Lehman's Country Life

Mosaic art has a rich and varied history that goes back thousands of years. In today’s culture it is appealing on several different levels. Often the mosaic pieces are made from recycled materials such as broken glass or tiles and can be made into sturdy, decorative and functional art. On July 12 Lehman’s will be hosting an art festival featuring local artists and craftsman sharing their wares and doing demonstrations. Artist Melody Kirby will bring her beautiful mosaic crosses to show and sell. Other artists who will be in attendance at the festival include potters, painters, woodturners, wool rug hookers, fiber artist, gourd artist, mural artists in addition to musicians, special food and kids activities! To read artist profiles on Melody Kirby and other local artists go to www.kidronarts.com

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Wineries are hip, hot and profitable properties these days, but could vermiculture, otherwise known as worm composting, become the wriggly new trend? With growing awareness about our carbon footprints and the need to recycle, all sorts of old technology is getting a modern twist. The typical American lifestyle consumes so much energy that it would require six planets to keep feeding our consumer habit. We need to increase our commitment to reuse, recycle and renew. Composting is one way that every household can make a contribution to reducing its carbon footprint.
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Bill Cosby once said, “Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.” (For the majority of fathers, we could add neckties and cologne to that phrase, too.) So this year, make sure Dad doesn’t have to pretend. Give him a gift he can really use, and we guarantee his smile and “Wow!” will be 100% heartfelt.
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Once in a while here at Lehman’s we get a chuckle out of the mainstream media’s “breaking news” reports about new, improved, healthier and “greener” ways of living.

We chuckle because many times the products they’re celebrating are the same ones we’ve been quietly offering for years. Many are some of our customers’ favorites, and some we’ve been selling for over 50 years (so they’re most definitely not “new.”)
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You can meet Deby Welty, a local artist, at Lehman’s Local Artisans Festival on July 12th. Deby will be at the art festival with her home grown gourds giving lessons on how to paint your very own decorative gourd birdhouse. To see samples of Deby’s work and read artists profiles of other people you can meet at the festival go to www.kidronarts.com In addition to the artists there will be live music, special food and live demonstrations. Be sure to mark your calendar and spend the day with us!

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Well that didn’t take long! Sheesh.

Barely a few hours old and Mom has the ducklings up and at ‘em.

Went out to the nest about 5 minutes ago to check on the hatching progress, it was empty! Quickly snapped a picture and got up to find them. I didn’t think the little tikes would get far. Ended up chasing them down toward the water. Mom had them half way to the water before I caught up with them. By the photograph there are definitely eleven of the little ones.
They leave the nest sooo early these days!

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BIG NEWS!

The Mother Mallard that I reported about earlier has ducklings!!

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An Updated post>>

It has been a long wait, both for us at Lehman’s office and warehouse and the Mother Mallard.

She is a bit standoffish with me photographing them, but just a few minutes ago, she picked up her body enough to get a nice shot of one of the faces. We are not sure the count, but there are egg shells laying all over. I do not believe that the eggs are done hatching.

I will post updates as I find out more, hopefully the Mother Mallard will bring the little ones out for pictures.

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For many people, the mention of roses conjures up images of perfectly formed florist’s blossoms, surrounded perhaps by a cloud of tiny white Baby’s Breath sprays at Valentine’s Day; or perhaps like me, you grew up seeing vines of powder pink “wild” roses climb chimneys and scramble over the roofs of coastal cottages. There are hundreds of variations on what qualifies as a rose, and whether your tastes run to the perfection of form as with the long-stemmed hybrids preferred by florists, or the heavily scented “cabbage” roses depicted by Renaissance painters, there’s a rose for everybody. In this first of two articles, we’ll look at the basics of growing roses, and dispel some of the common myths about their care and feeding.

If your experience with roses has been limited to seeing someone in your family or neighborhood constantly fussing with their plants, you may have concluded that roses are hard to grow and require constant care. Nothing could be further from the truth! I can’t tell you how many really good books on the subject will say quite plainly, “roses love to grow!” There is no need to fuss over your vines and bushes unless you choose to; and even then, I doubt you will much improve upon what the rose does quite naturally given just a few basics, beginning with planting. There are two different ways to plant a rose, and we’ll look at them here.
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People! Are your goats healthy? Your sheep? No arthritis? No hard udders that are a mystery? Are they eating well? Not just peanut butter in celery sticks; as I tell husband Norm, goats do NOT live on peanut butter alone (man does not live on peanut butter alone either, but that’s another story). Or could some of your animals have CAE? Do you even know what CAE is? Sadly, many do not; but don’t feel badly if you are one who does not. Just read on.

CAE (not pronounced ‘kay’ but ‘C – A – E’) is the acronym for CAPRINE ARTHRITIS ENCEPHALITIS. This is a disease that is transferred by milk or by fluids. This means that if your doe has CAE, you cannot allow her kids to be nursed by her or even allow her to lick and clean the kids. Even sneezing can transfer the infection.

Now, I don’t want to put fear in your hearts, but CAE is really a disease to be aware of and avoid if at all possible. Not every animal that has CAE will show signs, but one could be a carrier for youngsters to develop it. Both goats and sheep can carry and suffer from CAE, even though it’s predominant in goats. So I will not keep saying “goats or sheep” but let you change “goat” to “sheep” in your head if you wish.

CAE can have two different signs – a neurological disease in the spinal cord and brain of young kids and a joint infection of older goats resulting in arthritis.
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I hate it when that happens. Usually it’s a song. It’ll be something you’ll remember from way-back-when that ends up getting stuck between the ears and then spends the rest of the day irritating the surrounding brain cells. Singing Shari Lewis’ “The Song That Doesn’t End” with the kids, during the drive into school in the morning, requires nothing less than a marketing meeting to be rid of. Terrible stuff!

Worse still is some single strange thought like: where did pockets come from? Think about that for a minute. If most of the really good ideas come from nature, and if pockets are a really good idea, then there’s an undiscovered species of dinosaur out there that evolved the Cretaceous equivalent of the fanny pack.

It’s worth mentioning that the two legged kids didn’t curse me with the “pockets” question. No- Boomer did this to me.
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