Pike is having a blast exploring and meeting everyone and everything. The cats are mixed of opinion. Puddy Man, who is the bully of the other two, is terrified of the puppy who is only 2/3 his size. Flower does not want anything to do with him, but is not fond of dogs in general.
Boy, Claire’s semi-feral tomcat did not mind the puppy, but gave him a hiss when Pike tried to share Boy’s cat food right out of the bowl. I took some out and set it to the side, outside of the bowl, and then they both happily (enough) ate with each other.
We packed everyone into the car to head down to Red Wing for blackberry picking. Had some trepidation regarding the puppy on a long car ride, but I should not have worried. Made the whole 90 minutes on one bladder, and no accidents. My parents greeted Pike with his first retriever dummy, shaped like a mallard duck, and puppy sized.
Right out of the box, first throw, he was retrieving it and delivering it to hand. Warmed my heart.
Then Patti and I were out picking blackberries. It is still a bit early. Maybe 15% ripe. 85 degrees and 85% humidity was like picking in warm soup. But pleasant in a way. The air was drowsy with the buzzing of drunk wasps, and the scent of fermenting fruit just hung around you as there was no breeze.
Patti found an orb spider hunting the flies in the patch.
She found the source of the drunk wasps as well.
After having a nap in the house, my dad brought Pike out to me, as he was distressed at waking up and not finding me there. He happily followed me around the patch, and I made sure to properly flatten things for him so that moving about was not too difficult.
3 hours, and a few liters of sweat later, Patti and I had put together just over 3 gallons of berries. Needed to go inside and cool off and rehydrate. Nell helped me process down the berries into seedless pulp, which once done, was a bit more than a gallon, for the moment sitting in bottles in their deep freeze.
And we are home now. Busy tiring weekend. Talked with Katrina from Adickes Farm up in Buffalo. They got 3 inches of rain up there today, so while I am glad I had not planned on being there, does mean that things are well watered up there for a few weeks, and the ground will be soft enough to do some fine weeding of the cabbages which are suffering from cabbage moths and weed competition. That will be a mid week trip for us in a few days.
