Around the Farm--This and That

Life for the ducks has been the best of times lately with water, water everywhere.  We've had a pair of mallards hanging out in one of our pastures for at least a couple of weeks.  

If I scare them off, while attempting to get a closer picture, they simply launch in unison, quack a lot and then come in for a landing in another wet spot on the place.  The pasture, though, serves as home base, at least as long as it keeps raining and supplying them ample swimming areas.

Yesterday I had a chance to walk around most of the place----dogless.  

One does need that liberty from time to time.  I love my doggies big time, but as the rains continue, I grow less fond of each new layer of wet and muck that lands on my clothes every time I take the dogs out for play time. 

So, occasionally, an escape from those very active wet paws is nice.  The only problem with the walk around the place-----wet pant legs.  No matter how much I tried to pull them up while walking through new deposits of fresh rain water, they still got wet. 

And, then, at the end of the walk, when I opened the dog run gate, those three sets of front paws more than made up for what I'd missed during my dog-free walk.  

There's no winning with clothing during this time of year, and the washer and dryer have been working overtime. 

Too bad Mother Nature doesn't supply some better means of drying when she dumps all that wet stuff all over the ground.  I think my horses would really appreciate something that could take care of the ever-increasing amounts of mud and yucky lakes which they have to slog through day in and day out in their barnyard.

Anyway, this year's typical March is doing its thing, and we're moving on to more busyness associated with spring, including watching all those baby plants grow inside the greenhouse and attending to outside projects not affected by rain or mud. 

This weekend I have stand-up cedar planters coming---eight of them!  I finally bit the bullet and decided that weeding while standing up sure beats weeding while bending over. Plus, I might just weed more often.  

So, in the next couple of weeks, the garden will go through a transformation, including a newer higher, more deer-proof fence.    

In the midst of all our spring flinging about the farm, Annie is coming for the weekend.  If her flight comes in on time, and we waste no time getting to the car, we should be walking into my sisters' house just in time for the ZAGS to start playing in Chicago tonight.

It's kinda neat that the game is in Chicago, home to some our family's American roots. I'm hoping that all those cousins back there put out some additional vibes and that by the time we've cleaned up the Second Avenue Pizza for our game-night dinner, we'll be looking forward to the Elite Eight!

In other news, at this time, the whereabouts of the two fugitives who ditched their car and hid out not far from my sisters' house is still not known.  We do know that they remained in that area at least through yesterday afternoon when a Toyota double cab pickup disappeared from a residence north of where they ditched their Suburu the day before. 

At this time, we all hope that this situation will end peacefully.  Time will tell. 

For now, we remain vigilant and ready to move on with the events of the day, hoping that it will end raucously at my sisters' house with ZAGS moving on toward the Final Four.  

GO, ZAGS!  Happy Friday. 

One day this week, when we had dry weather for a few hours, I did some painting.  The fence looks good but the horse shoe near the fence definitely has a new look.