Old dogs and beekeepers go out in the noonday sun...

Old dog or...

...mad dog? Bwaaa hahahahaha!

Tristan had a nice little swim in the pond the other day, then a good roll in the grass.

Happy boy! 

It has been stinking hot and humid all week. Okay, I hear all of you in, say, Georgia, or South Carolina,  or Death Valley, going "Oh yeah, not as hot as here!" But still, it's pretty hot! 34C/93F but the humidex makes it feel like 42C/107F. The humidity has been suffocatingly gross. Just cleaning and filling the ducks' water tubs makes me break out in a sweat. I'm so glad our house is air-conditioned. It's hard to spend much time outside when it's like this. I did work with my bees a little bit the other day, but I started early before it got too unbearably hot. Then I had another shower. I've been having many, many showers lately.

It has been a busy week. Lots of stuff to do around here, lots of stuff to do around Gordon's new office, blah blah blah. Last Saturday, we dragged the deck chairs behind the barn and relaxed with the dogs. I let all the birds out to free-range for a couple of hours under our supervision, and they had lots of fun. it was the guineas' first outing and they seemed to have an excellent time running around catching bugs and rooting through the lawn. Everyone came back to the run in a timely fashion.

We have ducklings due any day now. Mama Karène has taken to flying from her nest at the opposite end of the duck coop all the way over to the doorway when I enter, a good 20 feet. She aims at my head but aborts at the last minute. Sophie snuck in there today and got a walloping before Karène chased her out. Bad dog! She snuck into the lower barn when my back was turned and I had the door open for a minute. Sophie likes to steal eggs, but she sure wasn't getting any of Karène's!

We'll see how crazy Mama K is around her babies. Once she takes an initial shot at me, she goes back to her nest and lets me look at her eggs and pet her. Most days, she just runs across the coop at me when I enter, but every so often there's this flying assault. But then she calms down. I fed her some watermelon from my hand the other day while she was on her nest.

Back to Saturday. I had my iPad down there, so I took some selfies with Tristan...

I can't get over how old he's looking in this photo. He turns 11 this fall. We're both going grey! 

He is clingier than ever these days. I often feel guilty, because anytime I move in the house, he has to follow me. He is having a tough time on the stairs these days but he insists on trailing behind me whenever I go up and down them. But apparently the basement stairs are no problem for him when he wants to go down and snack on kitty litter "Tootsie Rolls."

"Tell me all your secrets, Tristan!"

"Those Tootsie Rolls were really good."

"That explains the state of your breath."

And here's a caption-contest photo if ever I saw one!!

X-rated barnyard antics! 

And then Tristan stuck his tongue in my ear....

Eeeeeyuw!

Meanwhile, Sophie kept a close eye on other duck shenanigans...

Yep, Bianca and Twitchy all but smoking a post-coital cigarette!

Gordon relaxing with his iPad. CLose enough to the house to get WiFi. And a nice view beyond the screen.

Tristan mellowed out on the lawn.

I can't remember if I already posted this or not. Behold the dogs and Emily waiting for some of my morning toast. Each dog gets half a crust. Emily was jonesing for some cashew butter. She's got me trained now to give her a little piece of toast with nut butter on it every morning.

They are all too cute to resist!