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altivoAnother scorching day, high humidity, sunny, no wind or rain.
Had a note from a friend (who is older than we are, see, we're not impossibly old yet) asking about the bugs that were bothering her flowers. Her description was clear enough: Japanese beetles. Hard to kill and very prolific as a rule. Gary called to give her that bad news, and learned that she was down an air conditioner because she couldn't get it into the window by herself.
We went over and put it in the window for her and stayed long enough to make sure it was working. Then decided to have dinner out since it was already getting late. So, not much else will get done tonight.
We left the horses out tonight, that's how hot it is. Gave them hay in their yards rather than putting them in their stalls. Tomorrow may be worse, though it looks like it will break a bit after that. Ground is hard and dry, No real rain for nearly a month now.
Oh, I think I mentioned the fact that the foxes had apparently eaten a turtle. Gary showed me the remains of the shell today, and it was an eastern painted turtle. That's a bit of a puzzle, since they usually stick pretty close to water and we have no significant amounts of water now within more than a mile. I could imagine turtles in the Kishwaukee River, but that's too far away for one to have traveled on its own power and ended up on our land. Presumably whoever caught and ate it had carried it here from somewhere else. It was pretty good size too, about seven or eight inches in diameter.
Had a note from a friend (who is older than we are, see, we're not impossibly old yet) asking about the bugs that were bothering her flowers. Her description was clear enough: Japanese beetles. Hard to kill and very prolific as a rule. Gary called to give her that bad news, and learned that she was down an air conditioner because she couldn't get it into the window by herself.
We went over and put it in the window for her and stayed long enough to make sure it was working. Then decided to have dinner out since it was already getting late. So, not much else will get done tonight.
We left the horses out tonight, that's how hot it is. Gave them hay in their yards rather than putting them in their stalls. Tomorrow may be worse, though it looks like it will break a bit after that. Ground is hard and dry, No real rain for nearly a month now.
Oh, I think I mentioned the fact that the foxes had apparently eaten a turtle. Gary showed me the remains of the shell today, and it was an eastern painted turtle. That's a bit of a puzzle, since they usually stick pretty close to water and we have no significant amounts of water now within more than a mile. I could imagine turtles in the Kishwaukee River, but that's too far away for one to have traveled on its own power and ended up on our land. Presumably whoever caught and ate it had carried it here from somewhere else. It was pretty good size too, about seven or eight inches in diameter.
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Pack up the critters
Date: 2011-07-20 04:51 am (UTC)Nice to still have grass heading into August. I guess you missed out on my LJ chatter, my sister is moving into a 3-acre place my parents had been renting out to a friend of the family since we moved out in 1985 ... there is tonnes of cool, lush green grass in the "back 40" and in our neighbor's pasture. Not one, but two creeks run through it, and if 70 degrees proves too warm, there is plenty of shade under a thick, lush canopy of maple and alder. We even have a few yew trees and cherry-plums ... sadly the apple trees I remember are gone, but seem to be trying to grow back from the stumps.
Re: Pack up the critters
Date: 2011-07-20 11:34 am (UTC)Even the sheep aren't complaining much yet. Fortunately they were sheared just a month or so back.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 10:00 am (UTC)We're waiting for a good rain as well. Two days of 'possible thunderstorms' brought a light sprinkle.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 11:31 am (UTC)Turtles do wander, and some species more than others. We often see large snapping turtles on the road or beside it, especially in spring. I haven't ever seen painted turtles far from water though. There are also box turtles, which are in fact tortoises if I remember correctly, and they are mainly land dwellers but I haven't seen one since moving from Michigan. Well, not quite true. We found one on a spring camping trip down in Indiana once. This shell was clearly the remains of a painted turtle, though.
Gary thinks it crawled onto a road and was run over by a vehicle, then the fox picked it up and brought it home for a feast. Guess that would have made it much easier to get the fast food out of the box, come to think of it.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 01:58 am (UTC)http://flickr.com/gp/54539102@N08/7fye4P should work.
Secondly, our turtle was a box type, not a painted. We have had a painted turtle in the yard at about 400 feet from the wetlands.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 02:25 am (UTC)I can picture a painted turtle 400 or 500 feet from water, especially if the ground is moist and the vegetation dewy or rain-coated. Here at this time of year, though, it's more like two miles. That seems unlikely to me. They don't move that well on land, either, and have to sort of drag themselves because their legs don't support their weight very effectively. Box turtles and tortoises can stand up and get their plastrons off the ground, letting them move with greater ease and efficiency.