August 3 We got a shower during the night, but I haven’t checked the gauge. A quarter of an inch fell Thursday night. The grounds crew had plans to make a brush run Friday morning and we determined the rain wasn’t enough to prevent it, so we loaded up the pickup and headed for the brush site. It was two weeks before that we got stuck in the mud there, but we were hoping it had dried out sufficiently to allow us to dump our load. T’wasn’t. Again, we weren’t given any advice about mud when we weighed in, but we saw puddles here and there and when we got to dumping area, we could see it was going to be too muddy, so we turned around and went back home. At the naturalist meeting Monday evening, some of the members from Canyon said they had recently gotten four inches of rain. The brush site must have caught some of that downpour. It is only a few miles west of SA and I think we got a half inch or so. Just shows how spotty rain can be here on the High Plains.

July 6 The rain that fell on SA while we were in Red River really got the grass and forbs going again. Abigail had the place nicely mowed before we left but worked all this week mowing the south end. She will work on the north end this coming week.

Since we celebrated the 4th last Saturday because the Wylies were here, we didn’t do any additional celebrating this week on the 4th. I had hopes of making progress around my house inside and outside, but it didn’t seem like I got any more done than basic maintenance.

June 8 Apparently we have been working under a false sense of security. We believed the chickens were safe enough from predators during daylight hours that they could be allowed to free range. They took full advantage and roamed over the whole place to the point of sometimes straying away from the watchful eye of King Julian the rooster. In the last couple of weeks several hens have gone missing leaving behind only scatterings of feathers. It had been the consensus that a chicken was too big for a fox of the variety we see around SA to handle, and that may be true. It seems, though, that there may be more foxes around and less food, so that the foxes have learned to work together and that two or more can in fact overwhelm and consume a chicken. The chickens are no longer allowed to free-range, which is not popular with the chickens or the humans that care for them. It remains to be seen if that is a permanent solution.

May 4 The first king bird of the season was seen perched on a telephone wire close to the shop. The next day, the first hummingbird of the season visited the feeder in front of 1911. Kari saw one in the garden a day or two before. All the trees are leafed out in their Sunday best. SA has gotten more rain this April than any April in the last 17 years, over three inches. We are being challenged to keep the place mowed and trimmed. We never turn down rain in Potter County, but…we wouldn’t mind fewer weeds.

April 8 Much like March, April started off with a little snow, enough to cover the ground good. Friday it rained and kept raining on into early Saturday morning when the rain turned to snow. That kept up until Saturday afternoon. Total we accumulated 1.8 inches of much needed moisture. Abigail and I got some good grounds keeping done early in the week but none from Thursday on. Sunday morning the thermometer stayed above freezing, barely. That was forecast to be the coldest time, so it looks like we dodged a killing freeze yet again.