Summer Reflections

It is a peaceful summer morning and I am sitting in a hammock listening to the birds and cicadas  sing.  The chorus of cicadas and the underbrush beginning to turn yellow always is a sure sign that we are nearing the end of summer.  The birds are beginning to group together, the goldenrod is blooming and my tomatoes are ripening all at once.  My poor Australian Shepherd, Cody, is scratching excessively from his seasonal allergies.  Fortunately, everyone else is pretty healthy and enjoying the wonderful mild temperatures we are having this August.  It does make you feel lazy.

The temperatures this summer have been reasonably mild making it feel like a more normal summer in the southeastern Pennsylvania.  It was a pleasure not to have the heat waves and droughts like past summers.  It appeared most of our garden flowers and wildflowers in our meadow bloomed longer providing us with much color and the birds, bees and butterflies with food.  I enjoy having the extra time to appreciate and marvel in the simplicity, but also intricacy of the natural world.  It inspires me to live a simpler life.

Here are a few of my most noted experiences on our farm this summer:

Barn swallow nest on light fixture.  We had several nests this summer.  Parents flying overhead  while I fed the goats and chickens.

Picked and froze blackberries

Broody Buff Orphington (right) nesting on eggs and the Brown Legborn decided to lay her egg in the same box.

Milkweed Tussock Moth or Milkweed Tiger Moth munching on a milkweed leaf

Monarch butterfly caterpillar on Swamp Milkweed!

Nellie relaxing one morning as I was mucking the stall.  She has the life.

Philadelphia Fleabane

Cody my string bean mooch outside of our vegetable garden.  He pulls the entire plant out so he isn't allowed in while I pick.