Getting the garden ready - with MANURE!

The garden is laid out, the beds are tilled, and now it's time to add the manure!

Debra wouldn't let me put manure in the back of her Element. I promised to put down a blue tarp, but she didn't care. So I had to get a hitch and a U-Haul trailer.



It took me awhile to figure out where to get the manure. I was using the Google and the technology, and having no luck. Then when I was riding a lap on the BWI trail last weekend, there it was. Right under my nose the whole time. It's at the county park with the horses by Linwhatever Middle School. They were glad to get rid of the manure, and loaded it up for me with a front loader. Awesome.

The Return of Madame Goat

Madame Goat got bored at home, so she came back. She likes Monkey, I think. They chased each other around the yard awhile. They are buddies. That's not how I expected this to work.

After awhile, Madame Goat came up to the back door.



I let her in. She ate a leaf off my houseplant.



Then she came in more.



She visited the kitchen.



I let her out the front door.



I think it's time to send Madame Goat home and close the gate.

Howard County Living - Whippet vs. Goat

We had a visitor today.



As soon as Monkey saw the goat, he went nuts and charged out of the dog door to defend the homestead. The goat was nonplussed, and continued nibbling on my rose bushes.



Eventually the goat decided to come inside the yard, maybe to get better access to the roses. Monkey was very annoyed. He would charge at the goat barking his head off, and then run and hide behind the Element.



The goat was not taking any guff from Monkey.



I eventually grabbed the goat by the collar and walked him home.

Being cuter than the goat, Max was not concerned.

Max goes to Ohio to visit relatives

Last week I took Max to Ohio to visit his relatives.

He got to meet his grandpa.



And his great-aunt Peggy and great-uncle Jake.



And Aunt Mandy.



He met Aunt Amy and Aunt Kate, but I forgot to get pictures.

And all his cousins: Elle, Nate, Katie, Trey, and Ethan.



And he got to meet his cousin Harry, even though Harry refused to pose with everyone else and hid under the table instead.



Not that Harry minds being photographed.



Little kids should know better to make funny faces when Uncle Drew wants to take a picture. In just a couple years he'll be in school, and some girl in his class is going to have a crush on him, and he'll give her Uncle Drew's instant message address so she'll bug Uncle Drew instead of him, and she will ask if Uncle Drew has any pictures of him, and Uncle Drew will send her the one where he was making funny faces when he was six, and she'll show it to all her classmates, and then he'll be really really mad.

Trey was.

I brought Monkey with me, but nobody noticed.

Big bird update

The birds are onto my feeders big time now.

Here's the view from my big chair. I can see all the action.



In the background is the swamp. It's the floodplain of Deep Run, and it's part of Patapsco Valley State Park. In this picture it's flooded.

Instead of making a blog entry every day to describe the birds I see, I decided to make a Google spreadsheet with the daily sighting. You can click the "Bird sightings" link on the left side of the page to see it.

Debra my wife does not appreciate birds much. She said she would like it if I printed out some pictures of what birds came to the feeder so she could learn which ones are which. Instead I made a Google word document with pictures from the Cornell Ornithology Lab, and links to their species description page. To see that document, click the link to "Debra's Bird Guide".