Lhude sing cuccu!

 

 Sumer is -- finally -- icumen in

 after a wintry late spring.

 

 

 Most of the apple trees blossomed beautifully.

 Terra the Terror and Freya the Fright were supposed to move to Iowa in mid-June, but their departure has been delayed a few weeks,

 so they've remained part of the herd.  Do they all scramble out to the big pasture as soon as they can each morning?

 NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!

 These ingrates only venture far out

 if Barb leads the way

 although once in the lush growth they take advantage of some primo browsing.

 Juju and Lassi here doubleteam some tree branches.

 Barb enjoys visiting some better behaved goats: Alba's daughter Crema and her Carmella in the foreground, with Rosa's Geranium and Luna's Rhea behind.

 They have been joined at Split Rock Farm by the prize-winning young buck Topper, here sampling some architectural cuisine.

 Barb suffers the caprine equivalent of a monkey on the back; Lily does a tap dance while Geranium looks on.

 The three goslings have been getting bigger

 

 and bigger

 

 and bigger.

 Having recklessly procrastinated the spaying of the local feral kitty, the Farmers now

have three little feline bundles of joy to contend with.

Like their mom, the kitties hang around the goat barn 

but stay well out of reach and disappear if anyone gets too close.

The Farmers and brother Dave (an experienced cat wrangler as well as ichthyologist)

planned to grab the youngsters and take them to the Cloquet animal shelter for adoption

but the little buggers vanished into the garage walls, and we learned that the shelter doesn't take animals from our township.

Current plans are to wait until the kitties are 8 weeks old, live-trap the whole family, and take them to Duluth for neutering  before releasing them again on the Farm.

They provide lots of entertainment when they venture onto the driveway outside the garage

for bouts of roughhousing and acrobatics.

Even deer check out the action.  

One particular deer has been spending a lot of time in front of the house

joined sometimes by a friend.

Not all the Farm's residents are mammalian.

This well camouflaged fella wisely betrayed his presence 

moments before the lawn mower would have rolled over him.

With the more seasonable weather

Steve has been enjoying the Munger bike trail

and its gorgeous scenery.

Barb took a break from goat-tending duties

to attend a goat show in Mora, MN.  In a superhuman display of self-control, she returned without buying any new goats for her own herd.