Life on Regal-Hill by Gail Hillriegel

We still have Brownie, Allegra’s cow, here at Regal-Hill. She prefers being in the barn. If she is put outside, she spends most of her time bawling. Just why I am not sure, except that she is all alone in that pasture, but can see the other heifers if they come down off the hill or the younger ones above our house when they come over for a drink. Inside she has a bull calf and a heifer calf for company plus a bunch of cats and kittens.

I am still trying to decide whether it is going to rain today or not here at Regal-Hill. It was warm and rather humid but cloudy this morning. So I figured it would be raining before too long. Well, so far it hasn’t rained; according to the radio it could rain later today.

Here at Regal-Hill I am busy taking care of produce from the garden and cutting more flowers to arrange as bouquets for the house. Of course, the weeds continue to grow as well in both the garden and the flower beds.

Everything here at Regal-Hill is moving along. With the dryer weather the haying has begun in earnest. Even the wind has cooperated to help the hay and the clothes to dry. It has also helped to dry out the ground.
However, the weeds still grow as well as the lawn, so weeding and mowing still need to be fitted in while drying hay. For me, I continue to try to keep the weeds pulled while keeping up with the housework and preparing meals.

By Gail Hillriegel
It has been busy here at Regal-Hill. Three fields have been harvested, Allegra’s heifer calved and we are still milking her, there continues to be thundershowers or rain with warnings of hail, saw two deer while walking and one day we even saw two bears.

by Gail Hillriegal
There will be another Baseball All-Star game on July 14. This year it will be at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. The president will throw out the first pitch. And according to the Internet the central theme is “Community Service.” I am not sure just what that means. I am not sure whether the proceeds from the game will go to some nonprofit organization, or if the ball players will be expected to donate a big amount of money to a cause.

We finally started haying here at Regal-Hill. I don’t think we have ever been this late before, but we don’t make the weather either. Since there is still a chance of a stray shower today and tomorrow the hay is going in the silo. It was so nice to hear the tractor and mower, mowing down the hay. It was so nice to smell the sweet smell of the hay as well. It is different from the smell of freshly cut lawn grass, although that is nice too.

Thankfully, here at Regal-Hill we didn’t get the hail that some people in the area got last week. When we learned that there could be hail with the thunderstorm we found empty pails, plastic ice cream containers and whatever we could find, and covered any plants that were big enough to be damaged by hail. Being there was no way to cover the peas, since they have brush for them to trail on, we concentrated on covering the broccoli and tomato plants. At least now if hail is predicted again, we are ready with things to cover plants with. The plants had grown considerably since they were planted so they needed bigger containers to cover them.

Here at Regal-Hill we are still waiting for the weather to be dryer so we can start haying. Showers are forecast for every day this week. Now that it is time to start haying you would think the weather would cooperate and be dry for awhile. George is all ready to mow as soon as the forecast calls for three days in a row of dry weather.

George finally fixed it so we could display the American flag once again here at Regal-Hill for Memorial Day. Flag Day is this coming Sunday. It is one of a number of days when the flag should be displayed. For me however, I hope it is a nice day as it saddens me to see a soggy flag on display. I realize that sometimes it is hard to take it down or put it up easily, but I was taught in my growing up days that in bad weather the flag was taken down.