More from the Country

Things are mooooving along out here in the country. While the virus rages, we seem to find plenty to keep us busy and therefore at home most of the time. I find myself looking at the sky more often than I did in town. This reflection of the clouds in the sky caught my eye one day in late spring. I love the puffy clouds sailing across the sky in the midwest.

Growing things in the country

We planted a garden. By we, I mean the husband. We had a small one in town, but this place came with a large area already set up for gardening. We planted and it started to grow. A friend gave us a bunch of leftover drip irrigation parts and we put it to good use and just in time too. The temperatures in KY have soared in July. It was reasonable through June and boom sun and humidity increasing temperatures to very uncomfortable! We’ve also had some rain, about 8 inches. 6 inches of it in just 2 rainstorms. The zucchini have suffered a bug (squash vine borer) and had to be pulled out, but not before we had a few squash to eat. The tomatoes have set fruit, but are taking forever to ripen. We are picking when they have a hint of red because there is a raccoon that is tasting them. Onions are doing really well and I am using the tops to make sweet and sour cucumber salad. The lettuce bolted, so the pigs enjoyed most of it. Cantaloupes, watermelon, and lemon cucumbers are coming along slowly. We stuck some potatoes in for grins, but the bugs they bring with them… make them so much more work. We also planted some tomatillos for fun.

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Friends and Visitors -no pictures!!!

Last week, while in town, I met with a neighbor from the other house. She is a quilter too. We met at a local park under a Pavillion roof, to avoid the sun and a threat of rain in the air. We enjoyed a lunch of takeout from Panera. Since moving we have talked on the phone a couple of times. We enjoyed more than an hour of lunch and chatter and then off to the rest of the in-town errands for me.

Saturday, we had more visitors. One of “Mr. C’s” sisters and her partner stopped in for the night. I haven’t seen “Mrs. M” since 2016. I fixed a meal for all, (they are vegan so substitutions were made), and visiting, then dessert down at the pond, until dark. They opted for a hotel, since they had a dog with them, and it would have been difficult with our pups and a strange dog too.

Updating a couple of country critters

Mr. March, the cow is becoming more friendly or at least less afraid of people, and less afraid of me for certain. He does not know his name in any sort of way, but he seems to be responding to ‘hey, cow’. I have sort of encouraged his fearlessness, by hand feeding him treats every evening, the ends of the carrots, zucchini, and cucumbers from the salad preparation. There are some apple cores from lunch too. He is gaining weight!!! I guesstimate he has added about 200 pounds so far. He weighed about 600 pounds when he arrived here on May 30th.

And Pigs

The pigs, “Piggie Ann and Iggy Piggy” are doing very very well. We started leaving the door to the outside open all the time and it wasn’t long before they had all the dirt turned-by snout, and every little bit of green gone. July coming on with lots of heat, they discovered how much more fun life was with mud and the wallow. I tried several times to show them how much fun water from the hose was, but it took a week of days in the upper 90’s with a feels like temperature over 105° for them to really get it!!! We took a video of them having some fun… it will make you giggle!

And there you have it… the country life and what keeps me busy and laughing all the time. Does watching the pigs play make you laugh too? Tell me in the comments…

Beth