Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Shoreline Bovine


I finally got some pictures of the cattle that graze along the shoreline in my town. Yes...cattle. There is a lot of farming near by. Fruit orchards are probably the most abundant crops. My neighbor down the road has sheep that graze in his front yard. But until I noticed one day that there were cattle grazing about 50 feet from the ocean off a shoreline road I didn't realize farmers were raising cattle here.
This picture was taken by my husband as we rode our mopeds along the shoreline road. He stopped to snap some pictures for me with his Droid phone.

Last summer I watched a man putting in a fence in a marshy area on the shoreline that I pass quite often on my way into town. Why he was putting up a fence when there already was a fence along the road I couldn't figure out. Now I see that it was to keep the cows from wading too far into the water; that there needed to be a new fence about 10 feet from the fence on the side of the road.

The cows come down to the march to graze and walk through the plants selecting the ones they enjoy munching on. This particular day there were a few horses with the cows and there was an especially large number of cows grazing.

This is why the term Swamp Yankee seems to make sense to me. A neighbor down the road I met who I guess has lived most of her life her introduced me to this term. It seems to refer to the people who live near the shore and perhaps to the farmers that are raising cattle in the swampy areas here. I guess there are swamp cows too.

Here's a panoramic view of the herd.


Friday, May 20, 2011

Gardening weather

It has rained the whole past week. As the week has moved on the weather has warmed. Tomorrow will be a gardening day I'm sure of it!
I have already started some weeding. I'm pulled out some compost to amend the soil in my garden. I've planted a few seeds of radishes and spinach. So I have a few plants already started.
Today I stopped at Home Depot for a rug and came out with $60 of plants. I bought tomato plants, peppers and Japanese eggplants (that I thought I'd never find). I also bought some plants on sale to beef up the garden area in the backyard that needs some new plants and a budget rose plant to add to the area I am trying to steal back from the forest.
Tomorrow I have to get out and do some digging. This interferes with my obsession with growing and painting my nails (they look pretty good now). Even with gardening gloves my nails always end up dirty. Oh well.
So I am excited to get into the dirt tomorrow AND to start blogging some more. I had a busy Fall and Winter. Things are settling down now and I have more time to do things around the house.