Today

I am new to blogging and I don't know if any of you are out there?
Certainly, these are the dog days of summer. Walking around the pastures and even up the road to the mailbox takes our breath away. The vegetable garden is sleeping under a blanket of straw, thinking about the salad garden to come in September..
Tomorrow my two oldest grandchildern arrive for two weeks. Diego is thirteen and now old enough to learn to drive the stick shift farm truck. He and his brother Pablo, eleven, will both learn the essentials of handling a 22 rifle, (not to kill any living thing!). They'll both help their grandparents to run this ranch and maybe get a sense of how much satisfactory work there is to be done. Right now we are getting rid of the invasive soda apples in the pastures by pulling and spraying. I think I will offer to pay the boys to bring wheelbarrow loads of mulch and compost to where I need it.
The cows are being very frisky these nights. For some reason they come into the space between the woodshop and my art studio and party. They eat the flowers in the bathtub planter, turn over every piece of furniture, and go into the barn. They poop everywhere. We have been parking the truck and my Honda in front of the buildings to deflect the cows.