Almost Summer

After weeks of seeing relatively few deer, mostly bucks and yearlings, they are back out in full force and new life seems to be everywhere. During the last week, our family has come upon a fawn hidden between fence rows, ran over one with the hay mower which miraculously was unhurt except for a very small cut on its leg, carried a very shaky newborn out of the road and up a bank and almost hit one while brush-hogging. When a mama deer tells her fawn to stay put... it stays put! We are so glad all these encounters had happy endings.

In other news, our haymaking season has begun.  Saturday was a beautiful day to get the first 215 bales in the barn.  The two frosts and snow we had in April really set the broad-leaved plants back and our yield was significantly lower than last year.  We're hoping for some good grass-growing summer weather and a thick second cutting.  We are so thankful for family that helped... from the mowing, tedding, raking, baling, stacking, unloading and more stacking...all the way down to the littles who cut up tomatoes and mushrooms for the meal that Mom and Lena had ready when the field work was finished.  We are blessed.