June 2011 Spring arrives FINALLY

June is almost half over already, I still am babysitting Tanner for Kyle.  Him and his mom needed a vacation from all the stress here so they headed off to Calgary. I agreed to babysit the other dog Sasha, but she is not the brightest bulb on the tree!

The look of DUMB!

I made her a pen like I did for Tanner, she pushed out of it, I tie her up and she gets so tangled up that I almost need the fire department to cut her free! (not quite but almost)  She appears to be in heat or going in heat so I need to walk one dog at a time. If I walk her down the road and Tanner sees her he goes nuts! Even when he just came back from a good long hard run he still vaults the top of the pen and tries to run me over!

More Dog fun!
Tanner also Vaults the pens if there is anything that comes on the yard that he doesn't like. One night he and Sasha were barking their heads off after I went to bed. I turn on the porch lights and there comes Tanner just as happy as could be strolling back to the house. It was threatening to Thunderstorm so I put her into the old chicken coop (still is dry and has straw bedding on the floor, she can play with the mice)  and Tanner back into his pen, all was quiet till morning. Sasha had to have her yard fixed again and then I put her back into it, Tanner was snoozing on the bed I had made for him so he was happy and warm.

Other things (not dog fun)

In this picture mom with 3 babies, The third is hidden in the grass on the road,
Even looking at them from a few feet they are hard buggers to see!
#4 is out of frame on the other side of the road,
and dad was doing the broken wing thing behind us!

The Killdeer have shown up with 4 babies in tow. Makes me feel good, but I am still upset that they left the one nest in the garden with the 3 eggs.

The woodticks are worse than ever. If there was ever a pestilence for the bible it would have to be the damm ticks!










The ladyslippers are starting to bloom, some of the wild flowers are blooming and the wild strawberries (yum) are in full bloom everywhere!!!

Kyle's Mom found someone to rent the pasture out to and they are busily fixing the fencing everywhere. Nice couple, they pop in to say hi when they are around.

Marianne and I have cleaned out the big shed for the yardsale. We had 2 fires like this to get rid of all the garbage that was in there! Approximately ten years of sitting in a musty shed with skunks, squirrels and mice having their way in all the stuff. Hopefully the yardsale will begin this weekend, we have put it off for 3 weeks now since the first try.

This is how I deal with the rodent infested garbage
that was left in the shed

Last shots:

Cranes in the road,
I am thinking of nicknaming them Kyle and Dayna!
Yes the boy does have a girlfriend now!
Let the teasing commence!

Little Yellow Butterflies
are everywhere now!

HUGE fly on the house,
Does that make him a house fly?

Let's play find the Baby Pete bird!

Mitza cat in the laundry basket, she is asking;
"HEY where is the warm clean clothes that are supposed
to be in here for me to curl up in!"

OH look it is RAINING again!

Final thoughts, I am still working on the forthcoming "Calgary story" It will be visible in the top of the blog page with the links to the other pages. Also I am going to put together a couple of collection pages to show off some of the pictures that did not make the cut to the blog, as well as ones that did.

I am kicking around an Idea of posting every other week. Keeping the Inverted cow more up to date, I guess. Some people have asked about the next post. So to give you an Idea this is the first half of the post, Ordinarily I would edit in the remainder of the month, But I will put a break in here and then I need YOU to let me know how you like or don't like the Idea of the twice a month post. 


The whole Idea of writing the Inverted cow blog, was to let people have a laugh or two and to have them gain an understanding of what is involved in taking an old farm and turning it into a self sustaining home. 


I write updates on the blog on Myspace and I have my unofficial web store for Watkins. Marianne and Carolynn work on the Chana site plus have stuff on Etzy. The ads and the links posted on the top are all so I can work on this and not have to go back to a 65 hr per week job to pay the bills. The point is to attract people here so I can get more business, and make a few pennies. If you Think that you would read the blog if it was posted more than once a month please let me know and please tell your friends or share it or whatever you feel that you would like to do to help out! 


I now return you to the Inverted cow!


June (part two)


Pestilence: Something evil and destructive. 
Pest: a destructive animal, especially an insect. 

Mystery bug of the month:
 About the size and body shape of a moth
but with wings like a fly!

June's second half started out with an increase of pests. I have little green caterpillars eating my blue spruce in the front yard that is striving to stay alive. According to some folks from around here these caterpillars will eat everything. The horseflies and woodticks are very bad this year. As are the Junebugs (little black beetles with a red spot in the middle of its back). I also have these big ugly fat beetles that seem to love to drown in the rainbarrel. Nothing says love like waking up in the middle of the night with a spider, or some insect walking over your body. YUCK!!

Biker Frog!
He went for a ride with me
when I took the dogs for a run to the beaver pond and back.

FROGS!
Oh yes with the increase in bugs we got an increase in frogs! You cannot move anything without finding one or two of them hiding in the shade or sunning themselves on part of it. Mow the grass and you have little things hopping every which way.  They are also getting BIG no more just little things the size of my thumb but things almost the size of a child's hand!

Dumber and Dumb respectively  

Tanner and Sasha finally went home. Marianne was missing Tanner about a day later. I guess she got accustomed to the big dummy. Now she wants another one. (I cannot afford it yet). 

The Yard Sale FINALLY!

After the dogs went home we got cracking on the yard sale. Up to this point we were farting around with it, walk the dog, work online, clean the yard, sort some junk out. After, it was update online, then get outside and work on cleaning things up and getting ready.  We STILL have tons of work to do before I am totally happy but we got to get it rolling now. Unfortunately with the flooding still going on most people are NOT out shopping for yard sales. We did not do much in business but I did get a chance to chat with some of the locals. On the plus side the yard is starting to look like someone lives here and cares about the place. You wouldn't recognize it from a year ago when we first arrived.  

From this ....

To this!

When we arrived it looked like this

Now it looks like this,
(picture taken for Yard Sale)

Last things I tried to get a picture of the Killdeer babies, but the little buggers run too quick. The parents are not doing the broken wing dance anymore cause the kids are motoring way too fast. So I attempted to shoot a bit of a video with the ol camera (the batteries died before I got much good footage, so this is it!) Sorry about the quality but I am walking along with a camera in one hand with the zoom maxed out trying to get a bit of footage of baby birds running away from us. It is not a handicam or video cam of any sort.

Also the first of the Browneyed Suzies and the Tigerlillies are popping up everywhere.  So are butterflies.

Brown Eyed Suzie

Tigerlilly 

Bear print (my hand shown for size) on the road by our house.

Wild Flowers 

Last words: Please comment, Message me, Facebook or twitter me, Email me or send me smoke signals. But please let me know if you want to see the inverted cow posted more frequently (twice a month) or keep it at one post a month. Also Please feel free to share, comment or explore the site. Thanks =o)  (it just makes me feel better when I know someone is reading the stuff I post online.) 

Time now for C[_] (coffee)!