KEEPING BUSY .... AUGUST 01 2011....................

I got up this morning and guess what ... It is August already.  Where has the summer gone.  Where has the year gone.  Fall is just around the corner. 

Jerry has kept my garden tilled for me, I have been pulling the weeds around the plants, and mounding the dirt around them, garden looks good.  Green beans about ready to start picking.  Lots of tomatoes, now if only they would turn red!

My potatoes have finished blooming and the plants are beginning to die back.  When I finish the last 10# bag of potatoes that I bought at the grocery, I can start digging new potatoes, one or two hills at a time, for eating purposes.  Nothing like you own new potatoes.

I don't do the major digging until mid September, or a little later.  They need time to stay in the ground after the plants die back, to give the skins a chance to toughen up to protect the potatoes.  When you dig them right away, you can actually rub the skins off with our fingers.  Not good if you are not going to use them right away.  I wonder how many I will get this year?

The kids were back a couple of times yesterday.  In the morning they, with their Mom were out back, up at Tim's corn, supposedly for his cows this winter, they were running and playing, in and out of the corn. Mom just watched, when she wasn't pulling the baby ears of corn off the stalks to eat.  Pretty soon into the hollow they went (the sanctuary). Time for their afternoon nap.

Later in the evening, they were back playing in the front yard again.  Doesn't seem to bother them a bit with us around. 

Had an interesting day a few days ago.  There was a dead ground hog where Tim had mowed the hay.  The "clean up" crew was out there, (turkey  buzzards) when three red-tailed hawks flew in.  As soon as they landed the buzzards scattered.  It looked so funny, the buzzards are twice the size of the hawks, there were about a dozen of them and three hawks.  Guess they knew something I didn't.

Anyhoo we watched for the longest time, the hawks really working hard on the clean up, you could almost see the buzzards drooling - hey, we were here first!

Every so often a braver buzzard would kind of mosy up, it only took one look from one hawk to send him scurrying back to the rest of his friends.

Even in nasty situations such as this, nature has her own way of doing the clean-up work.  By the next morning you would never have known anything was in the field.  Nary a sign.  But I'll just bet there were some hungry buzzards going to bed the night before.

Everything in nature is not a bed of roses.  Nature can be very forbidding, harsh, sometimes nasty, but there are also the wonderful days, the deer playing in the yard, running and jumping, just having a great time. 

We have such an abundance of nature at our place, there is never a day goes by that something isn't happening, whether it is the blurbirds feeding their young, the deer eating the corn, the hawks flying over, scouting, the coons peering through the trees at you, the coyotes loping across the hill-top, the rabbits playing in the yard, mama skunk, with her young following, off in the distance (just hope they keep their distance), the dogs laying at your feet.

I really don't think I could survive in the city.  I just hope when it is time to go to heaven, that I don't have to live the the city with streets paved with gold.  I would much rather just be in a peaceful meadow, watching the for-ever young creatures as they run and play. 

What would you prefer?  With this thought in mind, enjoy your day and God Bless.