strawberries!

Fortunately, some residents of the Farm are easy to catch.

Hurry up! Catch me and feed me dinner!

I realized about five minutes ago that I forgot to take pictures of the fruit in the orchard--and at 9:30 it's too dark for the camera even if there's plenty of light to see with. So you'll have to trust me that the cherry trees look terrible (not sure why) but the apples and the plum tree look great. I'll try to get pix of those soon.

Meanwhile, it's time to relax and enjoy the quiet.

It's good, ya know?