After the big rain

Friday night, Saturday, and Saturday night brought us six inches of gentle rain with very little washing of fields or driveway.  Last night we received another inch, and since the ground was already saturated, we got some washing.  I am not complaining!  Last week I suggested to Cliff that he mow the alfalfa/grass pasture where the cows have been grazing during the drought, since there were weeds rearing their ugly heads above the good stuff, threatening to go to seed.  He agreed, although he was afraid that mowing might kill the good stuff; but we were hoping for that hurricane-induced rain which we ultimately got, and now things look good.  

If you recall, we bought and paid for two kinds of grass and some clover last winter; when it all came up, we found out they had given us alfalfa instead of clover seed.  That's their loss, since alfalfa costs several times as much as clover.  Now, it isn't like having a solid alfalfa crop, but it has been a blessing:  we got two cuttings of grass/alfalfa hay, and the cows have grazed it all summer until two days ago.  

This is where the cows entered the field.  We had it fixed so that Adam's horses couldn't get in, for two reasons:  First, horses ruin anyplace they graze by eating the grass so short that it dies.  Second, green alfalfa is pretty rich stuff for a horse.  In normal years we would have been afraid to let the cows have full access to alfalfa for fear of bloat, but with things so dry, and with grass mixed in, that didn't turn out to be a problem.  Anyway, as you can see, we shut off their access to the field so it can grow unhindered.  With the rain we received, they now have plenty of pasture elsewhere.  

Sunday evening Cliff and I went back and electric-fenced the portion of ground where he's going to plant new pasture, probably a grass/clover mix (if they actually give us clover this time).  You can't see the electric wire, but it's there.  It only took us a couple of hours to get this job done, although Cliff didn't electrify it until yesterday morning.  

He simply extended some poles to get the wire high enough that he can drive his tractor under it if he needs to, and connected it to the wire around the alfalfa/grass plot.  We were out for our morning walk with I took this picture.  As you can see, Momma Kitty is back to going for a walk with us, staying a distance behind us and frequently yowling.  You would think if she is going to complain the whole time, she would stay at the barn.
  


I found more Indian relics.  That biggest one may be the middle part of a spear head.  The small item is just a piece of flint.  It's almost impossible to find a perfect, unbroken arrowhead there because Cliff has been over that piece of ground so often with plows, disks, and harrows.  While flint is common in Missouri, any that we find on the tillable portion of our land has been carried there, because we live on a hill made entirely of wind-blown soil.  Wind doesn't carry rocks, stones, or flint.  So I know when I pick up a piece of flint that an Indian's hands brought it here.  

I have weeded my pathetic flower bed and most of the strawberry patch I started this spring; I hate crabgrass.  I lost some strawberry plants to the drought, but thank goodness most of them made it.  Cliff is outside mowing and weed-eating.  Seems like life has returned to normal after the extended drought.  

Tomorrow I intend to spend the day with my daughter at her next-to-the-last chemo session.