Quiet Afternoons

So I definitely dropped the ball on actually posting updates, so here's a bit bigger one, even though most of this was from one afternoon.

So with our larger pond, the one issue we were really concerned about going forward was this absolutely vile growth on the surface. We thought it was some sort of algae bloom, but it actually looks like it's the top growth of an underwater plant.

Either was it's hideous and the one reliable way we say to resolve this was...well basically other plants. Lilies in particular are great at taking over ponds. Some people dread that, but frankly even a solid pond of lily pads and flowers would be a welcome site.

We had originally just put some lilies in the koi pond to see if those would grow out, but proving just how much cross contamination occurs between the two ponds last year every single lily that the koi didn't eat ended up coming out the downspout of the koi pond's drain into the main pond.

A few plants managed to take root in the pond and this year they really exploded in growth.

Other work continues around the farm. We're still gathering scrap metal as we find it. We're honestly ready for a pickup at this point, we just wanted to clear the barn out of a few more tin roof panels.

The bigger job, lately, has been mowing. Not normally a difficult task, the absurd amount of rainfall we have been getting has been causing the mower to kick up major clods. I don't really care about the "condition" of the grass. This isn't a manicured lawn, it's just pasture land I want to keep managed. But I do want to try and avoid beaching the mower in a spot I can't drive it out of, which is really evident here.

Every single thing that was on the gross has been turning out super damn, and positively full of worms as well. Kind of sad we weren't able to get the garden going this year. Fantastic weather to get some plants started to be ready for next year, but oh well.

We're also officially gone full free range with the birds. They love their freedom, but are pretty good about being led back home at night (well the ducks oddly are better, the chickens are starting to give an attitude about being put to bed). The only thing we're concerned about now is the garden the chickens are in is completely overrun with garlic mustard plants. They're not really toxic, but they're also definitely not native, and every single plant you see there is garlic mustard.

Finally some random bits. My wife bought a beautiful new wind chime. We're taking care of the bug situation going around as we can, but we're still getting rid of a few. Spiders are our friends, wasps are decidedly not.

And randomly our upstairs bathroom is finally done enough to actually take a bath in. My first bath bomb ended up being gatorade colored, so there you go.

Oh and here's a really fuzzy super short snap of some deer I saw while I was out mowing.

Epilogue. This is Oreo. Oreo's name will be changing. Oreo might be a new member of the farm and he might be coming with a friend.