Rain, Glorious Rain!

Pippi & Zeke look for mice from a dry perch.
 

I woke hearing rain!  It rained five hours straight.  I fed and watered chickens and calves in the rain and didn't care that I got wet.  The rain let up long enough for me to take a walk to check on the cows and open some gates to pastures, then more rain.  The garden loved it  - so did the weeds.

Deer chomped beans.  The leaves are mostly gone, revealing the beans underneath which is great for picking but means most of the blossoms that would produce more beans - about two weeks worth - are gone. Fortunately they didn't destroy the second patch and I was able to cover it with Remay. Still, in the last three days I've picked three gallons of beans.
 

The cats did not.  I've been picking green beans for three days and the cats can't figure it out.  For them, the garden is a great place to hunt.  I've been applauding the cats for keeping my garden safe from rabbits and such so was devastated to find all the lovely broccoli plants munched down to the ground. I lectured the cats on keeping the rabbits out of the garden and the next morning there was a full grown headless rabbit carcass on my back porch. Spooky! Did the cats really understand what I said to them?

Turns out it wasn't rabbits eating the broccoli, but deer.  They got one of the patches of green beans on Friday night.

The mystery vine that ate the compost pile.


 

Looks like it might be a pumpkin?  Time will tell.