So much has happened since the last time I posted that I don’t know where to start! As I found out today, if you blinked, you missed it! Although I missed a bunch of the progress today, due to various appointments which took me away from the action here, I happened to have been around for some of the key moments. My best example of this was the incredible rainbow that came along with a late afternoon thundershower just as the driveway/concrete guys were finishing up their day. Dave alerted me to the phenomenon and I whipped out my camera to take this pic.

Upon scanning the rest of the vista, I saw that I had the entire arc in my vision. Can you see it??? I’ve never seen a ‘complete’ rainbow before! It reminds me of childish drawings and unicorns. Not sure why since rainbows do exist but you can’t exactly touch them and yet unicorns….well, who knows! Here is my panorama of the complete arc. 

The driveway crew told me that the rainbow was right over the newly poured concrete! I guess if myths have any basis, that means a pot of gold in our future? Or perhaps it is closer to say that it symbolizes that we just spent a pot of gold! Hmmm! The crew finished the back turn around area (which we now call the helipad) at the days end. 

If the rain doesn’t add too much to the complexity of the underlayment, they will be moving forward with the front sections next.

The masons returned to work this morning despite receiving .40 inches of overnight rain. They were able to finish their part of the outdoor kitchen and the steps off of the terrace. They were rather proud of themselves with the outcome and will return after several days to acid wash the stone to get the masonry joints cleaned up. It will look much better after they do that, but here are some pics. The countertop will come next.

In other news, Dave had an accidental mole kill yesterday but we think the coincidences involved were worth reporting here. How does one achieve an accidental mole kill? He was weeding and using the very guillotine – style edger that we purchased from Garden Savvy, aka Mary Ellen Hetenyi. As an aside, this tool was sharpened by Mary Ellen’s husband, Imre, who is rather Ninja like in his stealth but, particularly in the sharpening area. (I look forward to getting some lessons in this area from him!) So, after noticing that a mole was working in the tomato patch, Dave was working on the weeding and edging and found that he had the accidental fortune of having ‘collided’ with a working mole. I hope it doesn’t upset anyone to show the outcome here…this fella is definitely a bit worse for wear?!?!

The coincidental part of this was that this was the 17th mole kill on our property and occurred on Sept. 17th which was my birthday. The last mole killed here was by me, on Dave’s birthday, June 11th. Whoa! Go figure!

The top news for the farm would be the rain we had over night and again this afternoon. Boy, do we need it. There is more expected and it will be welcome as long as it is not torrential. The fall plantings are all rooted by now so they should not be washed out and will be happy. Our last Farm Report is just shy of 1,400 pounds of harvested produce. The summer crops are slowing down but the fall crops will kick in soon. An example of this is the pie pumpkins we are starting to harvest. Aren’t they lovely?

I plan to cook them for pumpkin puree that I will freeze and use this winter in various ways. Pumpkin pie and breads will be the point of use for many of them. If you have not made a pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin, you should! Please let me know if you are interested getting one of these and using it for this purpose!

Also interesting is the presence of a new type of humming bird that has appeared to flit about our pots recently. We were used to a more typical hummingbird that had been attracted to our flowers this summer but I recently spotted a newer image of something that I first thought looked more like our killer cicada wasps. After getting a closer look at this hummingbird, I think I have identified it as a Clearwing Moth Hummingbird. Here are some images. The first from the internet, the second from my camera. 

We have sad news to report on two fronts. My Aunt Marie (one of my dad’s dear sisters) died earlier in this month and Dave’s Auntie Jo (his mom’s sister) died peacefully today. Both were surrounded by family in their final days. We cherish these dear ones and keep their memories fresh and foremost in our thoughts as we go about our days.