Red Dirt Farm and Studio

We stood still – eyes locked, playing the game of who will blink first.

The bear and I.

I was closing up the chicken coops the other night when I looked up and there she was – Mrs. Bear in all her growly big self.

I can tell you, I blinked first.  I wanted to run screaming like a school girl.  But instead, I calmly called for Boo dog to come and get in the house.

I recalled all the bear education literature I had read when we went to Yellow Stone National Park, some years ago.  Don’t run was the first rule.  They will outrun you in a heartbeat.

It has been like this the past few weeks, running not running from bears and snakes.  Every time we turn around there is a snake.  Ugh, I just hate that.  Unfortunately, a couple of them have been extremely aggressive and have gone after the chickens and their eggs and their babies.  Mr. Cottage dispatched of a couple of them, declaring one of them in particular to be one badass snake.  This is not our preferred method of dealing with them, we mostly believe in live let live, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to protect your flock.  On the sweeter, more tolerable side, there seems to be a lot of tortoise around this year.

 

 

 

 

 

A Blue Heron has been here dining on our Koi and goldfish, that hasn’t made us happy either.  Oh and the deer ate every single sunflower I had coming up.  We replanted a few rows over the weekend.  Thinking of fencing now.

Our phone/internet hasn’t been working correctly for several weeks – ok a month or longer.  Very annoying our already turtle speed internet has been so slow I haven’t been able to upload photos, read blogs, post comments etc.  The phone – impossible to have a conversation with anyone because of all the noise on the line.  We put in a call for repair and a week later a guy came.  The day the repair guy showed up the phone was working.  The next day the phone stopped working.  Insert eye roll.  We put another call in for repair and a week later another guy came.  He ended up working on the problem all day.  He had to replace the entire line coming into the pole from across the road and down through our property.  After which he brought a section of the line to show me.  A squirrel had chewed through the line – in multiple sections.  We’re up and running now, back to turtle speed internet and avoiding those annoying junk phone calls that seem to be coming in at an alarming rate.

Honeysuckle scents have surrounded the gardens and now the magnolia trees are blooming their wonderful citrus scent.  Ah, bliss.  The mulberry tree is in full production and wildlife is coming from near and far to dine.  The chickens spend most of the day under the tree gobbling up every fruit they can find.  Their poop has turned a dark purple and would worry one if one didn’t know what the cause is.

Our weather has been stormy with a heatwave leaving us with high humidity and temperatures in the 90’s.  We won’t complain and feel the pain of so many that have endured such horrible storms these past few weeks.  Wishing we could take away all their suffering.

If you follow my Instagram feed, you will recall I told the story about purchasing a recumbent bike.  If not, the story is I purchased that bike a few years ago after the recommendation of my neurologist.  She wanted me on seated equipment, because of neurological problems I’m a fall risk.  I purchased the bike and then soon after fell one day getting out of the shower, and broke my tail bone.  I never got to use the bike.  It’s been gathering dust for a few years now.  Until very recently I had to always sit on a doughnut, yes it went everywhere with me.  Somewhat embarrassing at times.  Can’t anything be done for a broken tailbone and the doctors said the pain would most likely be with me the rest of my life and to stay off the bike.  Really!  A few weeks back I decided it was time to try the bike.  It has been a very slow process, I’m sadly out of shape and overweight.  I’ve been pushing myself.  I ride my bike every other day.   Last week I finally managed to ride 15 miles in one day, but I had to break it up into two segments that day.  Today I rode 12 miles all at one time, so that is my personal best so far.   It is slow going but I’m doing it.  Now mind you, I’m still on level 1, no hills or resistance.  Baby steps.

Just a short post today to say hello.  What have you been up to?

That’s all for today.

xo Kim