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04/30/2007: "A Pleasant Surprise"

I had picked up some native plants from Scholls Valley Native Nursery when my friend Len, the manager, gave me a quickie tour of their operation last week. I brought them down to the farm Sunday, along with the much-needed parts from Joel at Earth Tools in Kentucky necessary to repair the sickle bar mower. The mower works well enough much of the time, but the property is littered with hazards to mowing: bits of fencing lurk in the grass, especially near the perimeters of the pasture. Each time the mower finds one of these little jewels it pops off a triangular tooth, and Nate has to disassemble and replace rivets. Although Nate and I spent the better part of the afternoon drilling and banging rivets on the mower, there were a few pleasant surprises on this trip.

One pleasant surprise was that Pat the electrician had been down to the farm two days last week, and had installed half the photovoltaic panels.



He also put up the inverter on the back porch wall, where it looks mighty impressive.



The bees seemed pretty active. The hive didn't have that deep thrum to it, though, as I approached it; I assume that is because that most of the bees were out hither and yon doing their collecting. The flowering of the orchard is mostly over, but there are still blossoms out in the back section of the property.

Another surprise was that Aura was in the orchard. "I think I prefer to let her mow it," said Nate, and I see his point. However, she is a smart cow: a couple days earlier she had been confined in the area just outside the orchard, and when she finished mowing that bit of grass she deftly slid under the electric wire and started in on a new area. Apparently she figured out that the wire was off during the night! You could trace her travels as she headed off to new pasture: there was evidence of nibbling on the oats behind the greenhouse, and a SEE (single excretory event, a series of cow patties) that showed the beeline she had made to the old pig pen for some contemplative cud-chewing.

Now you might recall that we dried off Aura (stopped milking her) to give her a rest from milk production on the assumption that she is (hopefully) pregnant. Heading out to the truck I passed by her in the orchard, and I couldn't help but notice how, umm, broad in the beam she appears to be:



Here's another view:



I'm no veterinarian, but you know, she looks kind of preggo to me! That would be a great and pleasant surprise if true!