Our Annual Collegian Outing

The Collegian group from St. Elmo Presbyterian Church came out to Leahaven the end of September.  That was right before we went to Scotland for 2 weeks so it took me a while to get the pictures posted.  Better late than never!

 The whole gang enjoys a cookout on straw-bale benches under the sycamore tree.  And yes, those boards do act like see-saws if people stand up in the wrong order!

Setting out on a hayride.

Misty jumped off the wagon and tried to keep up.

 We had a beautiful, sunny day.

It's a toss-up which job Herb enjoys most: grilling the meat or driving the tractor for the hay ride.

 Everybody piled off the wagon at the lake and took advantage of the beautiful weather.

 Zephyr barks frantically at the kids in the boat--after all, she's a shepherd!--and Misty grabs her tail to try to haul her back.  After all, she's a guardian!  The poor girls just want to land their canoe!

Our daughter Kara reacts as Herb belly flops into the lake.

The kayaks are perfect for racing or companionable moments.

After dessert, good-byes, and a clean-up of the house, we leave Leahaven ready for the next people who want to enjoy all that God has blessed it with.

Stuck in a Rut!

Bush-hogging around the pond today, Herb discovered a hidden rut when the tractor fell into it.

Even with 4-wheel drive, he couldn't get it out.

So I tried to help him pull it out with the truck, but nothing doing.

Here came neighbor Jerry Williams to the rescue!

He hooked up a chain, revved the dozer . . .

. . . and the tractor sailed up and out of the hole.  Jerry made it look so easy!

Most of the flatter parts of the fields didn't need bush-hogging since Tony just recently hayed.  The grass is starting to grow long and green again.

But all the rutted, brushy areas that Tony doesn't hay need to be bush-hogged.  Herb did all along the pond today, reclaiming new places to walk and access to the pond for fishing.  He also went up the creek from the pond almost all the way to the neighbor's pasture in front of our property.

He spared nice little trees when he found them.  This had been an area of solid brush over 5 feet high, and now it looks like it might become a field again.

He went all the way across the creek in the front pasture, uncovering and mowing the one place a vehicle can cross without getting mired down in the creek.

When I had finished cleaning the house within an inch of its life and Herb had finished the bush-hogging, we walked out along the pond to admire his handiwork.  (We couldn't admire mine because we didn't want to walk through the house and get it dirty again!)  The goldenrod is already in bloom, a harbinger of fall weather.

The bees were busy all over the goldenrod.  I guess it was just a day for busy bees all over the farm!

Work Day

Lots of people have been enjoying Leahaven recently.  In fact, it's been occupied almost half of July, and we have had to turn people away because the weekends filled up so fast.  Part of making peoples' stay pleasant involves keeping the property and house in good order.  Leahaven has gotten more rain than we have here at home, and the grass grows like nobody's business!  So Herb takes one day a week to mow and edge; if time and weather permit, he does other work.  Yesterday he bush-hogged part of the back pasture, a tedious job in the baking sun, thanks to the rip-rap dams put in by the strip-miners back in the 70's to stop erosion.  They stop a bush-hog blade, too, if you hit one in the long grass!  If he ever catches up with the bush-hogging, there are fences to be mended, the cabin to finish siding inside and out, and screen doors to hang on the cabin.  And then it will be time to mow the grass again . . .

Thanks to thoughtful guests who have done a great job of cleaning, I've had very little to do inside.  But dust collects, cobwebs multiply overnight, and bugs manage to get onto the windowsills.  So after some touch-up cleaning, I got back to a project I began months ago.  Inspired by some of the magazines I read, I decided to "shabby chic" the bedside tables with some country white paint.  I had already sanded one table and put the first coat on when I got side-tracked.  So yesterday I put two more coats of paint on, sanded the other table, and put its first coat on.  Two more coats of paint, sand-paper work to scuff it up, an antiquing glaze of wood stain, old wallpaper to line the drawers, and I'll be ready to get back to cleaning . . .

Wild About Blackberries

The wild blackberries are ripe!  We probably have enough blackberry bushes at Leahaven to supply a small country!

Herb is there today and has already picked a bunch of berries.  Every year at this time he goes on a mission to pick as many of the berries as he can before they dry up.  I'm sorry to say, it's a losing battle!  But we enjoy the spoils of war regularly until the following season.

Here are Jean-Marc and Jenny--armed with walking sticks to fend off any berry-loving snakes--showing off their spoils two summers ago.  Anyone who stays at Leahaven for the next few weeks has a berry bonanza awaiting them!

Operation ABC

Wednesday was Operation ABC--Anti Beaver Campaign.  This was how we found the pond, very full and right up to the edge of the road.

Herb carried the pipe he bought down to the pond.  He couldn't drive the Beast, our SUV, with the loaded trailer that far because the soggy road is so rutted!  Bad beavers!

Herb also brought down a frame he made to hold the pipe in place.  He ended up not even needing to use it.  Know why?  Look at the next picture and guess . . .

The beavers took one look at his scowl and took off running as fast as they could go!  Last I heard they were in Florida, headed for Cuba!

Actually, he was thinking about how to proceed, and no, the beavers didn't really run.  He didn't need the frame because the whole Operation ABC ended up being simpler than we had thought.

Herb did have to get pretty wet, though!  Better him than me--all I could think of was snakes!  So I stood safely on the big rock at the water's edge and took pictures!

To our surprise, this is what the beavers' dam looks like now!

First, Herb tore away some of the dam at one side far enough down to lay a piece of solid pipe right through the middle of the dam.

Next, he patted mud and debris back on top of the pipe to repair the hole in the dam.  It didn't look quite like the beavers had made it, but they didn't find it necessary to come back and repair it during the night.  I figure if his work passed the beavers' inspection code, it was pretty good!

Then Herb laid two holey lengths of pipe in the pond and connected them to the dam pipe.

He did not have to do this all alone.  Besides me helpfully taking pictures, he had both dogs to help.  Hero went gracefully leaping after field mice in the grass at the pond's edge.

Zephyr was REALLY helpful, setting out to single-handedly devour the entire dam, stick by stick!

She discovered that she could "tightrope walk" on the pipe, which she did happily until she lost her balance and rolled over into the water.  As much as she loves water, she doesn't like to swim, so she headed back to water that was no deeper than her belly.

Hero, meanwhile, had discovered frogs, and for the first time in his life he ventured to put his feet in the water.  As long as he could keep his feet on the ground, he was happy hunting frogs!

While the dogs were busy, Herb had been, too.  The pipe kept wanting to float, but the wooden frame seemed over-kill, so he wired a couple of fence posts to the pipe . . .

. . . and that was all it took to sink it to the level he wanted it at.

Two more lengths of holey pipe laid below the dam in the run-off stream, and we had success!  Operation ABC was up and running--literally!

This was how we left the pond that afternoon.

After dinner we spent about an hour standing out there waiting to see if the beavers would come out to repair the dam or try to block up the pipe.  We thought we saw a bit of wake, but it was too cloudy for the sunset to help illuminate things for us.  We did see about two dozen swallows darting through the air above the pond, hopefully devouring mosquitos!  And we saw a gorgeous blue heron fly right over our heads, honking mournfully as he went.

Thursday morning before we left, we walked out to check on the status of Operation ABC.  The pond was definitely down, and the water was still running.  Herb said the dam was untouched, so we're hoping the beavers are going to accept the status quo.

Compare this to the previous picture of the rock, and see for yourself!  I think we'll send a copy of this report to the FBI.  They might be so impressed with our handling of Operation ABC that they may want to enlist our help in one of their operations!  :)