Another Day...

We have had a couple of people ask us recently about what kind of dogs that we have. Here is a picture of our two dogs. Southern Star and Southern Belle or Star and Belle for short. Star is on the right. She is the best dog that I have ever been around. She is truly part of the family. Belle is her daughter and she is OK, but she is not the same GREAT dog that Star is. They are my buddies on the farm. If I am in the garden or somewhere outside doing something, they are usually pretty close lying in the shade if available. They are very protective of me for which I am grateful.

When I originally planted my birdhouse gourds, I was SO disappointed that only 2 plants came up. My friend who had grown them before told me that those two plants would fill my tepee that I had planted them by. Well, it more than filled the tepee and the entire garden around them. They are growing all through the leaves and stalks of my sunflowers. This is a picture of one hanging among the sunflower leaves. If all the gourds that are on there ripen and I am able to harvest them, I will have birdhouse gourds to paint and work with through next summer. They are EVERYWHERE!!! =)

The neighbor children (we also fellowship and worship with this family) are like grandchildren to me. They love to share things with me and I love to share things with them. They found a bunch of Monarch butterfly caterpillars and were keeping them in a jar. They have done this many times and watched their butterflies take flight to places unknown. I commented that I had never done that and that it would be neat. Well, here they came with milkweed leaves and caterpillars. I killed the first three and none of us know how or why (that makes me a caterpillar killer). Then they brought me George. George ate and ate and ate. I found a website that tells about the life cycle of this species. It said that one of these caterpillars can consume an entire milkweed leaf in 4 minutes. You can see each day how it has grown. It is incredible. Well, George is now in his chrysalis and that is what you see in the third picture. George's buddy is still eating milkweed leaves.

I wish this picture showed up better. Do you see the REALLY tall sunflower? One night after dark I was out in the goat shed milking. I saw something in the upstairs window and could not figure out what it was. No one was in the house and this room is an extra that is not used. Well, it turns out it was this sunflower and it was too dark for me to figure that out. The windows behind it are the second story windows. The last picture is of the first sunflower that bloomed. It had one bloom at the time. It put out flowers on the same stalk facing in all directions. It is really neat looking.

Well, I need to get going. I have tomatoes to do today. There are actually a lot more to pick already, but I need to deal with what is already in the house. I would also like to get some apples here sometime soon. I will be making applesauce and apple pie in a jar.