A fawn, a fiddle, and an old ....

The Husband captured a pic of this little cutie right outside the back fence today. Luckily the dogs were not paying attention. There's yet another really good reason for that fence. You are safer out there, little one, than you would be inside the fence with the killer Cyrus! Don't let your mama give you any ideas about jumping over.

Saturday evening was another great jam session in the R&T garage (I know, it's awfully pretty for a garage.) Miss Rachel, the fiddler, took some time off from her real job as a doctor in Boston to come back and play some tunes in Coop!

And then there's that Woody sleeping on his best dog bed ever. The old man is doing very well, almost 4 months into his predicted 6 months to live. It's hot and sticky up here the last couple of days, so he, and the rest of us, aren't quite as energetic as we should be. Trust me though, he is still up to his normal craziness and not showing any signs of slowing down.

 

Wine and sun

We have some good news, but I don't want to start the celebration until it's official. In the meantime, I started a private celebration with a glass of wine in the backyard. Woody celebrated by singing with the birds while the sun was going down. I will post the video version of his song on Facebook. Videos on here are always disappointingly small.

Franklin and Annie's parents are home and Annie survived our extra care very well. I just found out she is about 15YO, which is pretty darn good for a goat. We are going back for a visit tomorrow just to make sure she doesn't forget us.

Franklin and Annie and The Panther

While Drs J and T are in Cape May for the week, we are caring for Annie the goat who needs a little extra TLC—some milking, an injection every day, and some special love from The Husband. Annie has her own husband by her side at all times, Franklin the rescued donkey. He can't do the TLC part, so we are helping out.

The shortest route to Franklin and Annie's house is up Panther Mountain Road. It is a seasonal gravel road winding up and down a not so big mountain. Panther Mountain is across the road from us, behind the horse farm, on the other side of the lake.

When we first moved up here we heard rumors that it was named for a panther that escaped from a circus train. As regular travelers up the mountain this week, we found the real story, or at least the settled upon real story: it was named after a Native American man who lived on the hill and called himself The Panther. Even the sign calls this a hill, not a mountain, but by South Jersey standards, it's pretty darn big.

Bug post

This is not a blog post but a bug post. For the sake of a good title, these will all be bugs, whether they really are or not.

I don't know why that pretty butterfly died behind the picture frame on the back porch wall. I was reluctant to pull the frame away to see what was going on, but now that it has been a few days, I guess it is not going to fly away.

About the same time as the butterfly, this pretty little moth also lost its life on the back porch.

Yesterday, I found these unidentified caterpillars devouring a few leaves on a young mountain ash that was just starting to look like a real tree. I am questioning the DEC as to what they are and how worried I should be.

The last creepy crawly, which I identified only because of a Facebook post I had seen the day before, is a cicada killer wasp. Biggest wasp I have ever seen! He or she also met their demise on the back porch, probably due to a bite by the WoodMan. He likes to eat the bugs he can reach on the screen. He probably got the moth too.

Camera hogs

I have been trying the trail camera in different locations to see what I can catch. Recently it was out by the chicken coop where the nighttime photos showed a raccoon that was the likely killer, but there was also a fox out there.

During the day about a third of the 135 photos were of the young rooster taking selfies. The camera was out there for a few days in a few different spots, and every time he found it and posed. Silly rooster!

The latest camera location was out in the back field with the new trees. This new poser is a doe with a notched ear. She is possibly the mother of the twin kids I have seen speeding down the paths, but I didn't get a pic of the 3 of them together.

Recently I have been reading the manual and discovering all the mostly useless new things I can do with the new iPhone. Useless but somehow inspirational for those arty farty types. So, to keep up with the other camera hogs, here is my selfie from down by the river, the river that is one of the many backgrounds you can choose.

Also a Woody shot in Portrait mode. He wasn't posing, just taking a nap, so not a hog at all.