The scurs did well mid-week and on the weekend forecast but days 6 and 7 continue to baffle them. Will they remain baffled another week? Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy and hot with highs near 95 and lows near 70. Partly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and a thunderstorm for Thursday and another warm one with highs near 90 and lows of 70. Slightly cooler for Friday under partly cloudy skies. Highs around 85 and lows near 65. Mostly clear on Saturday becoming partly cloudy with a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm in the evening. Highs of 85 and lows near 70. Partly cloudy on Sunday with highs of 85 and lows of 70. Mostly sunny and warmer on Monday with highs again near 90 and lows near 70. Partly cloudy for Tuesday, slightly cooler with highs of 85 – 90 and lows of 65- 70. A prediction for Independence Day calls for mostly cloudy and cooler with a possible shower or a thunderstorm. Highs near 75 and lows of 60 – 65. The normal high for July 4th is 83 and the normal low is 62. The scurs will be working on their wrist action for turning up the A.C.
Crop growth following last week’s generous rainfall and warm temperatures has been nothing short of tremendous. We should see tassels in some area corn fields prior to the 4th of July, something we would not have imagined last year at this time. Most soybeans are flowering as of this writing and pea harvest yields continue to impress. Small grains are through the flowering stage and are into the critical grain fill period. Hopefully the heat doesn’t ruin what appears to be a nice crop. Second cutting alfalfa is in the process with reports of better yields than what was harvested from the first cutting.
The garden progress has been positive too although the weeds are right on the heels of the vegetables. Some nitrogen was applied to the various crops Saturday and was dissolved by light showers. Some additional watering was necessary to move it into the soil however. It’s doing its job as everything is taking off. This week will be crucial for getting the tiller through the vine crops so they can work their magic and canopy over any small weeds that come afterwards. The tomatoes have liked their home where new ground was broken up with them in mind. Potatoes in the main garden have responded to the brush clearing that was allowing too much shading during critical parts of the day. In the small garden, the Pontiacs are about waist high and flowering like mad. Should be interesting to see what’s under those vines come fall. It always is.
We continue to be a bird nursery and there are so many to different species it’s tough to keep track of them all. Most of the tree swallows have now fledged, leaving behind their now crusty feather lined nests. I usually clean them out just in case there’s a chance a late-nesting bluebird is looking for a spot. Appears the bluebirds at the kindly neighbors’ pasture have left the nest, having seen some young birds there recently. At home, the bluebirds continue to incubate three blue eggs in their nesting box on the old plow. They let you know when they think you’re too close to the nest so it’s best to leave them alone. The killdeers must have hatched too, leaving behind one egg that was apparently sterile. Unfortunately no one was around to witness them leaving the nest, which is not surprising. Once they’re dried off they’re ready to run. There has been ample killdeer calling from the soybean field adjacent to the area where their nest was located so it’s likely that’s where they went. It’s been interesting to watch a mother and young downy on the tree holding the sunflower feeder. The mother would fly up to the feeder, grab a sunflower seed, crack it open then scoot around to the youngster and stuff it in its mouth. This process was repeated numerous times making one wonder how many more times until she’d had enough and would tell junior to get his own seeds.
Ruby and I have been manning the ranch all by ourselves with Mrs. Cheviot in Missouri at a sheep show and sale. We’ve had our ups and downs. Luckily there were lots of leftovers from the weekend. On Sunday we decided we’d had enough with the antics of a yearling ewe who’d cleared the panel into the fat lamb pen. Since her destiny was that of a brood ewe anyway, the logical course of action was to put her in the pasture. Trouble was none of the brood ewes were in sight so after putting the ewe where she belonged Ruby and I set out to find the others. It didn’t take long and with Ruby’s nice out run and follow up, they were all together. The same ewe however decided to hop over another panel to get back into the fat lamb pen that night when I fed them. After putting a cattle panel in its place, she was captured once more and hasn’t bothered since. Must’ve heard my mutterings about Morgan’s Meat Market. You may run but you can’t hide, especially when you’re the biggest, fattest, greediest pig, er, ewe in the pen.
Auntie Mar Mar’s visit to celebrate her birthday last Friday night was entertaining. She enjoyed one of her favorite pastimes watching the birds even though she isn’t real good at identifying them. Hint: All the little black and yellow birds are goldfinches. A birdfeeder and bird book are definitely in her future. We were able to use the new grill again to see how it functions and it passed with flying colors. The time also passed too quickly with many a good laugh, especially when Mar Mar told us she was coming back to steal Mrs. Cheviot’s pots and dig up my potatoes. Looks like we’ll probably need to put up some of those cattle panels around the house to keep her out.
See you next week…real good then.