Pigs and Chickens

I suppose you're all tired of chickens and pigs. Well, these are our stress relief valves. Each night we walk down to the barn together and feed the boys and look for eggs and give the horses some hay in the manger. Of course on Tuesdays and Thursdays Gramma is at work, but all the other days we do this together. Every night we go down together and put everyone to bed. We like it. Of course I think it would be even more fun if Gramma came down with me every morning too and helped with poop-patrol, but she says I do such a good job she doesn't want to interfere and spoil my fun.

Here are the boys doing what they do best. Eating. You may notice a strange design on their water barrel. This comes from a game Perky likes to play called "Rub my rubber nose on the barrel and make strange squeaky sounds."  When you first hear these sounds it's a bit disconcerting. Even now I have to check to make sure that's what it is.

Perky's on the left and Pinky's on the right. It's hard to tell from this pic, but Pinky is much taller than his brother. Not exactly sure why, but we think he maybe manages to eat more than Perky. He doesn't spend as much time drinking water during meals as Perky and I think he eats more hay.

This is Antoine. (Antwaawn) (French you know) He is the last Maran rooster. Turns out we had 5 roosters and 1 hen.

This is Simone. (Seemoan) (Also French) The one hen.

They haven't totally been integrated into the flock, but it gets a little better every day. The other hens still push them around a bit. Sunday we are going to go get some more Marans. We are getting some older pullets so that we know for sure they are hens.

Heeeeere's Heidi. Just some comic relief from pigs and chickens.

Morning visitors

Sunday morning two cranes were in the front yard. They land in the field now and then, but they've never gotten this close to the house. They were right on the new sod about to cross the driveway when I saw them. I got up to get my camera and they saw me and went back to the field.

That's when I saw the two deer. A nice doe and a young buck.

He wasn't too keen on having his picture taken.

Aksel and Ingrid thought it was cool too. Seems like we're seeing a lot more deer lately, although we haven't seen very many fawns. Days are getting shorter and August is almost here. Time sure flies when you're having fun.

Parade Finale

Last of the parade. Yayyy!

Here is the Vasaloppet float. The vasaloppet is a really big deal around here. There were also lots of tractors in the parade.

There were green tractors by John Deere.

There were green tractors by Oliver.

There were lots of red Farmall tractors, most of which belong to my cousin. Here he is.

Here's his son.

Here's one of his friends whose name I don't remember, but this tractor is exactly like the one my Grampa Ted used on his farm. He still farmed with horses and had a team of Percherons right up until he quit farming.

Here is the only mounted group in the parade. They are riding mules. Last year and the year before there were several horse groups. I don't know where they were this year.

This is some kind of butterfly person. It was part of an artsy group of old "Hippies" who put on an art show on a farm every year. I don't know either.       FINI

Parade II

                                 
             Back to the parade.

Here's a guy on a scooter with a dog on his head. I think I could train Heidi to do that, but I can't think of a good reason why I would want to.

Here's some ladies in a carriage. We don't know who they are, but they are dressed sorta like "Old West" saloon girls. Nice horses.

Here's some more of these ladies and they got a cowboy. Huge horses.

There were clowns.

There were little kids being towed in barrels. I think they were having the most fun.

There were hot cars.

There were old cars.

There were big trucks.

And more big trucks.

There were old trucks.

 And even older trucks. And through it all, candy continued to rain down and excite all the kids and cause all the adults to worry about them as they ran out to grab the pieces that didn't get to the curb. More to come.

Buck

Last night as I was going to take the dogs out I saw three deer in the field next to the house. Two does and this buck. He's still a young deer, but if he makes it through this season he'll be on his way to having an immpressive rack.

If you look close you can see his front tines are going to split into two. That's going to make him an eight pointer.

He's still young and dumb, as I took this pic while he was on the mound behind the house and I was on the new patio. Then I took some more as he walked across the back yard and disappeared down the trail past our son's deer stand. His brow tines are pretty long, but as you can see his rack doesn't stick past his ears. I hope he makes it for a couple more years cause I really think he could be a big one. Hmmm, maybe a trail-cam.

Parade

This afternoon Gramma and I went to the parade in Mora. It's Kanabec County Fair time. I'll have to do this in more than one blog cause I actually took 83 pics. Yikes. Don't worry I won't post them all. We had fun. On the way to town our Grandson called me, and I ended up talking to two of them. It's always nice when your Grandkids call. Unfortunately I had to cut the call short so I could navigate Gramma to where we had our chairs set up. Traffic was bad because of the parade and because Hwy. 65 is detoured through town right now. So thanks for the call boys.

Here we are looking North down Union as the parade starts.

Here's Gramma and Mick waiting for the parade. Heidi didn't get to go and she wasn't happy about it. Mick went poo as soon as we sat down. We forgot a poo bag but we had some grapes in a sandwich bag and Gramma used that. Fun!

Here is the Sherrif's Dept. followed by the American Legion.

A Model A Ford.

Mora's old fire truck.

Smokey The Bear.

Braham FD

Ogilvie FD. Candy was flying everywhere. I managed to snag some Tootsie Rolls for Gramma. (Her favorite) Stay tuned. More exciting things to come.

Garden

When the Bayou Family was here the girls helped Gramma plant the garden. I spent a long time weeding yesterday cause we kind of let it get away from us. I don't know why they planted those weeds in the first place, unless they thought I needed more to do. Who knows.

Anyway the stuff that grew, grew well. The tomatoes and peppers and carrots did not come up.

The squash came up and is doing well. Yuck.

The muskmelon is up.

The potatoes are doing good, both hills.

The pumpkins are doing good.

The pumpkin flowers just opened yesterday.

The corn is doing very well and already has some cobs. Yum Yum.

Here you can see the silk on the cobs. Kinda looks like some of the hairdos we see at Coborns. When it's harvest time I'll let you know how everything tastes, except the squash. You'll have to ask Gramma about that. Hopefully the deer won't eat the pumpkins and our MN Grandkids can have some for Jack-O-Lanterns. I wonder if you can make beer from pumpkins? Hmmmm.