Teddy continues his graduate school work and is advancing through the training levels. If he continues to progress at the present rate, he will most likely qualify to be a therapy dog. Of course his behavior at home is different from school. He is still a wild and crazy puppy for us. But life is much more pleasant than just a few months ago.
Trees
In the entire 30+ years we have lived here, both part-time and full-time we have never had to hire professionals to clear the driveway. More times than we wish to count, we have sawed our way through downed trees. But in this month of May we have had to call for professional help – twice.
The trees, pictured above, are leaning toward the west. We rarely have a weather event out of the east. We awoke to find the trees leaning dangerously across the drive from a night when there hadn’t been a storm.The second leaning tree was across the driveway near the top curve. This was the result of high winds in an afternoon thunderstorm that occurred just 3 weeks after the first 3 “leaners”. Barry spent several days cleaning up after this storm, The good news is we have our firewood cut for the winter of 2019-2020.
Turkeys and other beautiful birds
We are extremely luck to live in an area that is full of beautiful birds, wildflowers and wild game. For several years we have had returning rose-breasted grosbeaks stop off to feed for a few days. This year they arrived at the same time as the Baltimore orioles. The birds shared the tube feeder. The grosbeaks moved on but the orioles stayed for the summer.
Friends, who normal visit in late May, came in mid-June. A heat wave forced us indoors for most of the weekend, but we were rewarded with a wonderful display of all the creatures who come to our feeding stations. We use to refer to them as “bird feeders” but with raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, and even the occasional possum eating the seed and corn, a new term seemed in order.
We have had turkeys too in the past, including a young male who would dine, then practice his calls in the yard. This time we have two females coming for the cracked corn.
Butterflies and wildflowers
We burned the prairie grass in the fall and planted more wildflowers. This year, we have had a bumper crop of milkweed plants, a butterfly favorite. Our friend Rick shot a couple of pictures of butterflies in the meadow.
