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We have a 13 acre pasture that previously was kept chewed down by horses, but now requires regular mowing - 2 or 3 times a year, depending upon how much I want to mow.  This year I delayed my mowing until early July to give the nesting birds a chance.

For a couple of weeks we had been seeing a doe in early morning and evening come to the tall grass just below the pond below our house.  I was pretty certain she had a fawn hidden there.  I had not seen the doe for the past week and now I know why - she had moved her fawn into our pasture.

I had mowed about 6 of the acres and Sunday I was prepared to finish the mowing.  I took one swipe along the exposed edge and saw a small fawn run deeper into the grass.  So I avoided mowing that area any further and went to the opposite corner of the pasture where momma deer heard the approaching tractor, popped up her head and took off for the neighboring pasture.

I mowed all but the section I thought the fawn occupied and then recruited searching help.  Eric, Kathryn and I searched all through the remaining tall grass in hopes we could ‘herd’ the fawn towards the neighboring pasture.

No luck, so I carefully mowed the remaining swatch and decided it was a mystery.

Upon leaving the pasture I drove by this thin line of tall grass which filled a swale I deemed too wet to mow.  Out popped the fawn who ran back to the area where I first spotted him/her.  The fawn sniffed around trying to find it’s previous hiding place.  As I left the field the fawn returned to the swale and laid down to await further instructions from momma deer later that evening.

We did a lot of home projects over our holiday weekend.  Friday I mowed all our lawns while Kathryn and Eric went shopping.  Saturday we went to the family picnic at Mark & Danielle’s new home.  It was windy, but the temperatures were moderate - especially when the sun was out.  We played boccie, extreme croquet and took a short hike on the Poison Ivy Path.  Below Nathan and Eric join the big boys for some lawn boccie.

Matt, Mark, Frank, Cody, Nathan, Eric and I used the whole lawn for some extreme croquet.  The game lacked a little something which I attribute to the sprawled out nature of the course (note to self: next time compact the course to increase the potential for collisions); the “I’ll knock you through the wicket” approach taken by a certain pair of brothers; and finally, my own “the game be damned- I will get them for that” strategy that had me break course and go head hunting (note to self: head hunting ruins the game for the head huntee).

Saturday we worked cutting wood in “cookout corner” - our picnic grounds in the 40 acre wood across the road.  We mostly dead wood and had a small cook fire to roast hot dogs and marshmellows.

In the afternoon we went to Syracuse and delivered Izzabella’s birthday presents.  We hung out at the park with Ed, Kelly and Bella.  Eric and Bella worked out the swings -

while Ed and Kathryn debated the new world order.

Below Bella models her crown and earrings that Eric gave her.

Monday morning we went birding.  We took the call tape for the golden winged warbler and blue winged warbler across the road and called in a Brewster’s or Blue Winged warbler.  Later Kathryn packed for their trip to Seattle and I worked on a new trail through our woods.  The “Ridge Trail” forms a connection between our new Trillium Trail and the Musical Rocks Trail.  I moved the downed tree tops and brush to a point that I could get my tractor and brush hog through.  Then I mowed the trails through the woods.  I capped off the night by taking Ibuprofen and hitting the hot tub.

Last week Barb and Joe found a Eastern Painted Turtle hatchling - probably only 2-3 days old.   He was tiny and likely destined as a food source.  They asked Eric to raise the turtle until he was a little older and had a better chance at survival.  Eric named the turtle Painter and after a copy of fretful days he/she has started to eat.  Painter ignored the fruit: blueberries and strawberries but took tiny bites of soaked dogfood and a bite of an orange.  Yesterday while Kathryn was working home alone she said she could hear the faintest sound of smacking and looked to see Painter eating a mouthful of dogfood.

In the picture above Painter is in ‘basking’ mode.  At night Painter hides under the vegetation.

We took an early morning walk around our property Sunday morning starting at the garden. We have three rows of peas coming up. This weekend I put up hog panel fence for the to climb and mulched between the rows with horse manure.

Below the garden there were two Canada geese swimming in my neighbor’s pond. You can also see that we decimated the rhubarb as we cut a shopping bag full prior to the walk.

We checked out the lilacs and tulips growing below.

We walked across the road and heard/saw a variety of birds including Orioles, Oven birds, a drumming grouse, and the most exciting- a blue winged warbler or a Brewster’s Warbler - the blue-winged/golden winged hybrid. Kathryn has plans to return with her warbler calls and get a visual confirmation.

We found purple trillium in blossom.

The apple trees were in full blossom.

We saw two Orioles and have had Orioles coming to our oranges to feed. But with the caterpillars coming out the Orioles will soon switch to this food source.

Thanks for coming along

Kathryn and I went for a nice walk on Friday.  We heard and saw Canada Geese circling around our ponds looking for open water.  We saw robins on our property.  On our snowshoe hike we followed a set of raccoon tracks where he went exploring during the warm weather.

We saw otter slides in the snow along the stream.

We had robins and killdeer on our property this weekend!

Kathryn made a dozen eggs which Kathryn, Eric and I colored on Friday night.