Summer on the farm

After healing from the terrible antler scruffing a deer gave our baby Linden tree,(Don announced he did not think our Linden tree was going to make it, due to all the bark being 'eaten' off by some animal) it survived and was loaded with the sweetest smelling flowers this summer.
I did not have time to make tea with the blossoms this time, but look forward to leisurely cups of tea next season. Woo Hoo! I no longer have to make hay. I guess that is one thing good about getting old.

Fred collects Alles Chalmers tractors, and likes to play with them in his 'big sand box'. He was cutting and baling our water way grasses, and several farm folks with small bits of hay and grass ground asked him to cut and bale their hay. Large operators want no part of dinking around with small patches of ground, so Fred has found a nitch to play around with his old equipment.

He feeds some of his hay to these guys. Perhaps they will be big enough for the freezer late this fall. He feeds some of the hay to our (his) 4 horses. But he seems to have a little left to bargain with. It is a nice hobby and would be better if he did not have hay fever.

During our farming years I really hated hay making for the herd of Brown Swiss Dairy Cows. It seemed a lightening and thunderstorm would come up as we had all the wagons loaded with baled hay. No way could we leave them out in the yard to get rained on. Many times I would be on the wagon, throwing those bales into the conveyer with lightening much closer then I had ever wanted to see it. Yep, I am ever so glad those days are behind me, and I survived.