Visitors and oddities...

 Summer tends to be a time filled with visitors. At our place, the guests often have four feet. This week Millie has been here. A small, blond cocker/poodle mix, she used to stay here a lot until the pandemic, and it's good to have her back. She fits right in, plays with the other dogs, only chases the chickens a little bit, and is a pleasant guest. 

We also have Ruby Wrinkles here. Ruby is one of the puppies Opal gifted us with last fall. She is staying with us while her humans are on vacation. She was a little worried at first, her brow more furrowed than normal, but she quickly settled in. We let another of the littermates owner know that Ruby was here and she brought her puppy by for a play date. There was a lot of running, tumbling, and general joy. Here is mama Opal (front) Izzy, (left), and Ruby (charmingly tilting her head.) 

My friend Sunday sometimes comes and helps me with yard chores I don't seem to get around to. One thing I've wanted to do was cut down a wild rose bush that was taking over a tree by the side of the road. This species produces fragrant flowers for a brief time in June but is invasive and kills the plants around it as it grows. I wanted to slow it down some by cutting it right back to the ground. Sunday tackled the job, and though the bush bit her, she prevailed. She tossed all the thorny mess into the pasture, where the goats had a feast! The tree it was strangling is looking much relieved. 

My flower gardens are funny this year. Normally I go to the nursery and buy a bunch of annual plants that flower like mad all summer. This year I only bought a few wave petunias; everything else was gifted to me or came up on its own from last year's seeds. A sweet customer gave me zinnias, cosmos, and snapdragons, and my friend Carol, who works on a farm, gave me several flats of plants that, though labeled, were mostly mysteries to me. There were some delphiniums, which I was familiar with, but the rest of the plants I put in not having any idea what they'd amount to. 

Here are the delphiniums, starting to strut their stuff. Several other plants are budded up and will soon reveal themselves to me. It's all a little odd, but quite fun, too, to see what is growing.

Speaking of odd, I received a gift yesterday that most people would not appreciate, but which delighted me. Cheryl sent me a text, "A mistake was made at the slaughterhouse, and I have a bag of mixed feet, liver, and hearts. Would you like them?" Translated, this means that she had 50 or so meat chickens processed, and the parts that should have been separated were not. I was overjoyed, and before I knew it, there was a large bag of still-warm guts in my kitchen sink. 

I got out some rubber gloves and a box of sandwich bags and got busy. I separated baggies of feet, necks, and organs and filled my freezer with fresh, healthy meat and bone for the dogs and cats. This will last me for months and made me happier than you might expect. 

For the rest of the day, I grinned, feeling rich, knowing I had some high-quality dog food stashed away. 

Four-footed friends, flowers, and a sink full of guts. It doesn't take much to make me happy.