It's Mr. Boynton

Meet guinea No. 5. He hails from Chewelah and enjoys grasshoppers. He is a Scorpio and a team player. Connie was suspicious of him – he looks naked and is a stranger – and ran him off, but he hung around and made protective noises and eventually they accepted him on a trial basis.

He is people-shy so my photo is lousy, but you get the idea. Angelic rodeo clown. We're thinking of painting him camo style so the owls don't get him.

In other news, the sheep and Azul have been moved to a new tiny pasture near the guineas. There's a little decent grass there (plenty of knapweed, too) and I'm going to seed the old pasture with a mix of grasses and grains. We'll have to water it - it's been 90 degrees for what seems like a long time - but anything we can do to improve grazing and fight knapweed is a good thing. I'm glad we have only a few animals. The sheep will eat some knapweed, but the alpaca says no. I see buying hay (and maybe sprouting fodder) in our future. Next year we'll fence more and start earlier.

Housewise, we continue to unpack boxes and improvise shelving in the gym and studios. Still can't find the cheese grater, among many, many other things.

The garden continues to grow green and tall. C. put some Chinese cabbage in the freezer for winter stir fries.

I need to work on the vandalized electric system and install the central vacuum, but it's too hot. Feh.