Poppy Time

Another scorching day. Not sure what the temperature is, maybe the upper 80's. Too hot. I'm spending the afternoon making glazes. Sheep and ducks are hanging out in the shade. Tomorrow cools back down to the seventies and everyone in this family will be happy about that. The heat seems to make the poppies and roses happy though.

Peony poppies!

Darlow's Enigma in full bloom

Poppies

A coneflower

Bonica heavy with flowers

A Bonica bouquet

A yarrow

Roses and Sick Sheep

It's rose time. I snapped a few pictures before the battery died on the camera.

Climber that is more mounding than climbing

Darlow's Enigma and ceanothus

Peony

Iris

Peony poppy

Roses at front of house

Sick Sheep

Boots took sick last Wednesday. He was lagging behind the others, sleeping a lot, had diarrhea and a fever of 106. Gave him a shot of oxytetracycline. His temperature was back to normal by Friday and he was eating non-stop again. He'd lost quite a bit of weight in just a few days. Don't know what caused it and none of the other sheep have gotten sick. Waiting for results of fecal to see if parasites are somehow involved. I didn't think we'd be getting into doctoring so soon, but so it goes. So glad these veterinary antibiotics are available OTC as I saved $100+ on a house call by doing it myself.

Updated on sheep

Fecal results show no significant parasite load. All is well, and no idea what caused Boots' infection.

Herding Practice

I managed to snap a few pictures of Hattie working the sheep! They all get an animal cracker when it's over.

Garden Pics

I don't really have anything to write about. Just want to post some garden pics. I've been busy with yard maintenance, animal care, herding with Hattie and a little pottery stuff. I made a bunch of French toast to freeze using a dozen duck eggs. Four eggs a day really adds up and we can't eat them all ourselves even with the dogs sharing one every day. 

The ducks come up onto the back porch every afternoon and tap their bills on the door until we bring them tomatoes. We are now trained to do that. Sometimes I sneak outside and call them from the garden just to watch them take a flying leap off the porch. They're bred to have undersized wings and cannot really fly so getting a little airborne like this is pretty exciting for them, especially if there's a strong wind to help.

Hattie with the big bulb

Clematis

Ceanothus in bloom, Darlow's Enigma starting to bloom and irises

Black iris

Tag and Hooper's flowers

Blue (?) iris

Fruit starting to grow on the tomatoes

Finally successful in keeping the rats out of the veggies!

A Visitor

Thunderstorms today. Love to watch the sheep file into the barn when the rain starts. Who says sheep are dumb?



I'm making "tuna fudge" treats for the dogs today. Odd name, tuna fudge. It's simply a can of salmon (or tuna), ¾ cup flour, one egg, and a ~ quarter cup grated cheese blended to a fine paste and baked in a silicone mat (picture). I flip it over, spread the salmon paste into the tiny hollow cups and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. The pyramid shaped treats pop right out. They're the perfect size for training and the dogs love them.



The Visitor

Tux alerted to a scat in the back yard that looked like coyote. It was definitely not hers or Hattie's, but it was inside the four foot fence near the garden. During the gale force winds last week something caused the lights around the barn to turn on late at night and when Bob checked, found the sheep pretty freaked out. He didn't see anything and thought it might have been the wind blowing things around but now I'm wondering if it was a coyote. The ducks are safe in their house, but a smart coyote might figure out how to get into the sheep pen. I'll have to hope the lights are enough deterrence.

Time for Irises

 A foggy, cool morning for taking pictures of flowers. First three pics show Tag and Hoop's garden.

"Red" irises and a true red peony in the red garden. The dahlias didn't survive the cold, wet winter. I planted three more but they'll be the last. I'm thinking of replacing them with Itoh peonies that should be strong enough to withstand the crazy winds that rip through here.

This yellow rose is pretty but the plant really needs chemical intervention to look it's best. It seems to be susceptible to everything bad for roses. I'm not into spraying and would rather pull the plant if it needs much attention. I noticed stippling on some of the roses this morning and sure enough, there are little white buggies (aphids, maybe?) on the undersides of the leaves. Mildew is showing on others. Sigh. I tried to buy disease resistant varieties and am pretty disappointed with this.

An interesting giant allium the previous owner planted....

The lovely pink Pieris leaves have transitioned to this washed out phase before turning varigated green/white, and once again this tip burning is showing up. The plants only get morning and evening light so I find it hard to believe it's sun scald. The soil is moist but drains well. What else could cause this? Very disappointing.

Good news for Tux! We cut the Valley Fever meds down to once a day and check titer again in three months to see if she's stable. The vet has been worried about liver damage from being on a high dose of Fluconazole for so many years, but so far so good. 

Tux's Cocci

The old girl had her best cocci titer results to date. She's down to 1:8. This is a measure of the antibodies against the Valley Fever fungus. A higher number indicates more severe disease.

The last titer taken in Arizona was unusually high at 1:32. She had been holding steady at 1:16 for a year or more and I thought it would get no lower, so this latest result is a pleasant surprise. She's come a long way from having a titer greater than 1:256 at her diagnosis in 2013 and nearly dying six months later.

What a challenge she's been from the beginning, but we love her all the more for it.

Tux

Growing fast

Sunny days are here again and the plants are digging it. The roses in front of the house are huge. I am always amazed that the spindly little sticks I plant become so big so fast. These are full of buds that will be opening soon.



The Tag and Hoop memorial garden is lush. This rosa rugosa was first to bloom, purple alliums float above it, and blue irises are forming nice buds on tall stems in the background. Hattie is in the shade on the left.



First iris of the season. This is considered red but looks purple with an orange beard to me. Beautiful whatever you want to call it.



The greenhouse below. Bob's hot peppers are in the ground (left front) and tomatoes are flowering already. We ate the first kohlrabi yesterday and have been harvesting salad greens from the outdoor bed for a couple of weeks.



The sheep are lounging in the sun while the ducks are running around under the sprinklers. I have another black eye so I'm keeping a low profile at home. Got hit by a chunk of wood while weed whacking. It flew under my glasses and hit my lower eyelid. I guess it's better to get a black eye than to break expensive prescription glasses, but seems like I've been taking a real beating lately.

Around the yard

Here are a few pictures I was able to take during a break in the clouds. We've had so much rain I'm beginning to wonder what happened to our famous blue hole.

Bees have been scarce this spring. I found this one clinging to a crabapple flower in the wind.



The boys take to their barn when it rains - our fair weather sheep.



Tux is still with us and doing well. She goes to the vet for blood work tomorrow to check on liver function and cocci titer. Poor thing is still taking medication for Valley Fever, hard on the liver. She's a tough old girl.



The tomatoes are growing well so far in their soil bags. I have to be careful not to overwater even with the drain holes poked in the bottom and sides of the bags.



We'll be eating kohlrabi soon.



A mix of things in an outdoor bed, growing much more slowly than the greenhouse veggies.



Cool weather greens doing well in this bed. We put hardware cloth around it to keep out rats. Last summer they destroyed the garden. That chard survived the winter.

 

I think I overdid the garlic this year. Will have to share with the neighbors.



Here are the duck girls loving their little pool. They like this one more than the bigger pool we put out last year so that one went to the dump. This is a safe spot in the raspberries for the ducks to relax.



This is a porcelain canister I've been working on. More interesting are the little sea stars on the window sill behind it. We found them dead on the beach last week.