Do cows and clouds have anything in common?
Not really. Except they both photograph beautifully! And it is calming to watch them move across the landscape.
I wonder if there is a cloud app that I can aim at the sky and identify clouds. That could be handy.
Here is a little video for you.
The dominant duck is often seen with his head up. Watching for trouble while the others sleep.
Even with a whole lot of continuous thinning the weed in the pig garden is very thick.
Today we begin to build the pig pen in earnest. And carefully so as to preserve the growth. The velvet weed will look like a tall dense jungle to the little black pigs. I am calling it shade. The PopPops will run around under this canopy and do very well I think. Once they start to forage I won’t need to be pulling weeds and grass (and cutting apples and bananas) to carry to them.
The next batch of barn swallows are calling from their nests.
Though they make a mess (the pooping thing again) they eat piles of flies so they are friends in my barn.
More baby birds.
We have taken hens off a number of nests this summer but this hen must have had a really good hiding place and hatched out 6 chicks.
Naked Ladies
Good morning.
Today is Tuesday here, which is my farm helper day.
So I had better get my thoughts in list order. There is always just enough pressure to keep us moving at speed.
My list looks something like this:
A few of these are long standing jobs like repairing the back of the chook house after Jude took off some panels to have a look inside!
Having helpers has increased the farm productivity and efficiency enormously.
And now that I have my list I had better get on with it!
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
32 responses to “Cows and Clouds”
Both so Moooving!
Calm and cute!
Ha! You are so funny!’
Cows and clouds go together well. I think you have a winning team with the helpers, and some lovely companionship. #1 on the chore list- who is going into the Mad Kings garden? I thought that was off limits to anyone but himself!
We have asked him if we can have it for the Charlottes. It is totally overgrown! He has agreed but there is a years of detritus that needs clearing out before my pigs go in there.
I see- glad he has seen the light and the benefit of not having to clear it himself 😉 The Charlottes should be in heaven once the non-edibles are gone!
There is so much fodder in there.
I’m alwas pleasantly amazed by the way my wild ducks take it in turns to look out for foxes.
It is good to know their wild instincts are still intact.
They live in parks and gardens and there are hundreds of foxes in this area. There was a very mild wet winter and the fox, mouse and rat populations have doubled!
Oops. That’s not ideal.
It probably applies to the ducks as well 😉
I love cows and clouds too. The barn swallows are adorable. xo
Love those baby birds with their mouths all open! They look like they’re singing. I’m a huge fan of clouds–no pure blue sky lover here. Of course, it’s relatively rare to have a cloudless sky here so I’ve come to appreciate the variety of shapes, colors and layers of the clouds.
glad you have your helpers to help you with your list
Yes! I do. It literally halves my work. I am so grateful .
Cows, clouds, pigs, chickens, humans, ducks, dogs, plants and clouds all are mostly water. It’s the major commonality about this planet. Water is the major thing, it’s ice, liquid and vapor, all life forms use it, all have it in common. We don’t see it as water but it’s there, more than half of our body is water, about 75% for infants, 65% for children, 60% for men, 55% for women less if the person is overweight instead of lean. The same is likely for most mammals. So cows and clouds have that in common.
Today we had a juvenile Red-bellied Woodpecker on the oak tree outside the window, joined by a Downy Woodpecker and a White-breasted Nuthatch all looking for bugs and grubs in the bark. The groundhog has been busy eating the grass and weeds near the fence. The kitten disappeared a couple weeks ago.
I miss having open sky, lots of trees here and no open vistas until you get out of town and can see across the farm fields.
You drew a wonderful parallel between clouds and cows! I am a 55% person – I think! So if a person is overweight they have less water-mass in their bodies?
Yes, weirdly the fatter you are the less water your body contains. I couldn’t find specifics but I’m sure there’s a bottom limit to how much water a human body contains no matter how much fat it carries. Lean muscle carries more water. I suspect that carries for all mammals.
Huh. This is really useful info.
Maybe you could write a guest post on your research!!
I’ll think about it. We’re having some significant trouble with my granddaughter at present.
Oh. That’s a worry. Families!!
It got way too serious way too fast and there’s a toddler in the middle of the insanity who nees to be protected. Toddlers are time consuming and exhausting at mu age.
Another perspective on water https://kateshrewsday.com/2024/08/01/mind-like-water/
Clouds! Yes – a bit of an obsession of mine. I have learned to watch for the cirrus clouds … and the direction they are moving. They are great predictors of rain in the next 24 hours. Now that we are living next to Lake Ontario with a ‘high rise’ view of the sky it has been entertaining to watch the cumulunimbus clouds. Those are the high stacked clouds that can look like they have ‘hammerhead’ tops. They are often storms moving across the landscape. I noticed last week there is a ‘Clouds’ group on FB. I joined and have been enjoying the photographs and explanations.
Your query about an app for identifying clouds got me curious. I think you have an Apple phone? I found a great one – ‘The Field Guide to Clouds’! It is free. And educational app produced by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). I love that the app’s main page is a column of photos of the different cloud types. You can scan the sky – match on the list – and see what they portend!
Curiosity – a good thing!
Yes!! That’s the app I want! Thank you so much. I shall look for it. Maybe we should get you to do a guest post on clouds!
Are you still looking for guests? I would be interested in chronicling my great ‘Egg Hunt’. After having had my own chickens I just cannot bring myself to eat eggs from hens who have lived in cramped cages… It is quite the task looking for free range eggs when you shop in the city. I have a line on two farms that sell at the Farmers’ Markets and will be checking them out this week. I didn’t know much about the different labels on cartons – enriched housing (not much), cage free (still cramped just by the thousands) and free range, and pasture fed. Going to find some free range pasture fed chickens one way or another!
Oh yes!!
Let’s do that! It would be a great guest post. Email me and we will talk further!
Barn Swallows are awesome flyers and eaters.
Yes! Between them all they are eating pounds of flies. Yet still they come – the flies!
Love seeing the baby birds. So cute!
Aren’t they though!!
I have a bumper crop of swallows this year, the horses and donkey are a bit speckled with poop. I like them and so far this year I don’t have a territorial one dive bombing my head.