This Morning

Don't you just love it when you awaken about 2 am with a really itchy foot? Yesterday I inspected bee hives, placed in them a grease patty, and then placed entrance reducers on them. All of this resulted in a few stings on top of my left foot.
I was wearing my bee suit and.....flip flops. I didn't expect the stinging ladies to notice my bare feet and plan a direct flight path to my toes.

I scraped the stingers out and my feet were fine. The entire rest of the afternoon and evening they were FINE. Come 2 am my foot was invaded with a serious case of the itchies.

Being awake in the middle of the night encourages my brain to ponder the next day's events that are planned and the long term goals for the season and year.

This morning the weather was cool and foggy and the cows were out of their fencing quietly munching on dew covered grass.

Lucy will be calving in a month and a half. Belle will be headed to a neighboring farm for a month to *hang* out with a bull.  I will miss her while she is gone. She's not as friendly as Lucy but her cowgirl antics are fun to watch. She is much younger than Lucy and her youth shows when she comes running and bucking, excited over a treat of grain in a bucket.

This winter we will start accumulating young bull calves to raise as steers on this same pasture. Fencing plans are the most daunting, but I am sure we can sit down one day and figure out a good plan.

Devin is finally off a stretch so he is going to build a chicken coop a top this trailer. This will be my egg mobile to move my hens across the pasture, following the cows. It will not be huge, but we do not have a tractor to pull a larger egg mobile. We work with what we can and this old jet ski trailer was a freebie. I am excited to see what Devin builds.

In the meantime, my hens are still enjoying their time out on pasture and currently they are scratching up the garden and eating bugs.

It's amazing at the amount of work they can do in one day, digging and scratching. Their egg production has picked up too. The only drawback here lately is that the hawks are returning looking for food. Yesterday a nice sized hawk swooped down at a rooster just feet from Devin in the back yard. It was a brazen hawk, no doubt. The rooster made an escape and was safe. This spring we will order a couple of goslings. Joel Salatin keeps two geese with his flock to help protect them from aerial predators.

***This is my early morning rooster who enjoys crowing us awake at the crack of dawn***

Duke was in an especially relaxed mood this morning. He posed nicely for his pictures, almost half asleep. He was up during the night barking away coyotes....I heard him:-)

Yes it will be fine day, despite my sleepless, itchy foot night. The itch is gone this morning and my list of chores is quite expansive. I was able to make  a mental list of my "to do" list while scratching my foot red. It wasn't a total waste of time awake. I pondered. I problem solved. I even made a couple of decisions.

One being that next time, every time, I will wear boots when inspecting the hives.

Happy, happy Friday! This weekend we will attend the annual weanie roast at the Martin homestead. What are your weekend plans?