by 
Sunrise over SA
July 10 Our 4th of July was uneventful since we had celebrated Independence Day the Saturday prior. First Abigail then Rebecca came down with a bug so the SA crew was never at full strength the first week of the month. This week we were at full strength and have been hard at mowing, trimming and weeding. Most mornings we have been starting our day at 7 a.m. and weeding in the garden until about 8:45 but this morning we had a hard time finding any weeds, so we moved on to other things by 7:30. Certainly there are plenty of weeds elsewhere on the place to keep us busy. Abigail and Rebecca have the place about 3/4s mowed and I’m in no hurry to mow the pasture or meadow. We should get after the weeds and maybe get them under control.
No sign of ducklings yet.
Rebecca started her internship Monay, July 1, then promptly had to call in sick the rest of the week. This week she was able to resume her work with the veterinarians. She works 1 to 5, I think.
July 14 Hot and dry weather continues. With mowing caught up, we can concentrate on weeds. It will just be Rebecca and me for a couple of weeks after this week. Abigail will be in Switzerland with her father visiting her grandparents.
Week before last when we were working at the Bluff, Abigail and I cleaned up the mower by blowing out the accumulated grass and checked it out. We determined that it was due an oil change. I picked oil and oil filter up when running errands this week and arranged for Doc to perform the service, which included putting on new blades, the old ones being pretty well shot. Doc also serviced the hand mower. The big mower only has about 130 hours on it and the service interval for things like spark plugs is 200-300 hours so the oil change and the blades were the only things needed. Unfortunately, there isn’t someone working for the Bluff knowledgeable enough to do anything more than mow. Hopefully I can keep an eye on things and keep the equipment from falling into disrepair.
July 21 Just when I thought it might not rain again in my lifetime, it did. Saturday morning I was awake early and decided I would start the sprinkler on the southeast tree line. The sprinkler was already set up so all I needed to do was walk down to the shop and turn it on. As soon as I stepped outside, I realized it was raining faintly. I decided to forego turning on the sprinkler and went back to bed. Later when I checked the rain gauge, thinking there might be a tenth or two in it, I was shocked, SHOCKED!, to empty out over an inch and a quarter. We enjoyed the break from watering. Interesting that I was oblivious to the storm. Guess I was getting some serious sleep.
July 28 Still no ducklings. According to the Ducks Unlimited website, mallards eggs, like most duck eggs, take 28 days to hatch. Today is the 28th day since I discovered the nest. Don’t know how long before that the eggs were laid. If the eggs hatch, that should be anytime now.
Rebecca and I have been managing without Abigail but we’ll be glad when she gets back. The rain we got last weekend only resulted in the grass greening up here and there. Except for 2005, there is no pressing need to mow anywhere else. As for weeds, we are close to getting them under control. The prediction for this week is hot and dry so, with any luck, we may get the weeds back to where we don’t have to devote as much time and energy to them. We will, however, be moving sprinklers around.
July 31 Rebecca and I collected a load of limbs and took it to the brush site this morning. Alas, the chickens have defeated me. My little scheme of making dams and tree rings out of twigs that collect in the lanes, while good in theory, just couldn’t compete with the chickens. It was my hope that what moisture we got would pool behind the dams and soak in rather than just running off and, thus, benefit the trees more. It would also save having to load up the twigs and take them to the brush site. However, the chickens liked to scratch in them looking for insects and they thoroughly scatter the twigs and demolish the dams and tree rings. We tried to keep them raked up, but the chickens have us outnumbered so I finally threw in the towel and Rebecca and I loaded up a dam along with larger branches that either fell or were trimmed off. We loaded the dam twigs into a couple of large tubs to make it easier to unload them. That worked pretty well but it will take a lot of trips to the brush site to clean up all the accumulated tree debris. I guess we will take a load of twigs every time we take a load of limbs. Since we don’t often haul off limbs, it will take time to dispose of the twigs. Oh, well.