Flower Bed in July and other Chores

It's only July 8th but the flower bed is already working its way towards August Ugly.  All of the snapdragons have dried up in the sun leaving lambs ears and alyssum behind.  I can't plant anything else until fall and my cosmos didn't sprout.  Rats. 

Around the corner, my blanket flower is doing well and the lavendar by the greenhouse is also in full bloom. 

I can't complain about the vegetable garden either.  My tomato plants are covered with fruit, the rhubarb is getting tall, one of my cucumbers survived the slugs and is winding itself around the pumpkin vines which are threatening to take over.  In the orchard, the peach tree is making an amazing comeback.  We chopped it down to the stump in an effort to save it from a severe case of peach leaf curl that responded to nothing else ... and it has rebounded. 

One of the chores on my list for today was to clean out the goat shed: removing the dirty straw and replacing it with clean.  When I went down to the barn to get the muck cart and rake, Jackson was in his usual position at his stall door.  He likes to be informed about the activities and projects on the ranch. 

The next challenge was how to get the muck cart into the goat area without them all running out the gate.  I decided to throw them a leafy branch off of the cottonwood tree.  They love cottonwood leaves.  It worked.  While they fought over the branch, I brought the cart into their area.

The next challenge was getting the hay into the cart.  The goats seemed to be under the impression that I had brought it in as a new toy for them.

While I was gone on my trip with Camille, Brett kept busy.  One of the things he did was put reinforcement across the window to the shed.  A mountain lion came into the yard of neighbors just down the road and killed one of their goats.  We lock Bella, Bear and Thistle in the shed at night.  No goat served here!