I'm cutting a lot of these and drinking a lot of this.

Summer rages on with days so hot, my solar oven is almost a sun-powered microwave. The heat shimmers and vibrates through the air til just walking to the mailbox feels like a slog through hot molasses. The gardener in me appreciates the fact that the cycle of life is dependent on the heat to get those big juicy red globes from the tomato vines and all the other veggie delights springing up from the soil.And, of course, the flowers, petals almost translucent under the relentless glare of that yellow ball of fire. But the blue-eyed, fair-skinned, use to be red haired me? Not so much. I totally wimp out when the temperature goes past 70 so these days of 100's have me in the house admiring my bouquets and sipping just slightly sweetened iced tea and daydreaming about Autumn.

Now They are Three

The youngest got married recently. We are adjusting to being empty nesters (again) and they are slowly getting their nest all feathered. They both love to nest, so I am sure they are enjoying it. Isabella is loving being a town kid, even though she still loves to come to the farm and check on the chickens. It is such a good feeling to realize that all your daughters have married men who are motivated to care for their families. Actually, it is a blessing.

It's been a group effort....

See these little brown ovals? Yep, they came from one of my birds. Seems I have an over-achiever in my little flock. Everything I've read says to expect your first eggs at around 20 weeks. At fifteen weeks, one of my girls hasn't been reading the literature because last week one of my grandaugters and I were making the rounds; feeding watering, when I happened to glance in the nesting boxes and lo and behold-an egg! I was so excited, I started yelling to anyone who would listen (that beeing the MOTH as he was the only other person around), "I got an egg! I got an egg! Somebody laid an egg!" I swear, you would have thought I had pushed out that little brown treasure myself, I was so proud.All these weeks of taking care of, worrying about, and just plain enjoying my birds had finally paid off.  Granted, it is small, but they will get bigger as the bird matures. I was caught totally off gaurd. But I did some reading and discovered that my red hens, which are Golden Comets generally lay earlier than most chickens. But fifteen weeks old? Wow! I am not sure which hen it is, but she is getting very regular with this egg business. Everyday when I check on my flock, there is that egg waiting for me. I have four more birds waiting in the wings (I know, bad pun) and I am mentally counting up how many eggs I should be getting each week. Probably shouldn't do that. There is a reason someone coined the addage, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" and the other one, "Don't count your chicks before they hatch". I tell you, we sure owe a lot of our common sense expressions and wise words to live by to chickens and other farm related business.