17 Jul 2006
It's hot out... really, really hot

Well, Mom's doing lots better - we're still going in twice a day to insure she gets lunch and dinner, but she's managing to make her own breakfast, and she's moving about her apartment pretty well. This is a good thing.

Due to the medical emergency, I've not blogged alot about our other activities in the last week: but trust me, we've been busy!

I had made arrangements previously to watch and take care of the livestock at Crowded Byre Farm while the owners were on vacation. This started last Monday evening and ended this morning. It's seventeen miles one way from here to there, and we had to make two round trips a day. Tim raises Border Collies (15 of the little buggers) sheep (of course - that's how he trains his dogs) and ten head of Murray-Gray cattle. He's also got a couple of goats, a donkey, three horses, a llama and the usual barn cats, guard dogs (Great Pyrenees) and chickens/turkeys.

When we could leave the herding dogs out for the day, morning chores would take about an hour. Evening chores always took about two, due mostly to having to hustle the collies back into the kennels. But for the first three days (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week) morning chores took about two hours and evening chores about three. This was due to the monsoon...

I didn't know how close "Indiana" really was to "India" ! We got over eight inches of rain in the span of those three days. Which turned pastures into mud lots, and completely freaked the dogs out (thunderstorms do that sometimes). I actually sank into the cow pasture at Crowded Byre up to my knees on Wednesday evening. It was a mess.

Then it heated up. Friday broke 95°F about 4pm EST. By late Friday night (11pm EST) the air temp was 74°F and the dew point was 73°F - making the humidity 99%. Which is where it's stayed, day and night, ever since. We've broken the 100°F a few times, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up for another few days.

"Miserable" doesn't do it justice. It's like living inside a cloud - mist forms near dusk and doesn't leave until well after daybreak.

A further complication: Kris broke the small floating bones in her left foot while shearing sheep two weeks ago - and has been more or less hobbling around with an immobilizer boot ever since. She had to wrap it in a trash bag to keep it from getting muddy during the rains, which slowed her down even more.

The topper? This morning down at Crowded Byre, after we had just finished up the chores, a motorcyclist rides up the drive and asks if that's our bull down on road 1025W. I thought Tim had his bulls up in Jamestown, doing their manly thing for another herd, but we suspected it was possibly "Big Mama" who'd gone roaming. We went down to take a look, and sure enough, it was a bull, and a Murray-Gray to boot. It looked like it belonged to Tim's herd, so we called him on the road and confirmed. The little sucker had gotten out up at his home away from home last night and another neighbor had brought him back to Tim's late. He'd apparently escaped from the pasture the neighbor put him in sometime this morning. So, following Tim's instructions, we walked him down the road and put him in with the cows - he wanted April calves anyway, and he'll have some now! It's always fun moving an unfamiliar bull over unfamiliar territory into an unfamiliar pasture.

All in all, we've just wrapped up the week from Hel at Hammerstead. Maybe things'll get back to normal now, whatever that is around here!

Temperatures soared into the upper 90s and higher Sunday from coast to coast, bringing out heat warnings, wilting athletes and driving others into the shade.

(link) [CNN]

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