Summer winds down on the meadow.

These are busy and beautiful days ~ I'm still behind with my emails but working hard to catch up with folks while David builds rings for our oh so awesome touch wood friends!

We are in the midst of haying our fields and the rain hasn't let up since it was cut. That's not the greatest situation but it happens. Hoping for some warm dry days to get that job finished up.

When we first moved here, we supplied hay to our neighbour for his small herd of cows. He lived fifteen miles to the north east and was a fountain of local knowledge having lived here all his life. He cut our twenty five acres of hay with his workhorses and a ground driven mower. It was an amazing experience to take part in the daily harnessing and care of the team and get to understand some of what goes into their training. We took lots of pictures and videos of something we won't ever see done again.

With the highly efficient haying machines our neighbouring ranchers use these days; the meadow is cut in one day, raked in one day and baled in one day making the whole process five or six days counting some drying time and moving the huge bales to the feed area. That's if the rain doesn't slow it all down.

The method has changed but the result is the same ... the meadow hay will be fed to brood cows' that will grow new calves over the winter to be born in the spring... the hay from this meadow has been used for this purpose since at least 1890, so we are just the latest participants...

Here are a few pics from around the homestead on these late August days.

  

And some of the commissioned rings David made this summer :) 

Jack's Hawaiian Koa Wood Ring with Maple interior

Greyed Maple with Magnolia interior for Alex

Ally and Gordon's Choke Cherry, Madrone, and Burr Oak rings

Kenneth's Black Walnut wood ring with a featured knot and Cherry interior liner

Ian's Black Walnut, Willow with a center inlay of Amethyst mixed with Kara's stone

Laurent's Hawaiian Koa, Walnut, Birds eye Maple and a braided inlay of Yucca

Mary and Kevin's designs incorporate Juniper Heartwood, Walnut and Bamboo

We've also been building a stone circle. Taking a hour some evenings just before or after dinner to move the next boulder down to the clearing we choose for stones.  It's something I've always wanted to do and we have the property and the big stones so it was just a matter of choosing the spot and making the time.  Well, and enlisting my honey's help with his trusty skid steer and his smarts. It's coming along.  Going to be beautiful!!  A sacred space built with stone that should outlast us by many hundreds of years.

Talk to you again soon and thanks, as always for dropping by.  If you haven't already, please visit our Facebook page and follow along.  My updates there are much more frequent :)