poplar road

Colleen and Jorge's border collie/Jack Russell terrier cross followed her herding instincts when it came to the goats, so she was better off on this side of the fence, but she's also a very talented mouser and had a great time digging and pouncing in the tall grass and weeds at the back corner of our property. Both dogs didn't quite know what to make of the lambs, which Jonathan points out are not quite bright enough to recognize a threat, and therefore stared down the smaller dogs with mild curiosity.

While we were out back with the animals, Jonathan drove his pickup over to take home the last of the large railroad ties that were holding up the bird pens east and north of the barn. The goats, let into the yard just for a little while, made short work of the weeds. With the grape vine nearly covering the remaining chicken pen, it's looking much better in that half of the yard. This angle is from the northwest as I was watching Maisie hunt mice. I'm hoping we get lots of grapes!

When the sun came out on Sunday morning Jorge wandered around with his camera, capturing rain on the poppies and other plants, and I took a few with the digital as well. Amazingly, some of our fruit is nearly ready to pick. Still don't know whether we've got a hybrid gooseberry or a blackcurrant; there's no blackcurrant scent to the leaves, but the berries are definitely changing to black. No flavour, so it's hard to tell. Couldn't resist a few more shots of the poppies myself, that gorgeous red, and the white-flowered bush I'm calling mock orange because it's got that heavenly scent.

It was a very relaxing weekend, a good break before we grabbed our hammers and crowbars for some demolition on Monday. I'll have photos of the start of the master bedroom reno soon. Summer seems a long way off, with more rain in the forecast right through to the weekend. Hard to believe the "midsummer" soltice is next Tuesday. Twilight here lasts past eleven o'clock and dawn is at four, but it's been too overcast and cool so far to enjoy the late evening light. A good temperature for ripping down old drywall though. The next reno marathon is just around the corner when we take some vacation time in July. I'm looking forward to another transformation.