Barn Update

This is how the barn looked in the evening of Saturday ,July 11 thanx to the help of Jim, Reed and Gary. Thanx guys!

Barn Raising~Bells Orchard Style

Two old men, a jug of water and thou? It was so very hot on the 4th of July! Gary and Lloyd taking a break from the heat on the barn project. Lloyd is wearing the groovy neck cooler that I made for the Trek. I think that is isvery becoming and he said that it helped.

I believe that they were trying for YMCA but it turned out YCMY or YMCY if you are Hebrew. Those Bell boys are fantastic at math but spelling? Jim, Lloyd, Aaron,Reed and Nick Bell with Gary supervising~

Ready, Set, Lift

Back View

Fourth Wall almost there

First wall up~Lloyd, Gary, Rick Rose and Reed

Robin Update

Just an update on the birds. We saw momma robin feeding the babies several times and they were getting bigger andbigger. Dave Andersen came over friday to drop something off, and as he was leaving Lloyd was going to lower the pot/nest down to the ground ,as we had done so many times. As he raised his hands into the air, the two babies FLEW out of the nest, hit the gound running and ran into the bushes!
Momma was hovering in front of Lloyd's face squawking with all of her might to keep him from hurting the babies. Then she landed on the ground and squawked some more just in case he didn't hear her the first time!
It was rather an unceremonious end to our little adventure and I definitely wish we had a picture of their first fledge but I am sure that they are OK becasue I saw momma patroling the area in front of our house between the 2 crabapple trees.
We wish our babies well!!

Methought 'Twas Just a Flowerpot !

In April Megan and I went to Fred Meyer with our hanging baskets, bought fuschias to go in them and had the Freddy people plant them. They were coming along very well when, one day a few weeks ago, I noticed dry grss like stuff hangiing from them. I kinda picked it off and then a few days later I was saying good bye to a student's mom and a robin swooped over us and into one of the flower baskets.

After a little detective work and after taking them down to water we had some unusual discoveries. One basket had a nest made in it, the middle basket had a nest with 2 bright blue robin eggs in it and the last basket had no nest with one egg. Maybe mama robin is a first timer and didn't know how to work it all out with the nest and eggs or maybe that is their custom ~nevertheless we now have 2 baby robins in the middle pot and it has been fun to take it down occasionally (we have to water the fuschias!) and see how they are doing. Mama is always waiting in the crabapple tree and watching us but, so far, has not attacked.

Sometime we can look out the front window and see her swoop down with a worm and then see the babies' heads come up with open (and I mean wide open) mouths to get their nourishment.

We have no idea how long they will be there or when they will fledge but, for right now, they are very fun to watch.

The Orchard in June

I know that it is already July but I need to post some of the pics that I took of the orchard in June. It is fun to see the fruit develop it is not so fun to thin them. That is where you take of much of the fruit so the young trees won't have too heavy a load and so the remaining fruit can get bigger without competition from all the other fruit. It is hard to throw 20 peaches off one tree after all the work of getting them there.

We just need to be patient!