I planted twenty-seven new perennials in the front yard in two hours Sunday night…using a pick axe to dig holes in the clay. That was just the icing on the cake of a physical labor weekend that comprised seven straight hours of shoveling compost into a wheelbarrow, muscling it out of the woods, across the field, and into my garden, then shoveling it out of the wheelbarrow and around the seedlings. A ridiculous exertion especially considering the tractor that sat idly by much of the day because the compost pile was getting too low to scoop with the bucket, and the tractor’s too big to fit in the garden. The next garden I make is going to be tractor-accessible!

For strawberry cake!

A friend gifted me with 10 lbs. of strawberries that he just picked out of the field at Seaman’s Orchard in Roseland, Va. All who enjoyed them agreed that they were the best berries in memory. Go pick some today before they’re gone!

The bluebirds are at it once more, again with five eggs.

This time around I am trying to be a better bluebird hostess and check the eggs every day. I hope I will get a better sense of how the babies develop. Then when they disappear, I can more accurately determine if they fledged or were eaten.

I cleaned the coop today, and as it was airing out before I dumped in fresh shavings, the pullets snuck in to try out the big-kid roosts:

They seemed so happy. Because the pullets are about 75% the size of the guineas now, and because everyone appears to be getting along when they’re all outside together, I let them stay.

Iris took to the hanging feeder right away!

When I checked on the birds a few hours after closing guineas and pullets up together, all seemed well (plus I found two still-warm guinea eggs). So unless something starts to go wrong, I say the flock is now officially integrated. Just in the nick of time too, because as we head into 90-degree days, the bigger side of the coop is better ventilated and stays much cooler than the annex where the pullets had been living. In fact, it’s getting to be about time to set the box fan up to help with additional cooling during hot days.

Well, it must be summer. The snakes are out again:

I literally walked into this one in the front yard this afternoon.

After I determined that this was indeed a harmless juvenile black snake, I figured I’d use this snake to help train my farm dog. And once he noticed the snake, he knew just what to do. He went in for a sniff:

When the snake reared up and started shaking its tail, Tucker backed off but began barking like crazy.

I’ve been working with Tucker on having good judgment with his barking, and this was one case in which an extended barkfest was entirely appropriate. So I let him go for it.

After a minute or so, I stepped between Tucker and the snake, told Tucker thanks for his alert but I had the situation under control, and called him to me as I walked toward the garage. He happily left the snake and trotted to my side. When we returned to the scene of the snake less than a minute later, the snake was gone. Tucker sniffed where it had been, but was no help finding it. Vanished. What I find amazing is that among the several acres of cleared land around my house, the odds of a very fast moving four-foot long snake and five foot eight woman intersecting are pretty incredible. And yet we did.

I am very pleased with Tucker’s reaction…that he didn’t try to kill the snake but certainly knew that something was out of the ordinary and could communicate that to me. And that he left the snake when asked is a good thing too.

With the snake gone, a happy smiling puppy, proud of his good work on the farm.

Tonight I went for a short lap around the yard, and in less than five minutes this is what I saw:

“Pat Austin” rose still blooming like crazy

“Black Beauty” Elderberry also putting on a show

Persimmon planted last year, blooming and setting fruit

Cherries! Too high to pick from the ground—enjoyed by birds, not me.

“Celeste” fig, which I thought died of winter cold, is actually regrowing!

Peaches on the recently lopped peach tree

I closed up the bluebird box just yesterday, and since then Mr. Bluebird has been busy with Home Construction 2.0.

Inherited grapevine…a gigantic mess that I finally chopped to the ground this spring. I hope to train a new central vine from this sprout. I worked today to pull out, by hand, the poison ivy surrounding this vine. I await repercussions.

Unmowed hayfied reverting back to wild pasture. It’s so pretty like this—even full of berries and all—that I wonder why mow at all?

Inherited iris growing in the drainage ditch by the road.

And finally, two eggs a day appearing, as if by magic, from the guineas. I have it on good authority from egg-eating family members that they are delicious!

Two months ago today I brought Tucker home from Ohio:

And today…

I am not going to say these past two months have been easy as I’ve bumbled through the entirely new experience of puppy raising. Thankfully the challenges, which have been related more to my mental attitude than to anything Tucker’s done or not done, have definitely been offset by moments of heart-bursting joy and pride. What I know for certain is that I have a fantastic young dog, we’re learning together, and we’re having a lot of fun. I couldn’t be happier with how things are going, challenges and all.

I checked the bluebird box today and found it empty. And thus began my detective work to figure out what got the babies. Of course my first thought was a snake…but a snake wouldn’t have left a pile of feathers on the ground.

So I figure that something either pulled the birds out of the box or they fledged and were attacked on the ground. The nest was soaking wet, no doubt from the torrential rains we’ve gotten over the past six days, so I wonder if water had something to do with it?

But then tonight I found this neat Web site with daily photos of baby bluebirds. I went back and looked at the dates on my images and realized that my bluebirds would have been darn close to fledging. So I’m just going to pretend that the babies flew away to start their new lives somewhere near the farm.

I cleaned out the old nest and left the box open to air out in the sun. I have hope that Mr. and Mrs. may return to raise another brood this summer.