With fall right around the corner, harvesting season is in full swing around here. I’ve gotten over fifty pounds of tomatoes so far, which currently take up precious ice cream space in the freezer. When Gene gets back from hunting, we are going to make salsas and sauces. I love prowling around the gardens, harvesting basket in one hand, camera in the other, checking on everything to see what’s ripe. For the most part, all the fruits and veggies did amazingly well. With one noticeable exception. Back in February, I carefully planted (and labeled, I swear), a batch of exotic seeds imported from Africa. Several aloes, a cactus, and a couple varieties of trees. Not surprisingly, since even in the greenhouse the climate is nowhere near their homeland, not too many seeds sprouted. But I did lovingly tend to what I thought was a gorgeous, exotic Chaste Tree (it has lots of medicinal benefits – Google it!) For months I’ve watered it, fertilized it, and repotted it, catering to its every whim. Imagine my horror when a few more of them spontaneously sprouted in the garden. Apparently I’ve been tending to a weed for like seven months. No wonder it’s over six feet tall. I blame the seed people for not putting a picture of the tree on the seed packet.

But onto happier subjects – after six long years, I’ve finally been rewarded with an actual guava on my guava tree! I was ecstatic when three of them blossomed for the first time ever, and now I’ve got an actual fruit! I have no idea if it’s warm enough for them to ripen in this climate, particularly since winter is coming, but there’s only one way to find out. This is definitely a summer of firsts – I also finally got some fruit on my Goji berry tree – one is ripening, and the other three are just sort of hanging there, looking somewhat sad. But the important thing is they’re there. Finally. The Goji tree is also about six years old. Lucky for them I’m a very patient gardener. I’m hoping for avocados next year!

As relaxing as the last two week have been outside the house, they have been packed with drama inside the house. Within three days of each other, poor Ceri’s earache came back, and then Thing 2 had to be rushed to the emergency vet with a blocked urinary tract. The poor kitty had to stay there for three days and needed around the clock care (yes, it’s every bit as expensive as you’re probably imagining). Right now our kitchen cabinet looks like I robbed a pharmacy – both Ceri and Thing 2 came home with three or four bottles of meds each, with every pill needing to be dispensed at a certain time. I actually had to make a chart, and feeding time is now as complicated as your average zoo. Thing 2 needed special, prescription canned food, which now all the cats are on because it’s good for them. And for what it costs, it better have miraculous results. Chunk is pissed because he’s on a diet, which started immediately after I noticed that Thing 2’s vet referred to him as a “very large kitty”. Since Chunk is probably twice his size, the dieting commenced. Now it takes me about an hour to separate the dogs from the cats and medicated food from non-medicated food, then dispense accordingly. I have to laugh, though, because the stampede at feeding time is pretty funny.

I’m the type of person who really, really has to be in the mood to enjoy shopping. Grocery shopping is a chore, and I prefer to buy my signature Swamp People t-shirts online rather than go to a store and admit to a salesperson that I’d rather wear a shirt graced with a huge green snapping alligator on it than retain the $20 in my pocket. And the only way you can get me into WalMart is to drag me kicking and screaming. Or as Gene would tell you, whining and complaining. But at least he made our latest WalMart trip totally worth it – he got me a Venus flytrap plant! And even more romantic than that, he killed and fed Grendel her first fly when we got home!

Now that Jasmine has some competition in the carnivoration department (I just made up a word!), I’ve been seeing her a lot more. She tends to hang out directly above Grendel, hanging from the sunlamp hidden amongst the Stevia blossoms. I have yet to see her actually catch and devour an insect, but she must be pretty fearsome since she’s the only mantis left. I hope she didn’t eat Willard and Bromier, because I haven’t seen them in a month or so. I’m guessing that it got too hot in there even for tree frogs; they’ll probably be back for the winter months.

I think Hawthorne got jealous over all the time I’ve been spending in the greenhouse, because he decided to disappear for about two hours today. Needless to say, I was frantic because there aren’t that many places a 40-pound turkey can hide, or waddle to. The fact that there aren’t too many predators that can carry off a feathered heifer like that didn’t stop me from panicking and tromping around the woods for an hour. Since Gene was at work, I called Abigail, who came down to help me look for him. It only took one of her bellows for him to come ambling out of the blackberry brambles; I think he thought it was funny to hide from mama, but realized he was in trouble when I called in the big guns. On the plus side, I found all sorts of interesting things during my S&R mission in the woods – two hidey holes, one containing Harvey, the other Cinnabun, and a huge nest of turkey eggs. At least when Prudence decides to go broody, I’ll know where to look.

Even though August just began, I already feel like I’m transitioning into Fall. Ground cherries, tomatillos, tomatoes, cucumbers, and all the greens have found their way into my harvest basket, and the winter squashes should be ready any day now. My chores list is a mile long, including watering, weeding, and general garden upkeep. I end up spending hours outside – not because I’m that busy, but because everything around me is so gorgeous it needs to be photographed. Yesterday I was wandering in the garden, and I saw a huge black and white dragonfly land on one of the dowels I used to prop up the peppers. 167 pictures later, an hour had passed! Thank god for digital, Gene would be broke if I had to pay for film.

I’m particularly drawn to photographing the guineas, because no matter what they’re doing, they look vexed. Lucia could be eating a chocolate cupcake and she’d still glare at you like you rained on her parade. She seems to be fitting in with the other chickens nicely, although I haven’t seen her hanging out with the other guineas yet. I think she still thinks she’s a chicken. I’m going to let Graciella, the newest guinea chick, and her chicken mama out of the brooding box next week, both because I think she’d be happier outside and because I’m getting another shipment of chicks in from the hatchery. They ran a free shipping promo, and who am I to turn down free shipping?

Perhaps more exciting than new chicks, however, is the fact I now have at least four real, actual, Trinidad Scorpion peppers growing on my plant!!!! They already look wizened and evil, and Gene said I should already be in the habit of only handling them with gloves on. How cool is it that no matter where on the planet you go, you can’t find a pepper hotter than what’s in my garden? At least the peppers don’t move into interesting new angles, so I only took 10 pictures of them.

In my defense, though, I feel like I have to practice for the online photography class I signed up for in anticipation of the long rainy days of fall. The class has a section on everything from nature (I’m assuming chickens count as nature), to pets. I’ve been practicing on the poor kitties, always trying to capture them from a new perspective. Chunk is used to me going paparazzi all over his naptime, but Thing 2 swipes at the camera. Apparently he doesn’t like having the lens hover an inch from his face, just waiting to document the next cute thing he does. He’s going to have to get used to it, because the class runs for six weeks and I’m not putting the camera down any time soon.

As usual, here on the farm, a very bad thing was balanced out by a few very good things. A few days ago, Dimsworth made the journey to the Great Farm in the Sky. He hadn’t been doing well for a week or so, to the extent that I had to bring his food and water directly to him. (Although I have to admit, at first I thought that was due to sheer laziness, because once Hawthorne saw Dimsworth getting room service, he demanded it as well.) Anyway, he seemed to be doing better, but then all of sudden, he wasn’t.

I was sad; I really loved that goofy turkey. But it was hard to stay sad, because the very same day Dimsworth transitioned to a higher plane of existence, Broody Duck Mama’s eggs finally hatched! I like to think that one of the ducklings (the fat, bumbling one), is a reincarnation of Dimsworth. Gene named him Duckworth, and it certainly seems to fit. Watching Mama teach the ducklings to swim is probably the cutest thing ever in the history of cute things.

Speaking of cute things, the hatchery mail-order chicks are doing great. I redesigned the brooding complex to include several feed and watering stations, plus I added an experience station with all kinds of sticks, big pieces of bark, and logs to climb and hide in. They seem to love it, and making it was totally worth the eye-roll Gene gave me when I was describing my plans. I was also planning to custom build a dust bathing station out of a disposable roasting plan, but someone (Gene) stole it and cooked an actual chicken in it, which as far as I’m concerned totally tainted its karma. Now I have to think of a plan B.

Before I commence whining about the heat (mid-90s!!!!!), let me just state for the record that it’s great for the tomatoes, peppers, and squash. You’d think there’d be less work, since the heat would chase me indoors to lie on one of the air conditioning vents (after kicking Ceri off of it first). But no, every two hours or so, I go outside and make sure all the critters have clean, cold water to drink and splash around in, and some sort of cold refreshing treat to cool down with. The baby bunnies get crisp cabbage leaves, or bright green bok choys, fresh out of the ground. The ducks prefer frozen corn niblets, while the turkeys clamor for watermelon cubes straight out of the refrigerator. The chickens don’t have a preference, as long as they’re getting something. The guineas look distinctly disappointed if frozen peas aren’t flung in their general direction, and the quails demand their usual standby of kale, preferably organic and definitely chilled. Keeping everyone happy is a full time job.

The critters all have different strategies for keeping cool. While all the ducks love playing in the various pools, the Pekin flock takes aquatics to a whole new level. They spend hours in the heat of the day, splashing and napping. I built them a serious of steps so now they can play in the big pool. The turkeys, on the other hand, have come up with the ingenious plan of tipping over the galvanized silver waterer, then reclining in the resulting mud puddle. Woolimina discovered that the garage doesn’t heat up until about four in the afternoon, and has apparently been spending her mornings in the cool darkness, head happily stuck in the bag of game bird feed. I walked into the garage to get a tool, and almost had a heart attack when she jumped up and ran for the side door. The last thing I expect to see, particularly before I’ve had my morning coffee, is 60 pounds of guilty sheep making a noisy run for it. I guess I have to stop leaving the door open for ventilation.

As I said earlier, though, the gardens have been sucking up the heat. I have a bell pepper about the length of my forearm, and a bunch of green banana-shaped cayenne peppers. Although I don’t have fruit yet on my Trinidad Scorpion or Ghost Peppers, I do have blossoms, so my dream of having the #1 and #2 World’s Hottest Peppers should be realized soon. (If you put both of them in one salsa, I wonder if your head explodes?) But the most spectacular thing this year has got to be the trellises that Gene made me out of hog panels. I planted one of the arches with gourds, and the other two with cucumbers. For a pop of color, I added sweet peas and nasturtiums. The result is stunning – a green shady tunnel leading into the rest of the garden. I photographed it, but it doesn’t really do it justice.

When I get late night calls from Gene at work, it means one of two things – he’s stuck on a bad call and will be home late, or he’s found something really cool to bring home to me. Last time it was Raphael, the rescued ferret. This time, Gene called to tell me he’d found an abandoned fledgling robin while patrolling a parking garage. After waiting a few hours to make sure the parents weren’t around (unlikely since the baby was way in the back of the garage), and noticing that it seemed to be in quite the state of distress, he fixed it up a nice comfy box, gave it some water, and brought it home to mama, so to speak. He initially tried setting it outside and waiting to see what would happen, but the baby completely freaked out and basically rang the dinner bell for all the feral cats and rats (the two being roughly the same size in that lovely city), so he decided it needed intervention.

I greeted little Lobato this morning at 4:30, since I figured the wee critter needed some breakfast. I considered my options, and decided to go with raspberries, both for the high water content, and because I’m forever chasing robins out of our raspberry patch. She yummed them right up, then I tucked her back in her box. Then I outfitted the small brooding box with shavings and a heat lamp, plus I arranged some big pieces of bark and ferns so she would have a little area to hide. Next on the list was figuring out what else to feed her, in addition to the berries. Since I’m far to refined to regurgitate food, no matter what the circumstances, I considered calling my sister Bess Bess to come for an emergency visit. If anyone can make dinner taste like yak, it’s her. But then I decided to hunt worms instead. Finding one small enough was actually fairly difficult, especially considering the torrential rain we got this morning. I was turning over pots, rocks, tarps, and every other disgusting place I could think of until I finally found the perfect squirmer. It took a while, and lots of shuddering on my part, but she finally ate the whole thing! The worst part by far was when she took a chomp and I was left trying to hold on to half a warm, but I persevered. Luckily, she’s pretty close to being able to get out on her own, so once her strength comes back we’ll let her free.

For the last several months, I’ve been puzzling over what could be wrong with my shallots. I planted two beds worth in the fall, which I’ve done for several years. Last spring’s crop was stunning – dark green tops standing straight up, with a profusion of golden bulbs popping out of the dirt. This year, not so much. They look flattened, and somewhat miserable. I did everything I could think of – I mulched, I un-mulched, I altered the amount of water they were getting, I took a look at the soil, but nothing worked – the more I worried, the flatter they got. Today, while I was pruning tomatoes, I finally figured it out. Shallots and 86-pounds of napping German Shepherd don’t go well together.

Ceri wasn’t the only beast out crushing plants in her free time – Cinnabun decided she needed a break from the kids. I found her relaxing in my mint bed, atop no less than three different types of mints I dry and use for tea. Apparently she got fed up after being locked in with her eight little ones for so long, so she put her thunderous paws up against the door and shoved with all the might a cooped-up new mama can summon. After spotting her in the garden, I went in the Bunny Ranch, and sure enough, her cage doors were blown wide open. At least the little ones stayed inside. By the time I got back to her, she’d moved over to lounge in Harvey’s favorite sunny spot, right next to Harvey. I’m fairly certain we’re going to have more bunnies in about 28 days. Sigh.

In drama-free news, the 8 Pekin ducks made the transition from the garage brooding facility to the Duck Mansion. They are loving their new freedom, as they have full range of the pasture and yard, but they adore the deep pond even more. I know ducks love water, but these ducks LOVE water. Six hours they spent zooming around the pond, splashing and hooting and hollering. I was amazed to see them finally exploring the grass and daisy patches this afternoon. I was worried they’d forgotten how to walk.

Granted, I’m the last person on the planet who should get on anyone else about eating too much, but seriously. Every time I take a look around the backyard, something is disappearing into something’s face. I’ve been bemoaning the depletion of my beautiful rose and bulb garden all year, placing all the blame squarely on poor Woolimina. Mostly because the sheep shearer pointed out there was a whole lot more sheep to shear this year, so I figure she’s stuffed full of gladiolas and Mexican day lilies. Today I learned I’ve been blaming the wrong fat critter – it was Harvey who put the beat down on the only spot of decorative landscaping I have. And now it’s hard to tell where the lilies even were. Sigh.

Harvey’s not the only hungry bunny on the farm, though, the babies are giving him a run for his money. They can make an entire head of lettuce disappear in under five minutes. They come stampeding out of the corners when they realize it’s me, and hop up and down until I put whatever succulent morsel I’ve brought them down. No wonder they’re getting so big so quick.

Despite the beautiful weather and lovely temperatures, perfect for foraging, chasing bugs, and hitting the pool, Dimsworth has officially let himself go. Instead of working to impress the ladies like Hawthorne, he sits in his favorite spot, remote in one hand, beer in the other, and demands to know when his recliner will be delivered. I get that molting in such a spectacularly atrocious fashion is hard on his self esteem, but still. He’s such a pretty turkey on the inside, and he has a good sense of humor.

The ducklings are the exact opposite of Dimsworth. They’re so happy and excited to be alive they act like little wind up toys, running around their play area, doing laps in the pool, and chasing butterflies and bees. Every once in awhile they fall over and take a power nap, usually in a big fluffy pile. Since pools were on sale at the hardware store, I bought one that’s big enough for all of them. As Gene pointed out, there’s room for them and both of us, it’s that big. He was worried it was too big for the ducklings to get in and out of, so I swapped the new one for one of the old, smaller ones that’s in the pasture. The ducklings are ecstatic, and spent hours swimming happily.

I’m not sure if it’s because it’s spring, or if I just have exceptionally broody chickens, but I have four of them actively trying to set on nests right now. I don’t mind one or two broody mamas, especially the ones I know are good ones (not every hen was meant to raise chicks!) but I certainly don’t need four at once. There’s nothing sadder in this world than a broody mama with no eggs, and I ran out of fake ones to placate them with. Since I’ve never witnessed Jimmy and Luigi having any quality time, I figured I’d just stuff guinea eggs underneath them. Since the shells are so tough, I wasn’t worried about the egg exploding if it sat there too long. Plus, they have a distinctive shape, so I don’t have to worry about mixing up a bad egg with all the fresh ones. As I was harvesting eggs yesterday, I was startled to find an actual hatched guinea chick!!! Since they’re tiny and fragile, I put that broody mama in the garage facility with her baby, and booted out all the 2 month old chicks. Everybody is happy, especially the teenage chicks. They love being outside in the fresh air with bugs and worms to chase.

They aren’t the only ones loving the outdoor life – the 8 Pekin ducks now protest mightily when I bring them in at night. I’ve had to increase the shuttle service from the brooding box to the outdoor spa area to 16 trips a day, since the ducklings are now so big I can only hold one at a time. They don’t mind the morning trip, but they fuss and huff when it’s bedtime. It’s hard not to laugh at their protests, since the sounds they make are now halfway between a baby cheep and a full-on complaining quack. In the mornings, they spread their wings like they’re flying as I carry them football-style to the pool. Occasionally, if the shuttle service isn’t fast enough to suit them, they’ll follow me into the garage.

Today was a little tumultuous here at the farm; I decided it was high time to rehome some roosters. My decision to cut their numbers coincided nicely with finding someone willing to buy them. Actually, Abigail found him, and I cashed in. She was also nice enough to come down and help me with the rooster rodeo, because no one was particularly happy about being stuffed into a crate. As hard as it is to part with my beautiful roosters, the hens needed a break. Now we’re down to six, and of those three are tiny. There were at least three more that I wanted to try and catch, but Abigail, much like the hens, had had enough. I pointed out that if $30 was blowing around out in the pasture, she’d be all about chasing that, but she was tuckered. At least now we have something to look forward to tomorrow!