Lazy Days of Summer

We finally got some relief from the August heat. We had had 25 consecutive days of over 100° weather, but yesterday we got a cold front that broke that string. We had very high winds in advance and it blew down some bird feeders, native vines growing on the back of the pavilion, and my rain gauge so I'm not sure exactly how much rain we had. We later had .5 inch so I'm guessing we had about an inch overall. Not enough rain to gully the road, but a welcome amount for sure. Pepino had cut a lot of dead tree branches with the pole saw just recently, but the winds helped bring down some more. Even with the heat we have received enough rain that the trees continue to look very good.

Thanks to the neighbors I had a mini round up and took some goats to market. All the males and an older nanny. The closest commission sale is now in Hamilton and the sale is on Mondays so Sunday is a good day to haul. It's 33 miles so that's not too bad. It seems two of the new little bucks may have gone missing. The count didn't seem right.

My newly planted grass is looking good. So are the front yards. I also had one of my highest water bills since we have been here at 50,000 gallons. (20,000 is average)

Each year seems to be different as far as the number of critters we see. This year is the year of the Lizard. They are everywhere and the Roadrunners love it. We have only seen one fox this summer and I thought we would see more considering that we watched that one den grow up this spring. I have found it very unusual that I have not seen many raccoons. Usually they are a nuisance, but very few this year. The big buck deer is still making himself at home. The fawns are big now and they too are coming up to feed.

There seems to be a few fewer frogs. We put out some rubber snakes, but I'm not sure that was the cause, more likely a real snake got a few.

There are lots of butterflies and hummingbirds feeding on the blooming Lantana.

Hopefully fall is around the corner.