Sping is springing

So I found this today while preparing olive trees for fertilizer. Not sure what it is but it's kind of neat.

Olive trees finally in the ground

Today, finally, I got around to getting olives in the ground.  A wet spring and other vagaries of life pushed back enough to focus on a dedicated project.  Last week I tilled out 3 swaths of ground.  As fulfilling as running the tractor can be it is way more gratifying to quietly dig the ground and plant the trees.  The slice of the steel through the softened earth, quiet of the afternoon, sweat, makes for a good day.  At least 2 more plantings are planned but now to revel in the first.

3 rows all the trees are equidistant at 17 feet from any neighboring tree

Lots and lots of rain

So the past 48 hours has brought first several inches of wet snow, and now torrential rains.  December was record dry but this might catch it up pretty good.  Spent the day clearing gutters and down spouts to get it away from the house.  Just went down to check the creek.  The banks are overfull, the pond is at full pool and 1 of the concrete retaining walls of the spill way is partly collapsed.  I have a new leak in my garage roof.  Whew...fun had by all.

Frosty fog

It has been socked in for the last couple days with freezing fog.  Pretty but kind of chilly...its a wet cold ya know.

This is Layla

So It occurred to me that the last post was kind of a downer... I miss Jada but life moves on.   Here is the new pup for the farm.  This is Layla.  We are going on a year (in February) since we got her.  She came from a shelter that brings dogs from southern California where they put down a lot of animals.  We were told she was boxer mastiff mix-likely the boxer but probably not the mastiff.  The ears point toward American Staffordshire terrier.  But I guess we will never know.

This is her in the first month we had her around

The rest were taken today.

She is a lot "muscleier" now eh?

We have had several sessions of training and she does pretty well.  Unfortunately she is a chicken chaser so doesn't have free run of the place just yet.  She does like chicken poop though...  She is much smaller than we thought she would get but in a way it works better.  She likes riding in the truck and is great at jumping in on her own.  She chases the deer but hasn't caught one yet.  At about 45 pounds she can really pack a wallop at times.

One year ago today...

Jada met her demise on the road in front of the house.  We got Jada while living in Albuquerque NM.  She was a nervous city dog moderately afraid of cars.  We taught her to swim in the Peralta river drain that was Ariel's study site.  She got to do some good hiking along the way.  When we got the farm she kind of was in her element.  She would swim circles in the pond by herself, roam the grounds and likely kept the coyote and deer to the edges, both became problems after she was gone.  She knew to leave the chickens alone, and the cats, but some how manged to find several possums to harass.  She was a good dog.

But she decided that part of her area was the road ditches, full of food wrappers, dead animals and all kinds of good stuff.  She would stop at the gate if we were around, but go on through if we weren't.  In the end she jumped out of the ditch at the wrong time.  She died quick.  The freaked out kid driver stopped and apologized. We buried her near the edge of the pond, possibly her favorite place.


Rest In Peace Jada

Some more chicklets on the ground

Well, Little Red stayed tight and hatched 6 of 7 eggs we gave her.  Nothing from the golf ball...