Yellowjackets!

This evening, Bernie discovered that you don't mow fields without proper protection.

It is a lesson that he will not soon forget! Now, experienced farmers know this... And, Bernie is now a (more) experienced farmer!

The drama unfolded on the back field out by the pond. He was mowing on a particularly steep and nasty slope when he felt something odd. At first, he thought it was a horse fly, or maybe a bee sting! Soon, the truth became painfully clear -he was surrounded by swarming yellowjackets. Fortunately, before running for it, he kept his head enough to turn off the tractor and set the parking break.

A neighbor heard the screaming and came running to see what was up. He thought the tractor had turned over. But no, there was just a big ball of swarming yellow jackets in the field and Bernie, standing farther away, wondering if he had really out run them!

It is now 3 hours later, and he is no worse for the wear other than a (really really) nasty headache and lots of other aches and pains and pains and aches. He got at least 9 stings in the head, including the inside nose, on an eyelid, and both ears (inside and out!). There are other stings on his back and arms, so the total count is probably around 15. It is hard to say because some of them blend together...

So, the moral of the story is, dress like Crocodile Dundee when mowing fields!

A sad day...

08:30

09:30

10:00

Snake Nest (just eggs and dead baby snakes)

It seems to have been planted when the house was built!

10:30

The roots were indeed gone on the scary side... The big hole is in the part that was keeping it from falling into the house!

11:00

We got very lucky! The stump is not supposed to just pop out with the Bobcat, but this one did...

3:00 that afternoon

We also had the crabapple pruned

It is more pleased with the new "look" than the Maple! It decided to bloom!

You can see more of the whole unfortunate event here.

Peach Pie

I think we all deserved a nice dinner after all this work. The Lasagne were very good and then we had an homemade peach pie. Thanks mamma and grandmaduck!

Miscellaneous

The gate to the old barn

The frog

Kaa The snake

Historic Poop...

Our house come with a 3 stalls barn.  We finally started working on it a couple of weeks ago, but this week-end we really got into it.  The 3 stalls come with about 10 years of accumulated historic poop!  Bernie and I got two of the stalls completely clean and the 3rd is our work in progress... Pictures show the progress, I hope!

Our tree!

One of the things we liked about the house was this ancient and very beautiful maple tree.  It's the same one that the big branch fell off of a few weeks ago... Unfortunately, after a big rain, we noticed that the roots were lifting up and that it was slowly tilting towards the house.  We called two experts, and they both agree that we should take it down or risk a hole in the house!  Tuesday the beautiful tree will go, we are glad we got the chance to enjoy quite few meals under his shade... We will miss it! We will plant another, but it will be 100 years before it looks like this one did (before the big branch fell off that is)!

Let's check the cabinets!

Well they brought me into this new house - mind you this is the 3rd place in less than 4 months - and I do need to check that the
cabinets look ok: you never know what you can find in it!

Spritz is high!

Around the barn Francesca found this weed that seems a wild type of mint...  The humans put some to dry on the dining table...  I decided to give it a try tonight, and have been a little loopy for the last hour or so!  The humans hope that I don't get sick!

Barn cleaning, wood chopping and lawn mowing

This week-end we started cleaning the barn and the area around... We found an apple tree with some nice apples.... unfortunately I cannot say the same for the taste.. We almost completely cleaned the 'historic' poop from one of the stalls.... Just 2 more to go plus the feed room...
Bernie finished to wood chop the tree limb, and Nicoletta got on the tractor and cut the grass... I have the feeling that she likes it!

Wood chopping!

With all the trees that we have I think it is normal to have some wood chopping.  When we got here there was a branch from the big tree behind the house that was down, and another tree trunk on the lawn.  Bernie bought one small chain saw - after all there were just these two to cut!  I can honestly say that has been the most used piece of equipment!  We had to cut our magnolia at the entrance, and then  he had to cut in pieces the big branch that came down last week.  And by the way he got the full 'uniform'!

Baby Tractor, Daddy Tractor

The title says it all: one is ours, the other is the one we used to bush hog the fields!

Ferragosto!

In Italy, August 15 is both a catholic holiday but also the celebration of summer....  People goes to the beach, usually lunch is a big lunch with Pasta and Ragu', a tradition in Rome....

We celebrated Ferragosto this year, by cleaning the top of the barn: 4 nice loads of hay with a mix of volture poop....  Here it is Bernie and I ready to go showel!  Buon Ferragosto everyone!

... is not all about work!

I believe the picture says it all!

Nicoletta the tractor driver

The property is so big that we all have to pitch in: here is Nicoletta in action, cutting the grass with our tractor.

Trees

The property came with many, many trees of all kinds: spruce, blue spruce, crab apples, dutch elm, walnuts just to name a few.  The one that we really like is the dutch elm.... it is probably the oldest tree, don't know if older than the house...  But it has also been a source of worries, since it does not look really healthy and there was one branch especially that we thought was going to come down sooner or later.... Well, it got to be sooner!  Last Thursday we got some big storms in the morning, and we suddenly heard a loud noise: the big branch come down. Luckily, it crashed a patio chair and a bench, instead of putting a nice hole in the house... 

Bernie the farmer

With all the work around the farm, we had to get the right clothes to handle the job.... Here is
Bernie trying on a nice pair of Bib Overalls.... Doesn't he look good?

a new friend, maybe?

3 in the morning about a week ago, Bernie wakes me up - risking his life... A bat was flying solo in our bedroom! Not sure how I did not scream my soul out, but with lots of courage and a pillow over my head I went down to my mom's bedroom.  Bernie stayed up stair to try to evict the bat, without success! The bat had won this round... 

Welcome to the Lodge

About 4 month after getting a contract, after 2 house moves, a knee surgery and an hotel stay, we moved into our 'new' old house.  Our closest neighbor was a turkey vulture family: they lived in our barn as we discovered right away.  This is the picture of 'mama' volture checking the fields from 'her' window

Vultures

So... Our barn came with a family of vultures. At first we thought there were two. So, I talked to a Senior Farmer at work, and he asked if I had a shot gun (it turns out that this is a very illegal and expensive solution -so don't do it!)... I said no, but I did have a staple gun. After a bit of talking to the Senior Farmer, it emerged that it was important to make sure that there were no chicks before using the staple gun and chicken wire to carry out "The Eviction".

So, next day, I looked in only to find -two white, fluffy, and very very stinky vulture chicks! We therefore decided to wait... One day, I noticed four vultures flying about the barn yard. Upon checking the roost, I found indeed that our cute little chicks had literally "flown the coop." So... staple gun in hand, I rapidly sealed all the holes.

For a few days, we had four very sad looking vultures hanging about the barn yard, but not in the barn. One might ask how I know that they were sad? Well, they looked pretty sad. After a while, though, they left. Every now and then we see them flying high, but they are no longer in our barn!

How it all started

... it snowed during the week-end, and Nicoletta did not want to clean her car. Therefore we decided to sell our town homes with limited garage space, and buy a single house with enough garage space for all 4 cars.  In addition, Francesca 'needed' some land for the horses, and Bernie was tired of living in Baltimore where he couldn't really ride his bike.  We started looking in January and by mid-February we had found 'the Lodge'.... Only issue there is no garage at all, but we will deal with it!