No Place Like Home

      A welcome home ceremony was held for 1st Squadron 113th Cavalry, 2nd Brigade, 34th Infantry Division, Sunday afternoon 7/24 at Camp Dodge.                                                                                    Dan's cousin (my
nephew) Spc. Ryan Volk was 1 of the many Iowa National Guard soldiers who returned home after a 1 year deployment to Afghanistan. His 3 year old daughter Delaney was thrilled to be held in his arms, and trace her fingers across his face after they were reunited.


     It is so good to know that Ryan is now safely home.
Here is a new photo of Daniel that I rather like.  He continues to work hard and have a good attitude and outlook on army life over in Afghanistan.















     Last Sunday morning had started out very hot, but then a storm blew in around 9 am.  Before the storm hit, I was out walking Amiga in the side pasture for her daily 10 minutes of exercise. When going along 150 she kept spooking each time a car went by.  She does not usually do that, so I believe she was reacting to the coming thunder storm. Just after we got back to the barn, there was lots of wind and rain resulting in a 12 degree drop in temperature.  A few storms passed through while I was at church but then the rain tapered off to a steady drizzle for much of the day.  

 Cow boys waiting for breakfast one day.
And then rewarded with their feed.












     Corrie and Courtney headed out mid afternoon and Joe made a quick trip to Farm and Fleet while the clouds moved away and the sun came out.  As the wet earth dried up... it got more and more humid.  I puttsed around out in the barn.  Once Joe was home, we added the last little section of wall to the calf pen using chain link fencing.

Where's Brother?  He follows me around quite often, and managed to show up in most of these photos. Can you find him? Enlarge photo if needed.

 
     We used the two long wooden box crates Joe painted to make a pen wall on one side and storage shelves on the other.


     With the gates on both sides, we can get in to feed from the front or let a new calf out back.  A new calf will also be able to look out at its friends or his cow buddies can look in.















    Both gates can also be opened and latched together in the winter time

with the back barn door closed.  Then we have this isle with a smaller calf pen.












     We also did some more barn wall work, added latches to the gates and put rubber mats down in the new horse stall. 




















      I went to Marj's at 9am for a riding lesson Monday.  She showed me some new things we are going to work on with Roni, made some adjustments to some other things we have been doing, and re-enforced the right techniques we should continue to practice.  We can see Roni relaxing more and more each day.  I shopped in LeRoy on the way home to get food I needed for the nights Growth Group potluck.  After lunch, I took a 2 hour nap.  Don't know what my problem was... just so tired.  Maybe it's the
return of the heat

along with the humidity.  After our pot luck, we all went to DQ for some ice cream.  So far, the after vacation diet isn't going so well.  Photo of Dean and Linda and Shelly and Kelly from Growth Group.

     Mid morning Tuesday I went back to Marj's to work with Roni.  I returned home for lunch, and realized 3 hours had flown by.  I had to eat and get a drink but then went outside to water everything, including all of the animals.  I mowed the riding/walking trail on the side pasture and did some random
                                                     weeding.  Then I worked at trimming

the white poplar by the garden and weeding (hacking down) all the monster growth in the garden.  In these two photos, you can see I didn't get very far with the garden weeds.



     We got invited to watch fire crackers at Shelly's, so I cleaned stalls and put the horses back in from their grazing pens.  Joe made his monthly Panera run so I went to Shelly and Kelly's on my own. 

The firecrackers were impressive, but rather noisy and scary I thought.  Shelly and all the guys thought they were great fun.  When I got home I walked Amiga for her daily 10 min. of exercise, and she was very lethargic.  I also noticed she had not finished her alfalfa or drank any water.  So I went to bed worrying about her.   

    I got up at 4 am to check on Amiga Wednesday morning and thankfully She seemed much better. When opening the chicken coop, I saw a white thing on the corn crib wooden gate and went to see what it was...and it tried to fly but couldn't very well. 
Then Brother (who always follows me
around) caught it.  It ended up in the cow mud puddle, so deep the cat wouldn't walk in it... but got its wings and tail all dirty.  I wadded in to rescue it.  I put it in a cage, that I put in the chicken coop, to let it recuperate.  

     I did a little research and discovered that it is a homing pigeon... often released at weddings and ball games.  Later I went to check on it, and decided to let it out of the cage so it could get food and water. 

     Throughout the day I checked on my new charge.  It was fairly tame, but nervous about me and could still only get about 4 feet off the ground when trying to fly.  The chickens came in to eat and soon discovered the new visitor.  Hercules wasn't so sure.












      By late afternoon, when I went to check the bird, it flew out of the coop to the shed roof and then on up to the top of the corn crib where it stayed for awhile.  It eventually flew off... hopefully headed for (no other place than) home.

    
     Wednesday morning I also found our first duck egg, the white one in the 
                                                     upper right of this photo.  The green
one is from an Americana chicken and the brown from a Barred Plymouth Rock.  The duck egg was on the floor by the water jar in the chicken coop.





          Later in the day I found four more duck eggs behind the board where they sleep every night.  The pigeon got back there so I moved the board.  It was all poopie and gross... another thing that needs my attention.  These eggs will go to the dog.

     The farrier came at noon to trim hooves.  The dog will also get those cast-offs which she loves chewing on.  Between bird sitting and Blog writing, I was able to get some work done out in the barn, although it was quite warm. 

      Once Joe was home, we finished the west wall of the calf pen.  I cleaned up more of our construction mess, sorting the boards for storage.   



     Now we are ready to go to auction to buy another baby... hopefully next Wednesday. 

     Everything's Peachy... or maybe not.  I noticed Zorro acting sick Wednesday evening.  He would not drink or eat his dinner, was very lethargic like Amiga had been but had loose stools as well.  I walked him twice and gave him a second bucket of water that I had added an electrolyte re-placer to.   The only thing we can think that they both ate was grass (and weeds) from the round pen.  We have not sprayed it, so it was growing out of control, but Joe mowed it all down.  We have now removed that as one of our grazing pen options.  The peaches on our tree are ripening and Joe and I have both been picking them.

      Today was another  typical day on the farm.  I was glad to see (first thing in the morning) that Zorro was feeling better... although still not 100%.






     I had to bring both horses in earlier than usual because the crop duster was flying over head and I did not want them to get spooked and go crazy. 

     When I filled the 100 gal stock tank this morning, I forgot to take the nozzle out when done and it siphoned out most of the water.  
                                                      I didn't notice until later in the day. 

The poor cow boys were so thirsty.







 

      So I set to refilling the tank and then promptly forgot it.
This time it over flowed some.

     It was another hot humid day... 
I tried to get an early start so I would be finished by midday, but as usual, I stayed out until dinner time.  I raked and picked up three large wheel barrow loads of grass and weed trimmings from the round pen.  Then I graded it,
moving a bunch of sand out of the middle toward the west fencing.  In the process I uprooted a bunch of crab grass that I went back and raked up.







         The four baby chicks are adult size now.   Baby (the hen in the foreground that I taught to walk and who hatched eggs last summer) still tends to "mother" these four.



     Brooster continues to keep a close eye on some of "his girls".



     I cleaned the duck/turtle pool which is always a muddy mess.  Mr. T disappeared during vacation.  Maybe Missy was finally able to catch him.  So now we just have Leo, the smaller turtle.

The girls were thrilled to have deep, clean water.  They were in before it was even full.  One was a little shy and uncertain at first.

     I mowed the paddock to get the weeds under control and proceeded to "stir up" and stack up the manure pile. 

     I also came to the conclusion that Zorro is feeling much better.
             He is back to his old self again,  ...looking for trouble.

       We haven't even been home a week yet and it seems so much has happened.  When away from home, I always worry about how all the critters will do without me while I am gone.  This is part of why I am reluctant to leave home.  Also, there's just no place like home.

     But, if I didn't get away during vacation time to rest and relax, I could never keep up at the pace that I do.

Missy lounging by some tools while Joe and I work out in the barn.  I am so glad she has made this her new home when we adopted her last November to replace our beloved Sissy.