We didn’t beat the heat

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Whew, I don’t know about you, but acclimating to this heat wave was a struggle (and not just me, but the animals and plants too).

I’ve brushed a pony’s worth of hair off of Sunny several times this week. Fortunately the birds don’t mind and clean up after the mess.

If you look closely, you can see a blue ball in the middle… because where else would you drop a slobbery ball but in a pile of horse hair….

(Trick question. Balls can go in many many strategic places: boxes, shelves, laps, backpacks, trashcans, etc. The world is your oyster when you’re a dog looking for a place to put a ball)

With this warm weather we opened all the houses up and rolled up the sides.

We’re trying something new with the newest tunnel and have permanently installed some netting between the frame of the tunnel and the sides that we roll up.

The goal is mainly to keep out birds, but also some of the bigger insects, like June Bugs.

Right now we only have the netting on the walls of the tunnel and not over the (standing wide open) doors. Because, as we all know, birds and insects always fly in perfectly North-South and East-West straight lines and it’s the ones that fly the North-South lines that are the most damaging 😉

Rolling up the sides and opening the doors helps with airflow and the overall temperature, but it doesn’t help with the intensity of the sun.

Starting late spring we put a shade cloth on the entire hydrohouse to keep the greens inside from burning to a crisp.

But that’s not up yet, so this week we had to rig up a shade cover for the seedlings. Because they were not happy and got burned pretty good. Oops.

(The seedlings are not supposed to have those white edges; that’s sunburn. Top right you can see a couple healthy, non-burned leaves)

And then, for fun news, George has started opening his tail to show off!

If you’ve ever visited the farm in spring/summer and see George open his tail up, you know that 99.999% of the time he shows you his backside.

I don’t know if that’s a George thing or a peacock thing, but it’s pretty hard to get a good frontal shot of George in all feathered his glory.

But I got lucky and got several front-side shots on Wednesday.

(Although Cookie, the goat, tried to take up George’s mantle and give me her backside for the pictures. Fortunately, she got bored with that and decided to just come see if I had any food… again)

So here is George, welcoming the warm weather with an open tail.

Some seasonal inspiration:

 Savory Baked Apples 

 Basil Olive Oil Cake 

Grilled Asparagus with Parsley Sauce 

Open Tue-Fri 9-6, Sat 9-5. 

Closed Sunday & Monday.

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