June 21, 2011

I don't have a rain gauge, but we are in the middle of what appears to be our weekly rain event measuring "not enough to cover the bottom of a bucket". All morning long I have been watching the dark clouds roll past...just to the north of us. Yet again, Blacksburg is literally stealing our thunder. The storms are SO close this time that I actually hear the sounds of downpours just behind the house. It seems the radar maps have teemed up with the Verizon Wireless service area maps and put a tiny white square directly over our property that signals a no service/rain zone. Yep, in the time it has taken to write this paragraph, the rain is over and the blue skies are here. As you can tell, I'm a little bitter about this whole extremely localized drought thing, so we'll move on to happier topics now.

I've been adding buckets of water to the pond lately to keep it from disappearing, and these little guys are very glad that I have! Even frogs go through that awkward development stage on the precipice of adulthood. These little guys still have tails, but they're climbing out of the water to test their new lungs and legs.


It has been a delight to watch how devoted these two guineas are to caring for their babies. The whole flock of guineas even get involved at times. The other morning, they bravely worked together as a group to distract and even slightly intimidate our neighbor's dog, Hank (aka the world's largest dog), while Silver herded her babies into the cover of a thick stand of weeds. (Hank regularly makes early morning visits, and I can always count on the guineas to announce his presence. This is a good thing because while he is really a sweet, goofy giant, he does have a history of chicken killing. Yikes!) Despite the expert parental care, we are down to five keets at the moment.


Finally, and at the risk of being late for work, here's a photo of our peach tree harvest! We had to fight the worms for the best parts, but what we did get was delicious!!

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