Caught My Eye

We got the camera out the other day to do some recording for the farm, and then I found myself taking other pictures of things that just caught my eye.  So, why not share?
 

Feeling Lucky?

 Do you see what I see here?  They called my name, but instead of picking them, I just took a picture.  I suspect they appreciated this approach to catching luck better than the traditional approach of picking them and pressing them in a dictionary or other large tome.  See if you can find all of the four-leaf clovers in the picture!

Anything to get away from the gnats and skeeters

The Inspector and Soup have been finding all kinds of different places to go to get out of the sun.  But, more importantly, they have been trying to get away from the nasty bugs.  This time around, I found Inspector in the grass catcher trailer.  I'm not sure that I thought it would be a great place on such a hot day, but he didn't seem to want to leave it either.

The good news is that we have noted a steep decline in the gnats over the last two days.  What a relief!

A bit of the blues.

 One of the next phases for the house is to paint the windows.  We had some blue that was used for trim on the outbuildings, so we thought we would try it and see how it went on.  It is a bit brighter than we want, but ti also doesn't look all that bad with the trim color.  We did go and get some paint that was color matched to this trim - that should speed painting up if I don't have to cut in around the trim as well as on the windows.

Lilypalooza begins!

 It is a good thing when the Buffalo Gnats disappear and the day lilies begin to bloom.  It would be even better if we could clean up some of the flower beds!

Pollinator food!

The clover is beginning to get to a point where we will mow it down to encourage a new flush of flowers later in the season.  But, it has been quite a bloom over the past few weeks!
 

Elderberries all over!

And we're noticing more and more Elderberry bushes on the farm along the edges.  We really don't mind them, so we tend to let them be.  I am not sure about this one, since it is growing right next to a building.  Since it is the Poultry Pavilion, it has a pretty good chance of being left alone.
 

Cloud Watching

 There have been some very interesting clouds over the past few days.  On Saturday we had no less than three systems with shelf-clouds go rolling over us and by.  We didn't get much rain or wind.  The nasty stuff actually went around us this time.  We're grateful - but sorry for those who got to feel the brunt of it.

More Monarchs on the way

And, we have had a wonderful hatching of Monarch butterflies on the farm.  They like to float around in the understory of our larger trees at the end of the day looking for roosts.  I know we would be happy to have many more of these butterflies, so here's hoping they have a good remainder of the summer at the farm.