That Rural Life

66°f/19°C, humid, partly cloudy, storms maybe later.

Random photos from the past few weeks.

This week, the hay has been put up here on our ridge. The Hinzmans work together, three or four families helping in the mowing, tending, raking, baling and storing the hay. It's hard work, as any of you who have done it know. I admit, I do not miss it at all. My job, when we first started putting g up hay, was stacking the bales in the field for easier loading in the truck. 

You might be able to tell from this photo how steep these fields are. The truck couldn't drive some of it, and honestly it's not really safe on most of it. When my boys got old enough to stack the bales, I began driving the truck--just a pickup because anything bigger was not a good idea, and it took four-wheel drive in low low gear to crawl across the hill while the bales are thrown on and stacked by a boy in back of the truck. The angle of the truck was pretty steep, which meant I had to drive at a very steady pace or the truck would slip down the hill. 

Stacking was tricky too, because as the truck turned and came back the other way, the bales could fall out if not placed in just the right way. I remember once coming down our driveway to the barn and seeing bales and boys flying over the side. Heart-stopping, but everyone was okay, thank goodness. Those boys were tough! Nowadays, the Hinzmans cut and keep hay from our little field, and they are welcome to it.

On the way to a yard sale on our son's road, we passed the large watershed lake. Many people were fishing on this hot day.

Everywhere around our county, haying is in full swing. 

The ridge before being cut.

A friend gave me a start of this Annabelle hydrangea. It has grown very quickly, and I have taken several starts from it for friends, plus moved a couple into places in our gardens.

We picked strawberries a couple weeks ago, and I froze them for later use. This little capper, which came in a box of auction junk, is the bomb!

Yesterday I made potato leek soup and canned it. To use, I will just heat up, use the immersion blender, and add milk. Yum. 12 quarts will last til the next leek crop. Seeds for that planting are already sprouting in a pot on the porch.

Changed out to my June teacup because you know, Rose Month.

In town, someone planted this patch of wildflowers which seems to be thriving despite the less than ideal location. 

We meet up with a couple friends for lunch on Wednesday,  and picked up all this lovely blue glass from another friend who saw it at a church sale and knew I would want it. She was right! It's mostly Fenton, with a few pieces of Viking and a couple that I think are Early American Pattern Glass. The dark purple in front was a Goodwill find, and it's Blenko. All West Virginia glass, except the EAPG, of course. 

This sign was discarded beside the library, and they gave Larry permission to take it. It certainly puzzles people to see it in our driveway! The white post it to try to keep Larry from hitting the sign--- he has terrible parameter perception,  as our poor vehicles show. So many little scrapes and unexplained dents!

Ah, mornings. Is there anything lovelier than morning in the country?

You can't have a post about rural living without mentioning dogs! So here's a dog story: Buddy killed his third copperhead this week! He has killed one each year he has lived here, and it terrifies me and makes me grateful at the same time. I am so afraid he will get bitten,  but he seems to know instinctively how to attack them, and relished the job, throwing the snakes into the air like Frisbees, and even shaking them so hard he literally breaks their heads off. It must be in his DNA.  With so much forest and rocks around us, copperheads are almost inevitable,  but we rarely see them. Buddy seems to know how to sniff them out. Scary.

Little Boy, on the other hand, has been skunked again. He seems to be getting smarter about it, getting only a light spray this time. Thank goodness. Apparently we own a snake dog and a skunk dog. Lucky us.

Speaking of skunks, a former daughter-in-law posted a video of a skunk in her yard spraying a big raccoon right in the face. And that raccoon came back and got a second dose! Crazy.

So there---dogs and skunks and snakes and raccoons. My post is complete!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.