Zone 5

ONE of the questions that came up in yesterday’s poll was what Zone is the farm in. Excellent question. The USA is so vast that the USDA created Zones which are very useful for us gardeners. We are in Zone 5 but very close to Zone 6.  Right in the middle – so we can expect extreme cold or extreme heat but the temperatures can change by 30 or 40 degrees in a day.

Mr Flowers began to display his tail yesterday so the excess peeling on the shafts of his feathers  is not impeding his performance which is a relief.

The dump truck seems to be a popular place for lounging about.

These three middle sized pigs are behaving very well though their electric fence is not on yet. The little mobile solar charger is still charging up though it is going to be cloudy today. Hmm, We have one pig missing though.  There should be four.

Sheila came out for her walk.

And during Sheila’s afternoon saunter we found the missing pig. She is in heat and would not leave this steer. I took her back three times but she still found a way back to him and made a mess of my fences along the way.

In the end I left her there. Until I get that electric fence up and running she is just going to escape again anyway.

So Sheila and I  and the cats and the dogs walked back up to the barn again.

Where Mournful Moon has turned back up.

Above is the sky in sunset out to the West. Below is light thrown from the sunset into the East.

The reluctant peach-light hung in the air for a long time, before following it’s stretching tether down over the horizon to catch up with the the sun.   In the gathering dark I went out and found the middle sized pig waiting at the gate again and led her back to her sleeping herd. Who knows where they will be this morning. My fence is truly breached and not on the list for this busy day!

I am leaving the poll up for a couple more days. So if you have not voted yet pop in and take the little questionnaire.  It is just a few multi-choice questions about the you and the blog and won’t take longer than a minute to tick the boxes that match your answers.  I will publish the results this weekend.

Warm today again – a high of 70f/21c. The perfect temperature in my humble opinion.

Tomorrow morning I must get up and get going even earlier than usual so I can leave the farm and catch the train then travel up through the big city to the O’Hare International Airport to collect two very special visitors to the farm. Three hours there and three hours travel back. Then add another hour for connections. So tomorrow’s blog will be brief and the following day’s blog may be missing.  Not to worry – I will be back after that.

Have a lovely day.

Love celi