An unexplained fever in the middle of tick season? I’ll be watching his wrists and ankles for spots, which would indicate Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a gift from ticks. More unlikely, it could be Lyme disease, although he doesn’t have the bulls eye pattern (I do realize that not everyone gets that pattern).
Or it could be that he inhaled too much chlorinated water at the pool, and simply has a depressed immunity right now. It’s hard to know, but easy to imagine the worst.
In the afternoon, we headed to the Bessettes for a short time for a pool party. Pool-hater Abraham refused to get in, but sat watching Jadon and Isaiah as they frolicked in the water. I admired Michelle’s garden; it’s coming along very nicely. And I got to see their adorable little heifer calf. She’s fawn colored, with white circles on her back.
On the way to the Bessettes, we waited for old, almost-deaf Chloe-the-dog to come with us. Her hearing is so bad, she doesn’t come when called, but if Phil turns on the truck, she hears the rumble and comes loping along. We realized that she is 13 today! We thought a year and a half ago that she was in imminent danger of death, but she keeps on keeping on.
I made a double batch of peanut butter cookies (1 C. peanut butter, 1 C. sugar, 1 egg, baked at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes) to celebrate. I didn’t give any to her, though; they were too yummy for that!
In sad tree news, I found many of the Stark Brothers trees covered with a beetle pest. Beautiful, jewel-tone beetles, that totally defoliated several trees.
My Cummins Nursery trees, thankfully the vast majority of my orchard, appear to be doing just fine. Buy beautiful fruit trees, for an unbeatable price, from Cummins!
We had hoped to attempt to artificially inseminate Fern today, but our ordered semen didn’t arrive in time. We think she was in heat, as she tried to mount one of the other cows, but it certainly wasn’t as obvious as three weeks ago. I think the heat (temperature) saps the energy for heat (breeding).
And our pancake patch (field of spelt) is close to harvest-ready: a little field of gold.
I think those are Japanese Beetles and they are awful. We have to be quick to beat them to the wild blackberries at our place. If you see them on the trees, you can [in the cool of the morning] get a pail of soapy water and then just knock them into it. They die pretty quickly, then you can just dump the water on the ground.
ReplyDeleteIf you get the lures that lure them away from your trees [they have some sort of phenome [not sure of spelling] or something] put it on the far side of your property. If you just put it a ways away you will lure every Japanese beetle within 1/2 mile to your place, and that is not good.