Going to the Birds

Making my way to the “water store” the other day, I was again greeted by the welcoming party. On a previous occasion, I was surrounded by six wild turkeys clucking and cooing asking for a hand out. This day there was only the one and this time I had my phone camera with me to take her picture! Knowing how normally guarded and elusive wild turkeys are it surprised me greatly to see these tame ones. 

Our well may date from the original farmhouse which used to occupy this property but burned a few years ago, well before we purchased. We know it’s shallow and it’s filled with metals like rusty iron and manganese which we don’t care to drink, so we visit the artesian spring down the road which sports an old, permanently-affixed-in-open position hand pump. It burbles out of the ground like this year round regardless of how cold it gets. We still use a good ceramic filtration system even on this good water. After all, Wisconsin is a farm state so who knows what goes in the water and the water table is relatively shallow to the surface. Eventually, we’ll need a new, deeper well but that’s down the line so meantime I’ll get to be good friends with the turkeys I guess.

Marc has come and gone again and again changed his mind as to what he wants to do with the front deck. I thought we were in line to just screen it in but he is back to wanting to build a sunroom out of it, which requires much more work and expense. The winds get hellacious here and the bugs can be a problem so a sunroom will prove to be much more comfortable and usable. The first order of business was to get rid of our spa since we haven’t been able to use it due to the poor water quality of the well. I couldn’t sell it for $175 so we ended up advertising it for free and this past Saturday I saw it go bye down the road to a cabin on Spencer Lake. That made the deck suddenly seem huge!

During his visit, we got a bunch of small items attended to including servicing the lawnmower and removing the fencing which had surrounded our birch trees. He also got the pallet wood inserted into the old iron table base I had previously purchased and I’m loving the rustic look in my living room!

This week I am working on my marathon bread making stint for the shelter’s bake sale in September. Keep in mind my bread making is a two-day process since it must sit 24 hours after being mixed. I bake four loaves the following day. I usually aim for a total of twenty loaves so it’s no quick task to get prepared for the sale. I start early as I don’t like to be tied to this every single day, especially on the hot days! Other than that, things are just the summer normal—weeding, watering, mowing—repeat. Oh, I did transplant around 12 lilacs yesterday from our mother plant to an area adjacent to the side of the house. It was easy digging with our recent rains.